The LotusScript Web Agent I/O Model: Print Is Your Response, DocumentContext Is Your Request

A LotusScript web agent has no request object and no response object — it has Print, whose output becomes the HTTP body, and DocumentContext, a special document holding the CGI variables. A field report on the two halves: how the first Print line sets Content-Type so you can return JSON instead of HTML, how to read the query string and POST body from DocumentContext, the CGI-fields gotcha that leaves them empty, and how it all fits with a top-level error handler.

DXL Round-Trip Pitfalls: Why Export-Then-Import Gives You Duplicates, Not the Same Documents

You export documents to DXL, import the DXL into another database, and end up with copies carrying brand-new UNIDs instead of the same documents updated in place — because the importer creates by default and only matches on UNID when you tell it to. A field report on the DXL round-trip: the DocumentImportOption that decides create-vs-replace, why default rich text isn't binary-identical (and when to switch to RAW), and the stale-handle trap that hides the whole thing.

LotusScript Error Handling: On Error Is Per-Procedure, and Resume Next Is Not 'Ignore Errors'

Two habits sink most LotusScript error handling: treating On Error as if it were global (it's per-procedure, and uncaught errors climb the call stack), and reaching for On Error Resume Next as a blanket 'ignore errors' switch (it hides the bug, it doesn't handle it). A field report on doing it deliberately — the per-procedure scope, the Err / Error$ / Erl lifecycle, the difference between Resume, Resume Next, and Resume label, and the clean-error pattern a web agent actually needs.

NotesUIDatabase: the One Place to Catch a Delete

In the Notes client a user can delete a document from any view, with the Delete key, a cut, or a drag to the trash — you can't guard each path separately. NotesUIDatabase is the single chokepoint that sees all of them: its QueryDocumentDelete event fires once, database-wide, before anything is marked for deletion. A field report on the front-end database class — the Database bridge, the delete/archive events, and the soft-delete guard you hang off the one event that catches every path.

Save(True, False) or Save(False, True): the Two Booleans That Decide Who Loses Data

Two processes touch the same document — a web agent and a user with the form open, or a scheduled agent and a replica. One save wins, the other's edit either vanishes or turns into a mysterious $Conflict. Which one happens is decided entirely by the two booleans you passed to NotesDocument.Save. A field report on force and createResponse: last-write-wins vs the conflict document the replicator makes, why Save(True, False) quietly loses data, and how to pick on purpose.

NotesUIView: the Only Class That Knows What the User Selected

A view action button is supposed to act on the rows the user highlighted — but the back-end NotesView has no concept of a selection. That gap is exactly what NotesUIView fills. A field report on the front-end view class: its Documents property (the live selection), the bridge back to the back-end View, the QueryOpenDocument / QueryClose events you hook to intercept the user, and the hard boundary that keeps all of it out of web and agent code.

The NotesDOM Node Types You'll Never Instantiate: the Read-Only DTD Corner

NotesDOM implements the full W3C node model, which means four node types exist for the DTD corner most XML developers never touch: DocumentType, Entity, EntityReference, and Notation. A short map of what they are, which one you can actually create (EntityReference), which are read-only reflections of a parsed DTD, and why in 2026 you can usually walk past all of them — plus the one case where knowing they exist saves an afternoon.

The NotesDOM Node Types You Skipped — Until a Round-Trip Drops Your Comments

You built a NotesDOMParser pipeline for element and text nodes. Then you parsed XML with a comment, a CDATA block, and a processing instruction, changed one value, serialised it back — and the comment and PI were gone. A field report on the rest of the NotesDOM node family: NodeList's 1-based GetItem (not the W3C 0-based item()), DocumentFragment for batch inserts, and the CDATA / Comment / ProcessingInstruction nodes you have to create yourself to preserve on the way out.

Domino Web View Paging: Start Isn't a Row Number, It's a Hierarchical Coordinate

"I assumed Start=31 meant the 31st row. Then I was wrong." A debugging field report on the ?OpenView Start parameter in categorized classic views: a plain number jumps to the Nth top-level category, dotted values like 1.1.1.1.6 are hierarchical coordinates, the last segment clamps but middle segments don't, and you can't URL your way to the absolute last page. Plus three practical uses — an in-category serial, @DocNumber("") (with its must-be-alone landmine), and ReadViewEntries breadcrumbs.