Proud Programmers Blog :: Classic Notes Development; How to launch a database in Designer with Command Line Parameters

Ever wanted to launch a database directly in Designer? Yes, then you probably are a developer Smilefjes

Read more to see a snippet of LotusScript code on how to launch the Designer with a specified database.

BTW – wish I could specify a specific designer element, so if you know, please chime in.

The following code assume that you have placed the code in an action button in a view, and that you have selected a document with the fields txtServer and txtFilePath available. You can of course replace this with whatever you want.

     Sub Click(Source As Button)

        Dim session As New NotesSession

        Dim db As NotesDatabase

        Dim coll As NotesDocumentCollection

        Dim doc As NotesDocument

        Dim strNotesDir As String

        Dim strCmdAndParam As String

        Dim strServer As String

        Dim strFilePath As String

        On Error Resume Next

        strNotesDir = Fulltrim(session.GetEnvironmentString("NotesProgram",True))

        If Len(strNotesDir) = 0 Then Exit Sub

        If Right(strNotesDir, 1) <> "\" Then strNotesDir = strNotesDir & "\"

        Set db = session.CurrentDatabase

        Set coll = db.UnprocessedDocuments

        If coll.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub

        Set doc = coll.GetFirstDocument

        strServer = Fulltrim(doc.txtServer(0))

        strFilePath = Fulltrim(doc.txtFilePath(0))

        If Len(strFilePath) = 0 Then Exit Sub

        If Len(strServer) > 0 Then

            strCmdAndParam = strServer & "!!" & strFilePath

        Else

            strCmdAndParam = strFilePath

        End If

        strCmdAndParam = |"| & strNotesDir & |designer.exe" "| & strCmdAndParam  & |"|

        Dim result As Integer

        result = Shell(strCmdAndParam, 1)

    End Sub

The code first get the NotesProgram-keyword from Notes.ini, and based on that, boldly assumes that you have designer.exe in the same directory. This means that the code won’t work if;

a) It can’t find NotesProgram keyword in Notes.ini

b) You don’t have “designer.exe” in the program directory. This means that you’d probably need some version of Lotus Notes 8 in order to get this to work.

Note that all hope isn’t gone for elder versions of designer. Remember you can always start notes.exe with the command line parameter /DESIGN too. This have however not been tested.

Comments

1 - Did you try to launch designer with a Notes URL on the command line? something like:
designer.exe notes ://my.nsf/DemoForm?OpenForm
or
notes.exe notes: //my.nsf/DemoForm?OpenForm /DESIGNER

Notes.exe definitely takes parameters but might not honor the switch if a url is present.

Emoticon

stw

(no spaces between notes and ://)

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 16:29:30 On 07.05.2012 | - Website - |

2 - Does Right mouse click on tab and select desinger do the same ?

Posted by Palmi At 16:36:40 On 07.05.2012 | - Website - |

3 - Palmi: yes of course. My code above is simply used from another database containing database synopsises for many databases. Then it is nice to launch the selected database directly instead of having to open it first.

Stephan: thanks, I'll try your tips!

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 07:56:59 On 08.05.2012 | - Website - |

4 - Stephan: I tried your suggestion, but Designer would only open up the database in designer, and the default designer-view (forms). It wouldn't open the specified form.

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 10:57:47 On 08.05.2012 | - Website - |

5 - Stephan!! But it worked when I used the UNID of the form (in other words, I didn't use the form name). For example the URL looked like this;

designer.exe notes: //Server/ReplicaID/FormDesignElementUNID?OpenForm

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 11:03:34 On 08.05.2012 | - Website - |