Tip of the Iceberg

Category xided
The christening has occurred. One name idea I received for the web-based IDE for Domino that I'm developing was "WIDE" (simply, Web IDE), but I figured that might be a tad too generic to apply to something with such a specific focus. Another was "WIND" (Web IDE for Notes/Domino). Catchy. But I decided that I wanted the name to reflect how XML-based this is, so I'm tentatively naming it "XIDED" (XML IDE for Domino). Yes, that's pronounced "excited". Yes, I know it's dorky. But you'll remember it, won't you? Yes, I know "Domino" is a registered trademark of IBM, even though a company by the same name was selling pizzas long before IBM's product existed. So yes, I will be contacting them before I sell a product whose name contains one of their trademarks to find out if they're fine with that, as long as I make it blatantly obvious within my product that the trademark is theirs... if not, I'll call it something else. And yes, I know I said I'd make it open source, but I've changed my mind.

Here's the plan: the product will contain various version control and change management features based on my open source Design Catalog, which will always be open source. Including those features in the larger product will force me to improve upon my original method. Any of those improvements will be added to the OpenNTF project, so anybody that only wants those features will continue to receive any improvements for free, which will hopefully make me feel less greedy for selling XIDED. But I'm quite proud of how XIDED is shaping up, so I'd like to make some money off of it if I can. Don't worry, the price won't be exorbitant. And an organizational license will (tentatively) be 2.5 times the cost of an individual seat license, so if you've got at least three people in the same organization with a need for this, it'll be downright cheap.

It's not pretty yet, but it works... I've used it to add and remove view columns, form fields, etc., with quite reliable results. The only real hurdle I've run up against so far seems obvious in retrospect: because the back end engine is driven by XML, any code that includes its own markup (i.e. LotusScript agents that print HTML to the browser) will need to be encoded before being imported back into the database; otherwise the importer thinks a new element is being encountered - or an existing one closed - and freaks. But I know now that the core approach is valid, so I'm taking a step back and coming up with a product map for this thing. After all, before asking people to buy it, I want them to know what's already planned for future versions. Here are just a few examples of features I'm working on that will probably not be in the initial version:

• Type-ahead for Formula, LotusScript, JavaScript, and Java... in the case of LotusScript and Java, this will include user-defined classes. This feature does save time when applied just to standard product objects, but ideally it should evolve when we do.
• A drag and drop control toolbar for various form elements (similar to VB). This feature will include the ability to create custom controls, which will essentially just be pre-defined form elements or element collections. For example, if your organization's coding standard specifies that all forms must contain a DocumentSummary field, you'll be able to add a control that represents that field pre-defined with a typical value formula that can be modified once it's dragged into a new form. These controls can be defined as shared or private, so members of a team can choose to save each other time by defining a control that everyone can use.
  
• Element templates: if, for example, you have a list of subforms that must always be on a certain type of form, or a script library that must be loaded by every agent, you can create a template that will pre-populate a new element to match that template. Like the controls mentioned above, these will be sharable. Perhaps at some point we'll even put a control / element template library on the product homepage that people can post to and download from.
  
• A mobile version... imagine some bigwig stops you in the hallway and complains that he's getting a "Type mismatch" error whenever he tries to approve some document. You whip out your Treo, tap the screen a couple times, tell him to try it again and walk away. He tries and it works. Then he calls your boss and recommends that you be given a big fat raise. All in a day's work...

I'll keep you posted on how it's coming. The initial release should be available for purchase by the end of April. Hopefully sooner. By the way, I'd mentioned previously that I had a concern about recompiling Java with this tool. I needn't have worried... Java recompiles jus' fine.