Over the weekend I was think about how downloading, signing, and refreshing a Domino database is getting a little behind the times. Most applications now automatically checks to see if there are updates and allows them to be downloaded and installed, sometimes without having to run the install again. I might be a little ahead of what Domino is currently capable of doing, based on XML ‘Fix list’ 7.0.2, from Mac Guidera. Regardless, bare with me as I express my ideas and see if you will be looking forward to 7.0.2 more.
OpenNTF took a step in this direction by creating a Version Checker Web Service. Currently Blogsphere and Open Audit use this web service, for more information you can download the updated Set Template Version which includes the new build number information used by the Version Checker. The next step would be for developers to add some code to that would automatically check to see if there a new updates available. How often to check would be left up to the developer, but at least it would be automated! The final setup would be to create a web service that would download the design updates from. You might be asking how this could be done, the answer is DXL. There has been some work done with DXL already here and here.
One advantage would be smaller downloads (most of the time), because they would only be downloading the design elements that changed. Secondly documents could be pushed to the database as well because they can be apart of the DXL. Third benefit would be no need to sign because when the DXL is imported it would have the users signature.
This is all in conception stage and I am leaving out some details. I currently do not have any plans to develop this, but was hopping it will catch someone’s interests. Are there other advantages or disadvantages?
Chad, I played with this idea for a while, from a slightly different angle (initiated from the web, so the server would be signing the imported data), and roughed something out that may give you a head start: http://www.timtripcony.com/blog.nsf/d6plinks/GUIN-6QP9Z4 Most of the shortcomings of this would likely be a non-issue from a client interface since, as you pointed out, the current user’s signature would apply instead. The only real disadvantage I’ve found so far to this approach is that importing DXL can only create and update design/data notes… it can’t delete any. So as the design of a database changes and entire elements are deprecated, we’d still require a separate method for deleting those elements. An agent can delete itself (don’t ask why I know that… long story), so perhaps included in any new release that deprecated any elements would be an agent designed to delete those elements, and then delete itself… if it were set to run scheduled every five minutes, it would be triggered automatically as soon as it’s imported and signed. Anyway, just my thoughts on the topic.