Automatic installer for Notes agents (and other design elements)

Suppose you have written some agents (pull-down actions) that you want to install into another Notes database. How do you do this?

The options are limited. You can modify the design template for the target database and then ask users to refresh their database design from the template. But this forces all users to receive the new actions whenever they refresh. Another method is to send the agents to selected users in a temporary container database, along with instructions for how to copy-paste the agents into the target database. But this is an error-prone process for novice users. What we really want is a "Notes installer" similar to InstallShield that automatically, by pressing one button, performs the complete installation process. This tip describes just such an installer, which is available here from my web site: http://www.chc-3.com/downloads/agentinstaller.zip

Later in the tip I will explain ho

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w the installer can be modified to install other design elements also, such as forms and views. The installer is a Notes database consisting of four parts: the agents that will be copied into the target database; a special view that shows the agents; an Install button that copies agents from the installer database into the target database; and an Uninstall button to reverse the process.

Have fun, and please let me know about interesting ways you have used or modified this tool!

Credit:

My thanks to Dan Velasco for his coding tips, Chris Pepin for his ideas, and to Paul Wiebe at PK Innovations for his support of this work.