For the last few weeks, I have been working full-time in Domino Designer 8.5.2, the version based on Eclipse. I had previusly just been playing around some, but as we are upgrading to the latest version of Notes and Domino at work, I am now able to use this version almost exclusively.I am currently still doing only Classic Notes development, as we still have some users on Notes 7.0.2. Also, from what I understand, the performance of Xpages in the client is not fully where one wouold expect it. So I am holding off on putting Xpages into production for a little bit longer.
So what is my impression of Domino Designer for Eclipsethis far?Both good and bad, but the good is far outweighing the bad.Let’s look at a fewkey points.
So what is my impression of Domino Designer for Eclipsethis far?Both good and bad, but the good is far outweighing the bad.Let’s look at a fewkey points.
Performance
I went from a3 year old Core2 Duo @2.0 GHz and 1 GB of RAM running Windows XP to a Core2 Duo @3.06 GHz and 8 MB of RAMrunning Windows 7 (64-bit). Performance is obviously better, partially due to more memory and partially from the new computer being a clean install, but honestly it is not a huge difference.
I went from a3 year old Core2 Duo @2.0 GHz and 1 GB of RAM running Windows XP to a Core2 Duo @3.06 GHz and 8 MB of RAMrunning Windows 7 (64-bit). Performance is obviously better, partially due to more memory and partially from the new computer being a clean install, but honestly it is not a huge difference.
Stability
I recently switched from 7.0.2 to 7.0.3 on my old system. I am not sure if it was because of that,because the computer needed to be rebuilt (I saw a lot of other issues) or because of the code I wrote,butDesigner kept crashing fairly frequently. I still manage to crash Designer 8.5.2, but not as frequently (unless I do really weird things with lists).
Functionality
There are a few things I love about DDE, and a few things that really irritates me.Let’s start with the negative ones.
You have to double click on design element groups in order to see themin the right pane. For example, if you want to see all agents, in earlier versions of Designer you simply clicked on "Agents" and they were displayed in the right pane. In DDE you have to double click. Very annoying, and slowing me down.
You have to double click on design element groups in order to see themin the right pane. For example, if you want to see all agents, in earlier versions of Designer you simply clicked on "Agents" and they were displayed in the right pane. In DDE you have to double click. Very annoying, and slowing me down.
I love the working sets. Using them makes it much easier for me to organize databases applications I work on, for example for different departments. If you are not using this gem, take a look at it right away!
There are several other little gems, like the asterisk (star) in the tab when adesign element is dirty (has been modified) and need to besaved. I like the tabsin the bottom pane, with properties, events and problems. And one of the features i like the most is the real-time compilation and that errors are being displayed at once. I like the popup help in the Lotusscript editor when I hover over a function, but I am not happy with how F1 works, it usually just opens a generic help page about the editor.
Also frequently the code completion tooltip is not showing up. I am not sure if this has to do with the fact that I (like probably most developers these days) use two monitors side-by-side.
Conclusion
Maureen and her team has done a good job, and I enjoy using DDE on a daily basis. Sure, some things are a bitcludgy, but I amd sure 8.5.3 andlater versions will fix most of that, as well as adding more functionality.