Lotus Notes

Today I received mail from IBM regarding Lotus 8.5.1 beta program and at very first I cancelled all my weekend plan to explore new stuffs in Lotus Notes 8.5.1 designer. Early morning in Singapore time I've started to download 8.5.1 to avoid much network traffic in IBM site :). In an hour I've successfully installed and configured 8.5.1 in my machine.First thanks to IBM team who made Lotus installation/upgrade so easy that you don't even feel you are upgrading to newer version.Those who still have not participated for this program refer to Ed Brill blog here,

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/update-on-notesdomino-8.x-maintenance-release-plans

My first area of interest was Agents and Script library because I was awaiting long to get type ahead feature in Lotus Script and Java agents. Let's check some outstanding enhancements in Agents and Script libraries.

1- The best enhancement is to have type ahead feature with pop-up help. There are good number of Domino developers who spend quite some time in designer help to read about method and property before writing the code.This enhancement will definitely increase the productivity of Domino developers.



Similarly this feature is now available for Domino Java agents too ,



Apart from domino package, Domino Java agent will provide type ahead feature for non-domino classes as well . Only you need to make sure you have included relevant package in your agent.



2- In 8.5 designer , When you click on new agent you will be presented new dialog box to enter agent name . I personally like this idea which will prevent saving "untitled" or "duplicate agent name" in same database.This idea is further extended in 8.5.1 to allow selection of agent type, application,comment and alias which is even more better :)



3- In your application if you have lot of agents which comprises of Lotus script,Java, Formula type; How would you find the type of agent ? Prior to 8.5.1 you have to open each agent or rely on agent's comment field. In 8.5.1 , You can see the type in agent list in left navigation.



4- Align your lotus script code as you want using "Shift left" and "Shift right" options.



5- Easy to trace undeclared variables/objects in your code.



Note: To attain this feature we must include "Option declare" in your code.

6- We can filter agent and script library list by type using filter option( even it's implemented for all design elements )



7- Eclipse based Java class creation process.