Lotus Notes developers are often concerned about the security of their Lotus Notes application design, especially when an application is about to be rolled out to users. Even in the case when developers are packaging and selling their own Lotus Notes applications, they don't want to give away the source code along with it.
This tip provides an easy method that hides the design of the Lotus Notes database when you are rolling out an application or selling it. When the Lotus Notes database design is hidden, no one can make design changes or even display the design by making a copy of the database.
Be sure to take a note of the following things before hiding the design of your Lotus Notes database:
Now follow these steps to hide the design of a database:
Now the next time you roll out or sell an application, you won't have to worry about your source code being copied.
MEMBER FEEDBACK TO THIS TIP
We were hiding the design of our Lotus Notes applications but ended up having several problems when we sent out template updates to our customers. The design either did not update at all, or duplicate design elements were placed into customer applications
We then had to add tools to our applications to deal with and remove duplicated design elements after a design update. In the end, we decided not to use hidden designs anymore due to the problems we encountered.
According to Lotus Technote #1087252, "Replacing design with template containing hidden design does not delete existing design elements," Lotus has no plans to address these issues.
—Alex E.
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This is not a guaranteed way of hiding the Lotus Notes application design. Anyone savvy enough to write about 10 lines of LotusScript code can do it, while using some of the Lotus Notes API calls to get around this. A better way is to remove the LotusScript source code altogether, leaving only the compiled code. Create a copy of the template locally, and run this script from another Lotus Notes database:
The CreateDatabaseDesign method can be found in the LotusScript library.
—Simon D.
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You don't have to create a new Lotus Notes database from the template. After you've created the template, you can replace the design of the already rolled out Lotus Notes database. In the window where you have to choose the template, you can check Hide, etc.
—Koos V.
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As far as I know, the Lotus Notes application design can be unhidden by only changing a hexadecimal byte to "00." The code will still remain protected though.
—Noel R.
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Reference Center: Notes/Domino applications tips and resources
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