Sams Teach Yourself Lotus Notes and Domino 5 Development in 21 Days [Paperback]

Jane Calabria (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 1999

A comprehensive and painless way to learn the important development features of Lotus Notes and Domino R5. The lesson-a-day format offers real-world, task-based step-by-step insight to successful mastering of workflow applications. Learn basic Domino application development, as well as the new features of R5 including new @functions, be introduced to JavaScript and LotusScript and learn to write advanced formulas and agents.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A comprehensive and painless way to learn the important development features of Lotus Notes and Domino R5. The lesson-a-day format offers real-world, task-based step-by-step insight to successful mastering of workflow applications. Learn basic Domino application development, as well as the new features of R5 including new @functions, be introduced to JavaScript and LotusScript and learn to write advanced formulas and agents.

About the Author

Jane Calabria is a Certified Lotus Notes Professional (Principal level) and a Certified Microsoft User Specialist. She has authored or contributed to the following related titles: The 10 Minute Guide to Lotus Notes 4.5 and 4.6, The 10 Minute Guide to Lotus Notes Mail 4.5 and 4.6, Lotus Notes 4.5 and the Internet, The Professional Developers Guide to Domino 4.5, Special Edition Using Lotus Notes and Domino 4.5, Using Lotus Notes 4.5, and Sams Teach Yourself Lotus Notes 4.6. As a trainer, Jane teaches and conducts seminars on Lotus Notes and Domino.

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Sams (October 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672314169
• ISBN-13: 978-0672314162
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,027,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development > Web Servers

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for Novices, Useful reference, poor CD info, April 30, 2000

By 

Vance Jochim "vjochim" (Mount Dora, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Lotus Notes and Domino 5 Development in 21 Days (Paperback)

As a 6 year Notes developer, I know many of the subjects in this well done, progressive book, but rarely lift it off the shelf until I need a refresher on a specific topic, such as lists and what functions work with them - then pulling out the chapter on Lists is very helpful to remind me about some rarely used commands that help with a lists programming problem.

You won't find heavy duty stuff here, and not much LotusScript, but Lotus doesn't even require LotusScript for a CLP, so the book is useful for many formula and function users, as well as new developers "assigned to support Notes". The title says "Notes and Domino" which implies using Domino web capabilities, but not much of that is here either.

What about the CD? Publishers love to add a CD so they can get advertising revenue from 3rd party demos and charge you and me $10-20 more. I searched all over trying to find what was on the included CD - nowhere was there a list of what was on it, until I figured out they had files to support each "day's" lesson.

I inspected the CD and found three sections:

- "3rd Party" containing over a dozen third party demo files WITHOUT ONE WORD DESCRIBING WHAT THEY WERE. There is no listing in the index, no readme.txt file, no appendix is used like other books, no info is on the back cover or in the table of contents or in any chapter I could find. If I was one of the firms PAYING to add these demo files, I would ask for a refund - as a reader, over 50% of the names were unfamiliar and what makes the publisher think I would run an .exe file on my system without even knowing what the file does, how much space it takes or whether I can unload it later. The SAMS project manager who handled CD files for this book should be fired for this sloppy implementation of what could be a useful feature.

The second section was "Examples" with a sub-directory for each day's lesson, and the files are described at the end of each chapter, but there is no comprehensive list of all the files and what they do that you could use later for reference.

The third undescribed section on the CD was "web" which again contained no "readme.txt" file, but did contain an HTML file that turned out to have lots of useful web links to Notes ad Domino related sites. Too bad most readers won't know about that document.

Finally, unlike some other Notes/Domino books, there is no included full text Notes .nsf searchable file of the book that the buyer can keep on their laptop for reference (don't ever give us pdf files, too many problems with search and different versions required).

In conclusion, this is still a good book for Novices to learn Notes, for experienced developers to use as a reference (I liked the LotusScript chapter which is better than Lotus provides in Help). Having the chapter files on CD is helpful, but they are overcharging for a CD where the contents are not documented anywhere I could find. The associate publisher of this book, Dean Miller, should be held accountable for that problem and demo advertisers should ask for their money back. That is the reason I marked the book down to four stars from five.

Vance Jochim, CLP R5, R4 WEBworks Systems [e-mail]

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal Study Guide for Certification, December 11, 1999

By 

Joel Gilbert (Boulder CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Lotus Notes and Domino 5 Development in 21 Days (Paperback)

This book gives you everything you need to pass the Domino Designer Fundamentals test (#510) and MORE!

Conversational style, well-organized lessons, all material presented in bite-sized chunks (perfect for a one hour bus commute).

Formula and Command reference is light (understandbly so, not the focus of the book). This should be viewed as the title implies - a self-paced tutorial. If you simply want a reference, consider Randy Tamura's book or Unleashed (More advanced, I forget the author).

My sincere thanks to the authors and I look forward to using their other offerings.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Formula Coverage, December 5, 1999

By 

Shaun J. Siddells (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Lotus Notes and Domino 5 Development in 21 Days (Paperback)

I had been waiting for a Lotus Note/Domino book that doesn't have 6 chapters on what's new here, what's new there type scenario. This book gets to point pretty much well straight away. Coverage of key point in Notes is covered throughout each chapter (Examples of forms, fields, etc and summaries of their properties) while using the examples and "End of chapter" summaries to build a multi - Dbase Workflow Application.

Based on a Work-flow model and building a single application throughout, the book covers key points which are new in R5 as well a "break down as you go" of the examples properties. This helps as a light on what other possibilities you can play with in the likes of using the full range of the objects' properties.

Of value were the explanation of/and building of hierarchical forms, Workflow, and a Good dose of Formula Language (All can be quite elusive to find decent Doco on). Little Lotus Script is covered but some points are covered. This was never the aim of the book and was so explained.

The feel of the book (and I haven't read all of it yet) is that you need to have a familiarity with Domino Designer as it seems a little quick or brief in the explanations of a few things.

But if you are starting to get more interested in Domino Applications Design, or like myself, have been thrown in the deep end and learnt how to things, but wonder whether you are doing it right, then this serve's as a good refresher and confidence booster for thing you felt were right, and fills in the hole of the thing you don't know (but should!).

I like the singular Application Example. It serve to better demonstrate what Notes does Natural, thereby it is fully applicable to real life.

This is a successful style demonstrated in the Cold-Fusion4 Web Construction kit by Ben Forta. A style that serves' the designer better than sporadic trivial examples that go no where.