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MRTYB with Midas #9 - Doclinks, URL links and link hotspots

Wed 11 Jan 2006, 10:01 AM



by Ben Langhinrichs
Continuing the customer inspired list of the top ten ways to use Midas which I started yesterday with MRTYB with Midas #10 - Rich text comparison with red-lining , I now offer #9...






#9) Manage doclinks, URL links and link hotspots

Description
Midas gives you the power to create, read and modify all sorts of links, including doclinks, view links, db links, anchor links, and URL links.  These can be created or modified even if they are link hotspots, and can be created either directly with the component parts, or indirectly using automatic cross referencing using our SmartRefs technology.  By the way, we refer to link hotspots as hyperlinks in the Midas documentation.

History
Doclink creation and manipulation have been in Midas since Version 1.0, released in June, 1997.  The functionality has been enhanced to take advantage of new rich text constructs such as anchors, URL links, HTML properties and target frames.  New enhancements continue to be made to ensure that Midas make link manipulation as easy and powerful as possible.

Comparison with standard Notes/Domino functionality
While Notes 6.x has finally been enhanced to include basic manipulation of doclinks, there are many features which are missing from the standard Notes classes such as the ability to create URL links, the ability to create anchor links, the ability to set HTML properties and target frame for both new and existing links, the ability to change a set of links based on existing attributes without stepping through each link, and the ability to use automatic cross referencing and existing chunks to create new links.

Documentation
Documented in the Help database by looking at the properties and methods associated with creating and modifying links, including: AppendLink method, ChangeDoclinks method, LinkReplicaID property, LinkViewUniversalID property, LinkNoteUniversalID property, LinkAnchorText property, LinkURL property, LinkHintServer property, LinkPopupText property and the SetTargetProperties method.

On-line demo
None available at this time.

Sample Database
Change Links (Notes client) Doclinks/Hyperlinks
This is more of a tutorial/testing tool than a sample database, but it has been put here for now to facilitate those people seeking to work with doclinks

Doclinks to NDL or Notes URL (Notes client, Web browser) Doclinks/Hyperlinks
This sample contains agents to convert doclinks, view links and db links to external formats that can be used outside Notes to open Notes to the specific document, view or database.

Valid Links (Notes client) Doclinks/Hyperlinks
Example shows how links of all sorts (db, view, doclinks, as well as URL links) in rich text fields can be validated, and a report generated of broken links.
Sample Scripts
This is take from the Help database entry for the AppendLink method:

' *** Create a doclink
Call rtchunk.AppendLink("", db.ReplicaID, myview.UniversalID, doc.UniversalID,
                        "Click to view...", db.Server)

' *** Create a link hotspot to the Categorized view
set myview = db.GetView("Categorized")
Call rtchunk.AppendLink("Categorized view", db.ReplicaID, myview.UniversalID,
                        "", "Click to see view...", db.Server)

' *** Create a URL hotspot
Call rtchunk.AppendLink("Genii Home page", "http://GeniiSoft.com")

' *** Create a URL mailto hotspot
Call rtchunk.AppendLink("Send us mail", "mailto:Sales@GeniiSoft.com")

This is take from the Help database for the ChangeDoclinks method:

' *** Change hint server to "MyServer"
Call rtchunk.ChangeDoclinks("", "", "", "", "MyServer")

' *** If doclinks reference olddb, change to reference newdb and newview
Call rtchunk.ChangeDoclinks(newdb.ReplicaID, newview.UniversalID, 
                            "", "", "", 
                            olddb.ReplicaID)

Copyright © 2006 Genii Software Ltd.

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