both in 8.0 and 8.5, there are no examples for this new object class. Does this mean IBM doesn’t understand it either 
There are major deficiencies in the Help - what does the explanation “Represents the Notes directorIES on a specific server or local computer, each of which is associated with one or more directory navigators to allow directory lookups.” Which directorIES ( NOTE - use of plural is important), since none of the few examples actually allow you to specify a directory name. One of the few help examples gives this code:
Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim direct As NotesDirectory
Dim nav As NotesDirectoryNavigator
Dim value As Variant
Set direct = s.getDirectory
So, I’m trying to answer simple questions - like do any of the properties and methods test whether the server is being accessed? what if we have multiple PNABs. What about failover? I have endless questions.
Come on IBM - get your act together. It’s called Help for a reason!
Subject: just for the record …
by experimenting, I have found that it doesn’t failover. Why on earth not??
Example that I tried
Dim findDir As NotesDirectory
Dim mainINfo as Variant
Dim nameServer as String ’ populate it
…
Set findDir = Session.GetDirectory(nameServer)
mainInfo = findDir.GetMailInfo(session.CommonUserName)
doesn’t failover, it fails if nameServer is not active in its cluster!!
Subject: NotesDirectory.SearchAllDirectories property
Based upon the following description of the SearchAllDirectories property in comparison to the methods available to the NotesDirectory class, only the “names.nsf” OR ALL Domino Directories can be used for Lookups - the ability to explicitly define which Directory(ies) you would like to perform the Lookup against doesn’t appear to exist. The which Server the Directory(ies) [to search] reside on is determined by either the NotesSession Object OR when using the GetDirectory method of the NotesDirectory class.
From the Lotus Domino Designer 8.5.1 Help:
SearchAllDirectories property
Read-write. Indicates if all directories will be searched by lookups.
Note This property is new with Release 8
Defined in
NotesDirectory
Data type
Boolean
Syntax
To get: flag = notesDirectory.SearchAllDirectories
To set: notesDirectory.SearchAllDirectories = flag
Legal values
True (default) indicates lookups will search all directories.
False indicates lookups will stop searching after the first directory containing the specified view name.
Usage
This property works with the GroupAuthorizationOnly and TrustedOnly properties to limit which directories are searched in a lookup.
In addition, it appears that if & when a Server which the GetDirectory method attempts to access is unavailable, a connection to a cluster-mate should be attempted - and will fail if that cluster-mate is not active.