APPLICATION DESIGN
To open the Form Properties box
1. Open the form.
2. Choose Design - Form Properties.
Protecting author/editor anonymity
If you want a document's author or editors to remain anonymous, define a form that doesn't record the names of people who create or edit it. For complete anonymity, be sure that the author name does not appear elsewhere on the document -- for example, in a visible computed field.
On the Form Info tab, select "Anonymous Form."
Changing form focus
On the Form Info tab, you can choose:
A replication-or-save conflict occurs when users in different locations edit the same document. One version becomes the main document, and the others become conflict documents that are marked with a diamond in the view.
At the "Conflict Handling" section of the Form Info tab, choose one of the following options for the form:
Opening documents in edit mode automatically
For users' convenience, you can specify that documents created with a form automatically open in Edit mode.
On the Defaults tab, select "On Open: Automatically enable Edit Mode."
Choosing a content type for Web access
If the application you are designing will be accessible from a browser, consider what content type to make available to browser users. The "On Web Access" section of the Default page of the Forms properties box lets you choose between IBM® Lotus® Notes®, HTML, or Other. Displaying a form as a Notes form will pass along the form to the Web server, which will translate it into HTML. If you have designed the form using HTML you can set the content to serve the HTML directly to the browser. If you choose Other, IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) Designer displays an edit control that lets you specify another display option, such as XML.
Generating HTML for hidden fields
On the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box, select "Generate HTML for all fields" to generate HTML information about hidden fields on a form. This allows documents in a Web application to work like documents in a Notes application. For example, if you create a form that relies on a hidden field for a calculation, that form may not behave as expected in a Web application in certain situations. By generating HTML for the fields, the information is available for Domino to successfully complete the calculation. The HTML generated for the hidden fields is also accessible through JavaScript(TM), so you can change the value or find out the state of a hidden field with a script.
Selecting this option creates larger files on the Web and may decrease application performance. Also consider security, since information in hidden fields, though not visible in the browser, is visible through the "View Source" menu item on the browser.
On the Defaults tab, in the "On Web Access" section, check the option "Generate HTML for all fields" and deselect HTML in the Content type section.
Using data sources on a form
If you have already created data connection resources in the database, you can browse for data resources to use on the form.
1. On the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box, click the Browse button in the "Data Source Options" section. A "Browse External Data Sources" dialog box appears with a list of data connections resources already created in the database.
2. Select a data connection resource and click OK. The resource populates the "Default data connection" field on the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box. The "Default metadata object" can be either a backend database table, a view, or a procedure.
Once the user starts to create fields on the form using an external data resource, the default metadata object can be changed.
To define a header on a form
If you are designing a form for a Notes application, you can define a header that does not scroll off the screen when the user scrolls down the form or document created with that form. For example, in the Notes mail template, a header displays all of the information contained in the mail sender and recipient fields. This section remains static while you scroll through a mail message. Headers can contain any element that a form can contain. The only caveat is that a table cannot be the first element in a header; it must be preceded by a text object, even if the text object is blank.
1. Enter the text, graphics, tables, or other elements you want in the header region of the form.
2. Move the cursor to the line below where you want the header to start.
3. Choose Design - Form Properties.
4. On the Header tab select "Add header to form" to mark off the header area.
5. Set the display properties for the header.
To display a graphic in a header, add a background graphic to the form. This becomes the background for the header only. Note that if you do this, the remainder of the form is blank and cannot display another background graphic.
If you want the user who creates a document to be able to add a graphic to the body of the document when it is created, check "Allow users to change these properties" at the Form Background tab of the Form Properties box.
To create a print header and footer
You can define a header and footer that will print on all documents created with that form. Headers and footers are not supported for Web applications.
1. On the Printing tab, click Header and enter the text you want to appear in the header text or click Footer and enter the text you want to appear in the footer text.
2. Click one or more of the icons (located just below the text area) to insert the following into the header or footer:
Header and footer alignment
Headers and footers have three preset, permanent tab stops: left, center, and right. When you insert one tab, text to the left of the tab is left justified, and text to its right is right justified. With two tabs, text to the left of the first tab is left justified; text between the two tabs is centered; and text to the right of the second tab is right justified. For example:
&D|&T|&P-- Left justifies the date, centers the time, and right justifies the page number.
|URGENT| -- Centers the text URGENT.
||URGENT -- Right justifies the text URGENT.
See Also