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Using YUI and Dojo With Domino

Now that we've got the toolkits in to Domino (did you see the rough cut article on how I did this?) I suppose the next thing to do is turn the two databases in to working demos. At the moment they contain nothing but the files that comprise each toolkit. We need to add the Views, Forms and Pages etc to show how to use them with Domino. This is the next thing on my list to do.

How far I will get in implementing Domino examples of the various widgets available remains to be seen. Last night I had a quick go at using the Dojo DatePicker widget with a Domino date field. I gave up in the end. While Dojo has a good-looking website and demos the documentation just doesn't seem to be there to me. Whereas Yahoo!'s is much better documented, as you'd expect. Although I remember trying and giving up on YUI's Calendar widget not long back.

At the very least I expect to get some DOM scripting and Ajax examples up and running with both toolkits.

Half the problem with using these toolkits is that they require a certain amount of control over the context in which they are being used. As Dominoers we don't have that and so have to hope to be able to work round some of the limitations. We're used to that though, right?

Comments

  1. The real shame with domino is that if I add a <input> tag, domino doesnt make it work as a document field, and you must find some workaround. There should be a "HTML form name to field" feature.

  2. I've been working on a project using Dojo and Domino for a while now and due to the lack of documentation it's pretty slow going. That being said I do enjoy having to work everything out and you certainly pick up a detailed understanding of how their code actually works.

    As I pick up the real oddities I'm posting them over at my site, for example: {Link}

    Matt

  3. I was trying to put together a demo of Jack Slocum's YUI Grid using a ReadViewEntries XML stream but in the end, I too gave up. The default view xml is not valid, so one must write an agent. In the end, I'll just adapt the grid to my old employee directory example.

  4. That is definately a downside with Dojo right now - documentation! You have to figure a lot out for yourself - unlike the other frameworks.

    • avatar
    • YoGi
    • Fri 6 Oct 2006 06:52 AM

    Which problems do you experience with integrating thoses toolkits into Domino ? I've used lots of YUI modules (connection, animation, dom, event, etc) as well as YUI widgets (treeview, etc) without any problem.

    I mean, no more problems that thoses you may experience with "traditionnal" javascript development with Domino.

    I'm just curious, so please, share your feedbacks.

  5. Maybe have to resort to using backbase.

    The code for the calendar picker is this.

    <input type="text" name="input2" style="width:175px;" />

    <b:datepicker b:type="inline" b:input="~-input[1]" b:format="dddd dd MMMM yyyy" />

    So you can see the b:input="~input[1]"

    that bit must make the previous input the value of the current.

    Anyway the first input is easily replacable with a domino field.

  6. I was able to use the YUI calendar control with Domino. It took some hacking around before I figured it out, but it does work. What issues did you have?

  7. Assigning picked date to a field, with dojo and backbase. so yui work good?

  8. @ Joseph

    The <input> to field issue is one you can handle manually - just loop through the name value pairs in the post request header and add fields where a name exists in the QueryString that isn't already a form. This of course requires an agent process all your posts. This is a little bit more towards a MVC design pattern, but within the realm of things one might do to make Domino behave.

    • avatar
    • Jake Howlett
    • Tue 10 Oct 2006 04:22 AM

    It's hard to put my finger on the exact problems I had with the widgets. Basically it's that most of the libraries assume you have FULL control of the HTML you output. We don't.

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Written by Jake Howlett on Fri 6 Oct 2006

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CodeStore is all about web development. Concentrating on Lotus Domino, ASP.NET, Flex, SharePoint and all things internet.

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