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Can a Composite Application look as good?

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Peter Presnell blogged yesterday about another alternative for a rich client user interface of the discussion template. This version uses 'classic' Notes application development features so that this application could be used in Notes 6, 7 and 8 basic. He also gives an introduction to the discussion template and describes the key scenarios:



As mentioned earlier we also have another prototype that leverages Notes 8.5.1 features like Java Views, Composite Applications and XPages on the client. The goal of these two alternative prototypes is to determine which technologies we should use for the next generation discussion template rich client user interface. We'll have to determine how to use these prototypes and which parts going forward. We might decide to only use one, we might merge ideas from both together in one UI or we might even provide two alternative rich client user interfaces.

Here is an update on the Composite Applications/XPages/Java Views prototype:



The design goals of the Composite Applications/XPages/Java Views prototype were:
1. Provide a rich user interface leveraging typical Notes rich client features like view navigation and rich text editing
2. Provide a consistent user experience to other PIM apps (mail, contacts, notebook)
3. For the key scenario 'create response' minimize the switching of pages to see other documents
4. For the other key scenario 'read thread' allow easy navigation within the thread
5. Provide a rich client UI for a 1024 pixel resolution, but also allow users with higher resolutions to benefit from their resolutions

So the goal of the Composite App prototype was not to add any new features like sticky notes, ratings, resources, etc. which is what the classic app dev prototype has. This prototype only shows the same 8.5 discussion template features with another user interface. But even though it is not that easy to compare the two prototypes, we'd appreciate your feedback to both of them. Again, your feedback will help us to determine how to move forward.

Comments

Gravatar Image1 - I think that we need to merge both versions into a single version, one version that exploits all the latest and greatest XPages capabilities and also allows people with previous versions (R6 & R7) to operate with an expanded range of features.

Gravatar Image2 - Thanks for the demos

I like Peter's voting system. I think it is important to add newer "web 2.0" style features to move the template forward - just a new look won't achieve this.

I would also like to see Conversation style threads { Link }

Gravatar Image3 - @Ian,, I think you will see in later versions of the template many of the same feature look/feel between Notes Classic & Notes standard. At this time Niklas/Steve are unable to accept my code (for legal reasons) to merge with their own work.

Potentially the only difference will be having the thread display in a thread viewer with standard versus an embedded view for Classic. All the rest of the look/feel & functionality should be the same as they will use the same forms/views. That is unless CA/Java views blocks some things.

Gravatar Image4 - Ian, as Peter writes we could use a lot of the same code in both variants. But obviously there is some extra code necessary for a second rich client UI. We need to get a better feeling for how much extra code that is. This code does not only have to be implemented, but also tested, translated etc. if we want to take it back into Notes/Domino.

Gravatar Image5 - Michelle, I've thought about using the mail conversations feature as well. I need to do some research to find out whether/how we could use this feature here as well.

Gravatar Image6 - Thanks for the feedback guys.

One additional enhancement that that you may not have considered is a built-in translation service that would encourage people to collaboration using different native languages.

Gravatar Image7 - In the 8.5.1 prototype the number of responses and the creation date is moved behind the topic leading to a lot of whitespace.
For the classic template: Are user profiles combined with RSS? We have a problem here with delayed notification and people getting banned from the DB but still seeing the results of their interest profile.

Gravatar Image8 - When viewing a discussion document in the composite app version, I like the visual indicators in the thread view which show what document the other 2 views are showing.

One minor suggestion for the thread view - I find the "Created by" line below the subject somewhat distracting and space-consuming. Perhaps place author and date at the end of the subject in a less-noticeable font?

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