Lotus Notes: Add an action to the Memo form
Does anyone know a technique for adding an action to the mail memo form? This is for a shrink-wrap product one of my clients is building and they want to be able add an action to the customer's memo form.
The problem is an old one, we need to make this customization but it shouldn't conflict with other customizations and it should be simple for customer installations to upgrade their mail files to newer versions of Notes. It looks like this still isn't possible, but I want to be sure.
The other option is to install a custom toolbar with the action in it. But programmatically manipulating the tools bars isn't really supported and I don't know what the catches will be. If anyone has any advice on that I would be most appreciative.
Posted March 23, 2005 3:04 PM
Comments
there was an article written by wFlamme about stamping all views with uniform design.
Using XML this might de possible i think.
Thomas Schulte, March 23, 2005 3:12 PM
You could put the action button in a subform. You're modifying the design of the Memo form by sticking in a subform, but it doesn't matter where the subform is (makes for an easy modification) and the code behind the action is isolated to the subform.
Matt Holthe, March 23, 2005 4:25 PM
There ought to be two or three computed subforms included in the standard mail forms, such that the formulas reference a profile document that names the installed subforms. That way it would be a piece of cake to just drop in a new subform, update the profile doc, and voila... it's done. I've been asking for this type of extensibility for years, and it's still not there. I guess the overhead of the computed subforms has scared IBM out of doing this, which is a shame considering that there are already four or five computed subforms in the mail forms. You can put an agent on the Actions menu easily enough, but no... there's no way to add actions to the mail forms without actually going in and modifying the forms or subforms in the template. What I've always done is just gone into the forms and added a new subform at the bottom. I call it "RHS Actions". The subform is inherited from a separate template. I also copy the modified forms to that template and change them so that they inherit from there instead of the standard template. I re-do this every time there's a new release of the template. It's a big pain in the butt.
-rich
Richard Schwartz, March 23, 2005 6:10 PM
As far as IBM goes, the reason it hasn't been done is they just haven't made it a priority. There is lots that could be done to make a mail extensibility facility that's both flexible and efficient. That requires putting a smart talented engineer on it, but they only have so many of those.
This requirement has come up at least 3 times since I left Iris, it's clearly needed. There are lots of potential Notes mail addons that don't get built because of this.
Damien, March 23, 2005 6:21 PM
Wouldn't it be possible to add an action using the C-API or C++API ? As far as I remember, that should be a quite simple operation.
But don't forget that modifying the mail-template, makes it a lot harder to get support for any mail issues.
I've had a very hard time to get support, since I've added a script library and a post database open event script to the Mail template.
You probably already know this, but your client (and his customers) might not be aware.
PS. Thanks a ton for the AgentBooster / Trigger Happy project at openntf.net, that rocks.
Brian Jorgensen, March 23, 2005 8:58 PM