I missed your blog of May 16 on Designer Lite, but I've been thinking about this too, on account of IBM giving us Mac developers the cold shoulder. I don't really want to completely abandon Domino and all the time I've spent on it (even though PHP for instance is very appealing in certain ways, as is Lasso with its SQL abstraction) but I don't want to be forced to leave my preferred OS either. (Sure I have a desktop PC for times when I need it, but my PowerBook goes with me almost everywhere, and I use it for almost everything. To be chained to a desktop running an OS I don't prefer would not be fun.)
Since I don't know C/C++ or Java, my plan was to either
1)use REALbasic to build a cross-platform Design Client, or
2) build widgets for Dreamweaver, that would allow me to build Domino forms (at least, if not views and agents) completely in DW.
Possibly a combination of these would be desireable. Building forms in DW makes the most sense, since (as far as I understand) its extensibility would allow for any new element to be added and represented by a graphic widget. (Please correct me if anyone knows better, or confirm if anyone has actually done this.)
But agents don't seem to make sense in DW--well, I take that back--some agents would make sense: those which mostly just print HTML. So if you could have an html page in DW with lotusscript code interspersed throughout, it would mean you suddenly had something (kind of) like PHP built into domino. And of course you'd have to build *either* a form *or* an agent. You couldn't mix form widgets and lotusscript code.
And views might make sense in DW too, since so often we want to put html in the views and it's a big pain in the rear with designer to cut html from dw and paste it into extra columns between the real ones, etc.
This seems like the easiest and most flexible approach, provided there's a way to move the DXL to the server and make it a part of the design of the database. Sure we've finally got webDAV with 6, but I doubt they had the foresight to let you put DXL into a db with webDAV and have it become part of the db. (Anyone know for sure?) I assume you'd probably have to bring the whole db down to the client as DXL, and then add your forms and views and agents, and then put it back on the server. (?) So this might require an additional client application, which could be written for both Mac and Windows in REALbasic. Since it's a compiled object-oriented basic, it should be easy for all LotusScriptors to learn, and since the REALbasic development tool is now cross-platform just like the apps built with it, Windows developers can take part in the project.
I took a look at Steve's ProjectDX, and I must admit I don't entirely understand it. It seems to have a very broad scope that goes beyond just building a better (not necessarily 'lite') Design Client that runs across platforms. So I don't think we'd be duplicating efforts, and if our aims are similar, it could be made complementary to his work. (Steve maybe you could respond to this? Thanks.)
Developers who work on unix/linux are either not working in Domino, or are dual-booting, or are using WINE (WINdows Emulator). They'd be able to continue that approach, or cross over to Mac OS X (which is unix!). So this plan would really allow anyone on any of the three biggest platforms to continue developing for Domino, and more importantly would finally give a good approach to integration between Domino and Dreamweaver.
(if anyone wants to send me e-mail, put 'codestore' in the subject line so it doesn't get put in my junk mail folder.)
I missed your blog of May 16 on Designer Lite, but I've been thinking about this too, on account of IBM giving us Mac developers the cold shoulder. I don't really want to completely abandon Domino and all the time I've spent on it (even though PHP for instance is very appealing in certain ways, as is Lasso with its SQL abstraction) but I don't want to be forced to leave my preferred OS either. (Sure I have a desktop PC for times when I need it, but my PowerBook goes with me almost everywhere, and I use it for almost everything. To be chained to a desktop running an OS I don't prefer would not be fun.)
Since I don't know C/C++ or Java, my plan was to either
1)use REALbasic to build a cross-platform Design Client, or
2) build widgets for Dreamweaver, that would allow me to build Domino forms (at least, if not views and agents) completely in DW.
Possibly a combination of these would be desireable. Building forms in DW makes the most sense, since (as far as I understand) its extensibility would allow for any new element to be added and represented by a graphic widget. (Please correct me if anyone knows better, or confirm if anyone has actually done this.)
But agents don't seem to make sense in DW--well, I take that back--some agents would make sense: those which mostly just print HTML. So if you could have an html page in DW with lotusscript code interspersed throughout, it would mean you suddenly had something (kind of) like PHP built into domino. And of course you'd have to build *either* a form *or* an agent. You couldn't mix form widgets and lotusscript code.
And views might make sense in DW too, since so often we want to put html in the views and it's a big pain in the rear with designer to cut html from dw and paste it into extra columns between the real ones, etc.
This seems like the easiest and most flexible approach, provided there's a way to move the DXL to the server and make it a part of the design of the database. Sure we've finally got webDAV with 6, but I doubt they had the foresight to let you put DXL into a db with webDAV and have it become part of the db. (Anyone know for sure?) I assume you'd probably have to bring the whole db down to the client as DXL, and then add your forms and views and agents, and then put it back on the server. (?) So this might require an additional client application, which could be written for both Mac and Windows in REALbasic. Since it's a compiled object-oriented basic, it should be easy for all LotusScriptors to learn, and since the REALbasic development tool is now cross-platform just like the apps built with it, Windows developers can take part in the project.
I took a look at Steve's ProjectDX, and I must admit I don't entirely understand it. It seems to have a very broad scope that goes beyond just building a better (not necessarily 'lite') Design Client that runs across platforms. So I don't think we'd be duplicating efforts, and if our aims are similar, it could be made complementary to his work. (Steve maybe you could respond to this? Thanks.)
Developers who work on unix/linux are either not working in Domino, or are dual-booting, or are using WINE (WINdows Emulator). They'd be able to continue that approach, or cross over to Mac OS X (which is unix!). So this plan would really allow anyone on any of the three biggest platforms to continue developing for Domino, and more importantly would finally give a good approach to integration between Domino and Dreamweaver.
(if anyone wants to send me e-mail, put 'codestore' in the subject line so it doesn't get put in my junk mail folder.)