Dojomino

While working on a customer project (converting 26 dbs from Notes client to Web), we have the ability to just add dojoType= to our Notes fields to convert them to Dojo dijits for the web, but decided it would be really nice if the "conversion" occurred in a more automated fashion. To that end, we built a routine that handles it at runtime and added it to the Dojomino 1.2 library (coming soon). It works like this:

• In Designer, add a single subform to the original form with a custom $$HTMLHead that loads Dojo, Dojomino, and the DojominoFormBuilder script
• Optionally, add a .js library file for "web way" of processing action buttons and Dijit field validations.
• At runtime, Domino renders the document in read mode, edit mode, or OpenForm
• The DojominoFormBuilder script runs, converts the action bar to a Dijit button based Action bar, and links the buttons to new javascript functions that we asked the developer to write for the actions. If the scripts don't exist, it executes the original actions the Notes buttons were coded to perform.
• The DojominoFormBuilder gets the design of the form from the server as a JSON object, and then goes through the page and converts every field into a Dojo dijit. Again, if the developer has provided new field validations in a script file, we link those in and use them as well

So, all in all, a fairly unobtrusive and gracefully degrading approach. If the browser doesn't support javascript, the document renders as it always has. If the developer hasn't coded new javascript actions for the buttons, no problem, we use what was there before. If the developer hasn't provided new field validations, no problem, we'll still let Domino catch it on the backend and do its thing. As for the form fields, what gets re-rendered?

• text fields
• date fields
• number fields
• dialog list fields
• combobox fields
• names fields
• RichText fields
• checkbox fields
• radiobutton fields

We've got most of it covered with the exception of Rich Text Lite and attachments, and we'll look into those before it's all said and done. I'll write more on this in the coming weeks as we release Dojomino 1.2