AppIcon Plugin for Domino Designer 8.5.2
One of the new features available in Notes 8.5.2 are the 24Bit icons for DatabasesApplications. Having seen and played around with the new feature in the Beta stages of 8.5.2 I have to admit, I really like this feature. It makes me kind of more productive in a special way: it makes me feel better when seeing them and it allows me to realize some of the applications more easily on my Workspace an the Tabs than the old 16 color icons:
There were a few things I personally missed with the new feature but that I also see not as being necessarily implemented into core Domino Designer by default. So I thought I just extend Domino Designer with a small plugin that provides this functionality:
There were a few things I personally missed with the new feature but that I also see not as being necessarily implemented into core Domino Designer by default. So I thought I just extend Domino Designer with a small plugin that provides this functionality:
- As the new 24 Bit Application Icon is really an Image Resource under the hood, one could easily export it to disk, if he was given the opportunity by Designer. As exporting such is not Designers purpose, this is a feature that can be added by the AppIcon Plugin
- Did you know, your Application Icons are easily available from any web browser? Yes, they are: one could use the ?OpenIcon URL command to get a perfectly rendered version of the Classic Application Icon and <database.nsf>/$DbIcon?open for the new 24 Bit Application Icon. Not everyone likes this to be exposed to anyone who has HTTP Access to a server. Well, the new Application Icon could be hidden from Web as it is actually a special kind of an Image Resource. But as it is a special Image Resyource that is not so easy: it is hidden from the NSFs Image Resources listing and so you don't have a chance to see it anywhere in the database design. Normally a very good idea but not for this particular use case. AppIcon thus allows you to hide and unhide the new 24 Bit Application Icon from Web access with an easy click. But of course there are more general methods like using SecureDomino (a short hand setting is available in the current release) to generally block all requests of such a kind to all databases on a sever - but sometimes you can't be sure SecureDomino is installed on the server you are deploying your database to and so this granular solution might be a good solution.
- I thought it might be a good idea to be able to export the Classic Application icon (the traditional 16 Color one). Sure, one could do so by putting the database in question to a server and use the ?OpenIcon URL command - but honestly, if that are the things I would have to do for getting hands on a file version of the traditional database icon I would be too lazy most of the times. The AppIcon Plugin allows for storing the Classic Icon in PNG format easily and directly from Domino Designer.
Michael Gollmick
http://blog.xceed.be
Tx a lot Michael.
Simple, but nice tool to have around.
www.lotusguru.com
Michael, this is very cool but it seems that putting new 24-bit icons *into* the application design would be more useful, so I'm wondering if this would be easy to add to your plugin. I would specifically like the ability to select multiple databases from a choice list and then a graphic image and have that become the app icon for all selected applications.
I was thinking of writing something like this as a simple Notes app which might make more sense than a plugin. To do that I will need to fully understand what makes the $DBIcon element "special". I'm sure I can figure it out but if you have those details already and can share that would be awesome.
Thanks!
email:Michael Gollmick | website: www.gollmick.de