Genii Weblog

When low code is no code - saving space for mobile

Wed 14 Aug 2019, 10:15 AM



by Ben Langhinrichs
This is the second in an occasional series on what you can do right now with Notes/Domino, and some ways our products can help. As before, the top half is general and non-commercial, while the bottom half is where I mention how our products enhance the situation, so you can skip that if you want.
 
A number of enhancements that were made in the earlier days of Notes popularity had to do with saving space. As laptops were coming into vogue, and as companies were packing more and more functionality into an application, they wanted ways to conserve space. These features include tabbed tables, collapsible sections and more. Now, with HCL introducing those Notes apps including the rich text features to mobile devices, the space saving features take on a new importance. Real estate is at a premium even on a larger iPad, and once you are talking phones, anything you can do to use your space more wisely is worth it.
 
With that in mind, let me remind you of a demo I first did at Lotusphere in 2003 on Progressive Disclosure. (I must admit, I didn't know anybody was paying attention, but last year a customer showed me an application where they use this technique for hints on training material.) This is a no code (absolutely none) approach to providing extended information on successive clicks.
 
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The trick is to use a "programmatic" table which shows one line at a time and advances when it is clicked. See below for the document in edit mode. Each of the bullet items has two or three rows. It is important that the early part is duplicated, but you could add images or links or anything as you go on.
 
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In case that still isn't clear enough, I turned the cell borders on for that first table and showed the properties where you set the AdvanceOnClick.
 
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There are a lot of ways to use this technique, such as having information in three or four languages and letting people switch through. Anybody can create one without designer or anything else, just a bit of patience and effort and creativity. No code is involved, so nothing needs to be signed and ACLs don't come into play. and yes, it will work on all those mobile device that support Nomad or whatever it is called these days. Anybody can use it in read mode.
 
Of course, there's always a gotcha.
 
*** NOTE: This is where the Genii Software stuff comes in, so if you just want the ideas above, you can stop reading now.
 
While it is great that this works on mobile devices using Notes code, that doesn't help the rest of the world when it comes to a normal web browser. Sadly, this logic doesn't transfer through if you use Domino HTPP. Worse, it doesn't even flatten out the table so you can see all the rows, it just shows the first. But that is where our Midas engine helps.
 
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The Midas engine that supports this works in the Midas LSX, the Midas C++ API, AppsFidelity, as well as CoexLinks Migrate and AppsFidelity Migrate. So you can have your fancy no code solution and take it on the road as well.

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