NotesTimer: Firing an Event Every Few Seconds in the Notes Client

Want to do something every few seconds on an open Notes client screen — auto-refresh a view, poll for new documents, update a status display? NotesTimer is exactly that: give it an interval in seconds at creation and it fires an Alarm event periodically. This article covers creating it, the Interval / Enabled / Comment properties, binding a handler with On Event, and the four limitations you must know: UI-only (not agents), declare it globally, the handler must finish within the interval, and it's enabled by default.

NSF ODP Tooling: Build Domino NSFs from Source, No Designer Required

NSF ODP Tooling is an OpenNTF project that turns a binary NSF into a file-system On-Disk Project you can keep in Git, then compiles it back into a full NSF without Domino Designer — bringing real version control and CI/CD to Domino. Here's what it is, how the Maven plugin and container-based compilation work, and what the 4.1.0 release actually changed.

NotesPropertyBroker / NotesProperty: How Composite Applications Wire Components Together

Composite Applications were a Notes 8.x feature — assembling several components (Notes components, Java/Eclipse components) on one screen and letting them pass values to each other. NotesPropertyBroker is the mediating layer; NotesProperty is the single property being passed. This article is honest about where these classes sit (fairly legacy), covers getting the broker with GetPropertyBroker, the GetPropertyValue / SetPropertyValue / Publish / HasProperty methods, InputPropertyContext, and what it actually means today.

NotesViewColumn: Reading a View's Columns, Their Formulas, and Sorting in Code

You want to inventory a view — which columns it has, whether each is a field or a formula, what's sorted or categorized, what's hidden — without opening Designer. NotesViewColumn reads that from code. This article covers getting it from view.Columns, the Title / ItemName / Formula / Position / IsSorted / IsCategory / IsHidden / IsField / IsFormula properties, and how it lines up with the earlier NotesViewEntry's ColumnValues (the same Position index).

NotesIDVault: Pulling IDs from the ID Vault, Syncing, and Resetting Passwords in Code

The ID Vault is Domino's policy-based facility for centrally storing user ID files. NotesIDVault lets you operate it from code — pull a user's ID file out of the vault, sync a local ID back, check whether someone's ID is in the vault, even reset a vault password. This article covers getting it, the GetUserIDFile / SyncUserIDFile / IsIDInVault / ResetUserPassword / PutUserIDFile methods, its relationship to NotesUserID, and the permission prerequisites for these operations.

NotesRichTextTable: Dropping a Table into Rich Text from Code

You're assembling a rich text email or document in code with NotesRichTextItem and need a table to lay out a summary or report — NotesRichTextItem.AppendTable creates a NotesRichTextTable. This article covers creating one, RowCount / ColumnCount, AddRow / RemoveRow, SetColor / SetAlternateColor for striped rows, RightToLeft, and how to walk an existing table with NotesRichTextNavigator — plus a key limitation: you can't read a cell's contents unless you already know the rich text's exact structure.

NotesDXLImporter: Pushing DXL Back into Domino — Separate Strategies for Design, Documents, and ACL

After you export design or documents to DXL (Domino XML) with NotesDXLExporter, how do you push it back into a database? NotesDXLImporter is the reverse half. This article covers creating it, the three key import strategies (DesignImportOption / DocumentImportOption / ACLImportOption and their create / ignore / replace / update choices), the Import method and retrieving imported notes, and how it pairs with DXLExporter into a full DXL round-trip.

NotesViewEntry × NotesViewEntryCollection: Reading Every Row of a View Fast, Without Opening Documents

To read a few field values from every document in a view, many people loop the documents and GetItemValue each one — but that opens every document, and a few thousand rows is painfully slow. NotesViewEntry reads the view's already-computed ColumnValues without opening a document at all; NotesViewEntryCollection is the collection of those rows, skips category/total rows, and supports set operations and StampAll batch updates. This article covers the 'read the view fast' pair, why ColumnValues is the performance key, and an entry's identity and hierarchy properties.

The ODS Developers Rarely Notice: Domino's Database Format Versions, and What Actually Triggers an Upgrade

You write LotusScript / XPages all day and probably never think about a database's ODS (on-disk structure) version — until a feature like LargeSummary needs a certain ODS, or you move an old database between servers and aren't sure whether its ODS follows. This article covers the ODS-to-release mapping from a developer's angle, the most counterintuitive point (upgrading the server version does not upgrade the ODS), and exactly what triggers an ODS change and what governs it — then answers a concrete case: an R9 ODS51 database, new-copied from an R12 client to an R12 server, does its ODS change automatically?