Martin Donnelly - XPages Portable Command Guide: A Compact Resource to XPages Application Development and the XSP Language

A Compact Resource to XPages Application Development and the XSP Language

Martin Donnelly
Maire Kehoe
Tony McGuckin
Dan OConnor

IBM Press, Pearson plc

Upper Saddle River, NJ Boston Indianapolis San Francisco
New York Toronto Montreal London Munich Paris Madrid
Cape Town Sydney Tokyo Singapore Mexico City
ibmpressbooks.com

The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information or programs contained herein.

Copyright 2012 by International Business Machines Corporation. All rights reserved.

Note to U.S. Government Users: Documentation related to restricted right. Use, duplication, or disclosure is subject to restrictions set forth in GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corporation.

IBM Press Program Managers: Steven M. Stansel, Ellice Uffer

Cover design: IBM Corporation

Published by Pearson plc

Publishing as IBM Press

IBM Press offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases or special sales, which may include electronic versions and/or custom covers and content particular to your business, training goals, marketing focus, and branding interests. For more information, please contact

U.S. Corporate and Government Sales
1-800-382-3419

For sales outside the U.S., please contact

International Sales

The following terms are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in many jurisdictions worldwide: IBM Press, Notes, Domino, Java, IBM, Rational, WebSphere, LotusScript, developerWorks, and Sametime. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at Copyright and trademark information at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

XPages portable command guide : a compact resource to XPages application
development and the XSP language / Martin Donnelly ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-13-294305-5 (pbk.)
1. XPages. 2. Application software--Development. 3. Web site development.
I. Donnelly, Martin, 1963
QA76.625.X63 2012
006.7'6--dc23
2011047429

All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to:

Pearson Education, Inc.
Rights and Contracts Department
501 Boylston Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02116
Fax (617) 671-3447

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at R.R. Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

First printing February 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0-13-294305-5
ISBN-10: 0-13-294305-0

Associate Publisher
Dave Dusthimer

Marketing Manager
Stephane Nakib

Executive Editor
Mary Beth Ray

Publicist
Heather Fox

Development Editor
Eleanor Bru

Managing Editor
Kristy Hart

Designer
Alan Clements

Project Editor
Anne Goebel

Copy Editor
Krista Hansing
Editorial Services, Inc.

Indexer
Lisa Stumpf

Compositor
Nonie Ratcliff

Proofreader
Debbie Williams

Manufacturing Buyer
Dan Uhrig

To the memory of my parents, Betty and Paddy, whose love and support I will always cherish.

Martin

To my parents and my husband, Nelius, for all their support.

Maire

To Martin: Once again, you pulled us over the line! You deserve a medal.

To my parents and family: I love you all and hope you enjoy reading another great book about XPages!

For my two girls, Paula and Anna-Rose: a beautiful wife and special daughter who mean absolutely everything to me!

Tony

Dedicated to the memory of my parents, Peter and RitaI miss you both.

To my familyin particular, my wife, Anne Marie, and daughter, Aileenmy contribution to this book would not have been possible without your support and encouragement. I love you both.

Finally, to my coauthorsthank you for putting faith in a Designer developer to contribute to this fine book!

Dan

Welcome to the XPages Portable Command Guide! This book is designed, for the most part, as a quick information guide for XPages developers with some real-world experience under their belts. It focuses on the road less traveledxsp.properties parameters, notes.ini settings, XSP JS object functions, and such. In other words, it covers the little-known magic bullets that are not well documented but invariably help get you out of a programming bind. In that sense, it is an ideal companion for more holistic tomes such as Mastering XPages, which is designed to give broad coverage to the runtime and application development experience in general. Having said that, this book does dive into detail, when appropriateafter all, the authors are developers, so we just cant help ourselves!

XPages is a rich and powerful application development framework for Notes/Domino, first introduced in version 8.5 at Lotusphere 2009. Since that time, XPages has gone from strength to strength, with three further release updates, an open source XPages Extension Library, a dedicated IBM XWork server, a best-selling IBM Press book, and many other initiatives and innovations. We hope this Portable Command Guide helps add to the general success of XPages by bringing new information to the community and making application development a little bit easier for all concerned.

This book is for XPages developers with some practical experience. Neophytes are advised to start with a more general book, such as Mastering XPages, or perhaps to use this book as its companion guide.

Any programming code, markup, or XSP keywords are illustrated in numbered listings using a fixed width font.

User interface elements (menus, links, buttons, and so on) of the Notes client, Domino Designer, or any sample applications are referenced using a bold font. So too are file system paths, locations, and artifacts, such as the notes.ini and xsp.properties files.

Important words and phrases are emphasized using an italic font.

Visual representations of the design-time experience or runtime features are typically captured as screen shots and written up as numbered figures, using super-imposed callouts where appropriate.

In general, chapters feature a summary table of XPages commands, parameters, or properties near the beginning and seek to explain these in brief, concise terms. These items, or important subsets thereof, are typically then given more expansive treatment in the rest of the chapter. Most chapters also have an accompanying NSF sample application containing practical examples that can be perused using Domino Designer and run in preview mode for the web or Notes client. These samples are available online for download at the following website: www.ibmpressbooks.com/title/0132943050