This article has some very good ideas and concepts. I will likely be using them
in my work in the future.
But I am concerned about real world application of some of these concepts:
1. Sortable Columns - This will only sort data on the current screen. Many
Domino applications have hundreds (if not thousands) of documents. In order for
the sorting to work the table would need to include all the documents. In the
real world, it often takes too long to generate and download a single view page
that shows all the documents. Thus the use of pages with limited number of
documents is necessary (using the next/previous concept). When you do the
client side column sorting in that environment, you are only sorting a portion
of the data when the user expects to be sorting all the data.
2. Minimizing calculations in views - this is a good idea to keep the views
running fast. But in some cases pre-calculating causes other problems. For
instance, in your example you pre-calculate the URL on the Contact Form. If
this application was both a Notes and Web application a user could easily copy
and paste a document (or if this application had a web method of copying
documents). If that happens, you end up with a view entry that will open the
wrong document (new doc has URL field calculated on the old doc). You could
argue that the person who copied and pasted the document would normally edit
and save the new document thus recalculating the URL. But if that user leaves
the new copy untouched and edits the original document not the new document,
you still have a view entry pointing to the wrong document.
3. Exporting to Excel - While this works on a Internet application with no
security, it has a major problem on a Intranet that is secured. Excel doesn't
appear to properly get or use security information from the Browser window
(cookies), thus requiring the user to Log in again to retrieve the page. I have
seen with some SSO add-ons that the view data can never be retrieved in Excel
since Excel is not a browser and doesn't act appropriately.
4. Categorized Views - The methods described here don't take into consideration
that many applications have views that are categorized. A solution might be to
use a Single Category View with a choice list to change the category but that
gets tough when the view has more then one level of categorization.
This article has some very good ideas and concepts. I will likely be using them in my work in the future.
But I am concerned about real world application of some of these concepts:
1. Sortable Columns - This will only sort data on the current screen. Many Domino applications have hundreds (if not thousands) of documents. In order for the sorting to work the table would need to include all the documents. In the real world, it often takes too long to generate and download a single view page that shows all the documents. Thus the use of pages with limited number of documents is necessary (using the next/previous concept). When you do the client side column sorting in that environment, you are only sorting a portion of the data when the user expects to be sorting all the data.
2. Minimizing calculations in views - this is a good idea to keep the views running fast. But in some cases pre-calculating causes other problems. For instance, in your example you pre-calculate the URL on the Contact Form. If this application was both a Notes and Web application a user could easily copy and paste a document (or if this application had a web method of copying documents). If that happens, you end up with a view entry that will open the wrong document (new doc has URL field calculated on the old doc). You could argue that the person who copied and pasted the document would normally edit and save the new document thus recalculating the URL. But if that user leaves the new copy untouched and edits the original document not the new document, you still have a view entry pointing to the wrong document.
3. Exporting to Excel - While this works on a Internet application with no security, it has a major problem on a Intranet that is secured. Excel doesn't appear to properly get or use security information from the Browser window (cookies), thus requiring the user to Log in again to retrieve the page. I have seen with some SSO add-ons that the view data can never be retrieved in Excel since Excel is not a browser and doesn't act appropriately.
4. Categorized Views - The methods described here don't take into consideration that many applications have views that are categorized. A solution might be to use a Single Category View with a choice list to change the category but that gets tough when the view has more then one level of categorization.