The Notes Designer is a separate program. It is usually installed together with the Notes Client. This is indeed the tool that you need to develop.
On top of this IBM has other programs available such as Domino.doc or Workflow that allow fast developent in Notes environments.
Integration with Sametime is also a must!
The Designer is actually a very good tool to develop. Once you understand the differences between Notes and a programming language you will discover that you will develop things in a matter of hours and days instead of weeks and months. A complete CRM can be build in a week for example, starting from scratch.
It is important for a Notes developer however to understand Lotus Notes and Domino before attempting to develop. Otherwise you will just get frustrated. Good experience with administrating a Notes environment and most of all: being an experienced Notes user will help you a lot.
Notes is after all not a programming language: it is a complete groupware environment that allows you to do just about anything.
Most companies dream about things such as content management for their corporate website, or a CRM, or electronic approvals and much more. Notes delivers that to you in the blink of an eye!
The fact that you only need to have 1 program (Notes) on the client computer takes away the headache that you ususally have when you need to distribute a normal application. With Notes you just send an e-mail with a link and all your users can start using your new database. No need to install anything! You can even use a web browser if you prefer that.
So, open your mind for the great world of Lotus Notes. You will have to stop thinking as a programmer to be able to see the beauty, but you will be able to re-use your programming skills when using Lotus Script or Java.
Nobody likes to change, but if you open up to it you will soon become addicted to Notes just as I!
Good luck!
Dominik Malfait
dominik@amazingit.com
