Generate xPages from your views

The Dublin workshop has concluded. Others have reported and I start playing with automating upgrading your existing applications to include xPages. In a nutshell: xPages allows scripting your application end-to-end in JavaScript. JavaScript on the client and the server and just a selection for you to decide what runs where. Of course JavaScript is not a Domino server languages in older Notes versions, so you need to do something about your @Formula and LotusScript. But that's a topic for another time. xPages are stored as XML. Existing Domino design elements can be exported with reasonably accuracy as DXL which is XML too. So with a little XSLT the both might be fit onto each other.

A Domino view starts with <view name=', while an xPage starts with <xp:viewPanel. Different names but similar structure! A column in a Notes view is represented by <column itemname=, the column in the xPage with <xp:viewColumn columnName=. Again just different names. To get from all your views to xPages follow the following steps:

• Create one xPage that looks the way your stuff should look like
• Switch to the source view, cut and paste it into your favorite XSLT editor
• Replace the variable parts (the columns) with XSLT template logic. Save the file into [NotesData]/xsl
• Use the DXLTools - Transformer to apply that one by one to your views (you could script that)
• Switch to the Java perspective and import the resulting files back in your NSF

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0" xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/core"
    xmlns:d='http://www.lotus.com/dxl'>

    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" />
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xp:view xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/core">
        <xsl:apply-templates select="//d:view" />
       </xp:view>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="d:view">
        <xsl:variable name="panelid"><xsl:value-of select="@name" /></xsl:variable>
        <xp:viewPanel rows="30" viewStyle="width:100%">
            <xsl:attribute name="id">viewPanel<xsl:value-of select="$panelid" /></xsl:attribute>
            <xp:this.facets>
                <xp:pager layout="Previous Group Next" xp:key="headerPager"
                    id="pager1">
                </xp:pager>
            </xp:this.facets>
            <xp:this.data>
                <xp:dominoView>
                   <xsl:attribute name="var"><xsl:value-of select="$panelid" /></xsl:attribute>
                    <xsl:attribute name="viewName"><xsl:value-of select="$panelid" /></xsl:attribute>
                    </xp:dominoView>
            </xp:this.data>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="d:column" />
        </xp:viewPanel>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="d:column">
        <xsl:variable name="colid">viewColumn<xsl:value-of select="position()" /></xsl:variable>
        <xsl:variable name="headid">viewColumnHeader<xsl:value-of select="position()" /></xsl:variable>
        <xp:viewColumn>
            <xsl:attribute name="columnName"><xsl:value-of select="d:columnheader/@title" /></xsl:attribute>
            <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of select="$colid" /></xsl:attribute>
            <xp:viewColumnHeader>
                <xsl:attribute name="value"><xsl:value-of select="d:columnheader/@title" /></xsl:attribute>
                <xsl:attribute name="id"><xsl:value-of select="$headid" /></xsl:attribute>
            </xp:viewColumnHeader>
        </xp:viewColumn>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

As usual: YMMV