Thursday, November 29, 2007

proposed UI change for agents, etc....

In Designer today, you can change your mind about what language you are writing an agent, web service, or script library in. (On button events, etc., too, but we're not going there yet!)

Would it be a huge hardship to lose that? Do you really change your mind about what language you're writing something in? If you do, would it be horrible to have to go create a new agent or whatever in that case? (Bonus - you wouldn't have to live through the "Are you sure/all existing code will be lost" message, and actually you would no longer necessarily be losing anything unless you chose to delete the item you were in!

It is a simpler design (that's what's in it for us!)

We made a similar change to script libraries in Release 6, and I didn't hear any issues, but taking it this much farther bears a question...

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I've done this before, but it's pretty uncommon, and I agree that it probably just as easy to create a new design element and delete the old one. I would like to see the process of selecting the language selection process be just a simple as it is now, however. I'd be disappointed if selecting the language you want to code in became buried in properties infobox-like tabs somewhere.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't bother me in the least. In fact, I probably wouldn't even notice -- except for the fact that I finally wouldn't have to switch my agents from "Simple Action" every single time I create one...

Nate said...

yeah, amen to this option. I'm all for it.

TexasSwede said...

I would not miss it at all. I rarely change the languag, and if i do, I have to revrite the code anyway... Could you give us a setting: "default agent language", so any new agent always start as Lotusscript, for example? :-)

And then, as someone suggested on IdeaJam, IIRC, that the user can define a code snippet that always get loaded when a new agent get created, say a "stup" or skeleton code that I can define myself.

Or, even better, something like this:
The button "new agent" will work like other buttons in Notes 8. A click will create a new blank agent, using the default language. But if I click the small arrow on the side, I can select "new javascript", "new lotusscript", "new webservice LS", "new webservice java", etc.
But then there can be a "new cutom", which expand out and give the user the option to create a new "skeleton" program, based on one of the templates I defined earlier...

For example: When I create a web agent, I have some generic code in the beginning that I alwasy use, like this:
dim session as New NotesSession
dim doc as NotesDocument
dim url as string
set doc = session.CurrentDocument
url = doc.Query_String(0)
if url = "" then
url = doc.Request_String(0)
end if
And a few lines more that parse the URL into a list of parameters, etc...
I would like to store that code snippet, and every time I click "new agent" and select "custom" and "web agent", I get that code pre-filled.

For other types of agent, I want other code instead...

I am happy to explain more, if you like. I'll be at Lotusphere, and I am sure I will see you there... :-)
Or mail me...

Bram said...

seems perfectly ok for me

Anonymous said...

Fine with me too.
I hate the need to change it from simple action each time.

Anonymous said...

I completely agree.
IMO, the only place you often change the content (and see the "are you sure" message) is view columns.

jonvon said...

on agents? no big deal at all. once i start writing an agent, if i change languages (rare) i always start writing an entirely new agent. the old one is typically kept around for reference, in the rare cases that happens.

Sean Burgess said...

Sounds good to me. This is something that really isn't done unless it's an accident or where you create a copy of the agent first.

NotesSensei said...

If that frees up time for more important stuff --- let it go. I think nobody will cry if it is gone.