Where is the open in new window option in Notes Designer 8.5.1? I see that I can open all the new windows I want on the client side but how can I have multiple windows open in Designer? I have searched through the forum and can’t find anyone talking about this in designer. Am I missing something?
Subject: Far as I know Eclipse doesn’t multiple windows…
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You get tabs instead of new windows. New in DDE you also get fewer tabs than R-prior Designer. Also new in DDE is the ability to have more than one “tab bar”, which helps offset the fact that fewer tabs are usable in DDE.
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I gave up on new windows in Designer with R5. In R4 I routinely opened a separate window for each and every design element, which was very sweet, but in R5 doing this crashed Designer several times per day, at least with a dozen Designer windows going. Didn’t take long for that Lotus Honey to force me to use tabs. Now that DDE won’t do multiple windows at all, years and years later, I’m already used to it.
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Besides, tabs are all the rage in UI design. Those of us who like separate windows are the dinosaurs of UI fashion.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. If I’m wrong someone feel free to step in and say so. Then I’d start using separate windows again! (grin)…
Subject: Ahhhh
" but in R5 doing this crashed Designer several times per day, at least with a dozen Designer windows going."
Those were the days. They fixed this in ND6 though, thankfully. I remember ND6 feeling like a breath of fresh air.
Subject: What I wouldn’t give…
…for that breath of fresh air again. My blood pressure goes up every time I have to open the new Designer. I used to love Notes dev…
Subject: ugh
And they’ve added so much to the Designer window that my actual design area is smaller. I mean I like change but I like it to get better.
Thanks for the responses. Now I won’t bother looking for a way to do it and begin my transformation to tabs.
Subject: Any way to have multiple tabs open?
It seems that DDE will not allow you to have multiple windows open.
For those times when you NEED to see two things at once (line-by-line comparison of code, eg), is there any way to have two tabs open at once? Or is there some other solution to this problem?
There may be a simple answer for those wise in the ways of Eclipse.
Subject: This is also not possible…
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Lotus has never cottoned onto the concept of split windows, either, thought many other applications support that. Closest you can get to this “line by line” thing is:
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Open in two Desigers. If it’s a legacy element you can read the same thing with an older Designer in a VM.
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Copy the entire application and open both copies. If you do this latter, you may have one applicaton’s tab bar “above” the other, so when you have them both open, they are actually “split screen” like you want. That’s what I posted in my original reply, that DDE support more than one tab bar, so this hack is actually fairly workable.
Hope this helps…
Subject: Multiple Tab Bars
Sorry to be dense, but how does one opt for multiple tab bars? Thx.
Subject: I just discovered a simpler way…
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Open more than one tab.
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Right click any tab.
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Select “Move → Editor”
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Move the “bounding box” up and the cursor will change to a down arrow.
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Drop. Done. MUCH EASIER, because the down arrow appears anywhere on DDE’s top window decoration instead of one teeny tiny pixel on the tab bar.
Hope this helps…
Subject: Thanks very much
This is a great help–and I also discovered if you drag the bounding box to the left or the right of the editing area, you can get horizontally tiled windows, which is exactly what I need.
Thanks again.
Subject: Works but takes up workspace
Between the navigator, the xpages perspectives, programmers window, etc, having what’s left of your tiny workspace divided into 2 makes for a small area to work in. Don’t even think about also having the help window open. 
If I just need to view the information in another window I will take a screen shot of it and have that available on my other monitor. Works if you just need to view it and not change anything. Just a little tip.
Subject: Not dense. It’s relatively simply but not intuitively obvious it will do this…
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Open any two tabs. They may be databases, design elements in the same database, what-ever. For your needs they should be two databases, I imagine.
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Drag one tab over to the other. Normally when one does this, the cursor changes to “stacked papers”, to show the tab position is being changed within that tab bar. What you need to do is carefully move the cursor over the bottom edge of a different tab (not the one you’re dragging), until the cursor changes to an up arrow. It’s quite finicky and annoying … there seems to be about a 1 pixel zone that does this, and you’ll roll right over it several times until you get it right, even when you know what’s going on. If you have a track ball this process is greatly eased because when you finally get the up arrow cursor you may take your thumb from the ball and know for certain it’ll stay there while you release the button to drop the tab.
Oh. When the cursor is an up arrow, a “box” will appear that’s about the size the top tab bar will be after the split-screen is successfully done. You’ll know when you’ve rolled over the “up arrow zone”; even if the cursor doesn’t change this box will flash on the screen briefly. This helps you zero in on the correct pixel row.
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Drop the tab you’re dragging while the cursor is an up arrow. If this is done correctly, you’ll get split-screen. One tab bar will be on top and the other will be in the middle of the screen.
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When you open a new tab be certain to click the appropriate tab bar first. It will put any tab on any bar … if you open an element using the Application Panel (which I often do) and the “wrong” tab bar is “active”, then it will put the tab under the “wrong” database tab (because that’s what you told it to do). I think this is fine, because I prefer computers to do what I tell them to do, even if it’s wrong, rather than some goofy automagic doing things “for” me that I don’t want and can’t prevent. I can prevent telling it to do the wrong thing.
- This trick works for any number of tab bars, afaik, though I’ve never done more than four. Another nice feature is that double-clicking on a tab bar “minimizes” it, so you may conceivably leave both open as long as you like, and minimize the one(s) you aren’t interested in at present.
Hope this helps…
Let’s see if this screen comes through without being heinously monstrous:
- Nope. Not only was it heinously monstrous (which is editable), but it did NOT snag the critical up-arrow cursor, and it’s equally critical position on the tab bar. However, here’s the end result:
Subject: Hey David…
I just noticed your screenshots show a custom font for Designer… maybe that’s related to your GDI climbing? Just a thought.
Subject: Interesting thought, Erik…
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One of the first things I do is change the fonts in Notes & Designer. The defaults waste more screen space than I like, so I change them to allow more lines on-screen. In LS, for example I have nearly 50% more code in the same size editor window by changing the font, without sacrificing legibility, near as I can tell.
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If this is the cause of the GDI issue, then Lotus needs to fix it. Reverting to default fonts is not a remotely attractive option far as I’m concerned. Meantime I’ve bumped my GDI allocation and expect it to crash when I edit lots of Views. In the Grand Scheme of DDE Wonkiness this is practically a non-issue.
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I also have TeamStudio v26 installed. I’ve raved about them for years, but v26 is a nightmarish travesty to rival DDE and XPages with legacy code. For all I know that annoying tripe is the problem, but I can’t see how that’s affecting a database that’s not under TS control, and none of the tools are active. The Powers That Be are making noises like they’re going to FP4, and I’ve read a lot of horror stories about that on the Forum, so when that happens I’ll likely do a “clean” install, or clean as I can with a windoze version that’s never been reinstalled in over three years. In that case I’ll take the opportunity to try some View edits before I fix the fonts or put the TS tripe back in, to see what happens.
Thanks for the suggestion!!..