APPLICATION DESIGN

Creating a database from a template
IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) Designer comes with a collection of templates that you can use to create applications. You can recognize these templates by their NTF extensions. A template is a file that contains the structure for the database -- that is, pages, forms, and views -- but does not contain documents. For example, to design a discussion database, use the Discussion template (DISCSW7.NTF), which contains forms that track discussion threads in a hierarchy, as well as views that display the entries by date, author, or category. Designer templates have NTF as their file extension.

See Domino Designer Templates for a list of common Designer templates.

See the composite application toolkit documentation for more information on using the composite application templates supplied in the toolkit.

Customizing a template

The templates that ship with Designer are master templates by default. This means that changes made to a master template are passed along to all databases created from that template. Inheriting design changes from a master template can be initiated by the end user or by the IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) server, which runs a nightly Designer task. You can disable this feature by deselecting "Inherit design from master template" on the Design tab of the Database Properties box.

For more information on customizing a template, see Creating templates.

To create a new database from a template

After creating a database from a template, you may want to make changes to the database. Keep in mind that if you have selected "Inherit design from master template," changes you make to a database can be overwritten nightly by the Domino server Designer task or by refreshing the design of the database. If you plan to make design changes to the database and want to avoid the possibility of writing over design changes, deselect the database property "Inherit design from template" or protect individual design elements.

1. Choose File - Database - New. In the Server field do one of the following:

2. In the Title field, enter a title for the new database, using a maximum of 96 characters. 3. Select a template from the list. To display additional templates, do one of the following: 4. (Optional) Click Encryption. Select "Locally encrypt this database using," select an encryption type, and then click OK. For information on encrypting a database, see the topic "Notes and Domino encryption" in the chapter "Security in an Application."

5. (Optional) If you are developing an application for use with IBM® Lotus® Notes® and Domino Release 4.x or if you will be on a Domino 4.x server, click "Size limit" and select a size (in gigabytes).

6. (Optional) Click Advanced and select the options that you want applied to your database.


7. Click OK.

8. (Optional) Choose File - Database - Properties, click the Design tab and deselect "Inherit design from template." This prevents the new database from inheriting design changes from the master template whose design the database is based on.

See Also