XPages newbie - view columns in discussion database

Question

I'm a traditional domino developer just beginning XPages. I'm working on modifying the standard 8.5.3 Domino discussion database. I've added some fields on the Main Topic and response forms, one called category. I've added a categorised column in the ($xpAllDocuments) view to the left of "Topic" for the category field. This works fine in Notes as you'd expect, but when the view is rendered in the All Documents xpage, the category twiste displays without any label. I'm not sure how to modify the column data for the xpage, as it seems to use a repeat? instead of a view?

Any help greatly appreciated, and apologies for the presumably basic enquiry!

Answer 1

You have to add the categories column to custom control allDocumentsView which renders the view for browser.

How to find out where to set the new categorized column? A good way is to look at the "All properties" of a certain element. For that, open the Source pane of custom control allDocumentsView, position cursor on <xe:dataView and look at "All Properties". If you hover over the properties' labels you get a helper window with a short explanation.

In your case, property categoryColumn is what you are looking for. Assuming you added a categorized column Categories to view ($xpAllDocuments) then you would have to put into property categoryColumn:

With that, your source code gets expanded by

    <xe:this.categoryColumn>
        <xe:viewCategoryColumn
            columnName="Categories"
            columnTitle="Categories">
        </xe:viewCategoryColumn>
    </xe:this.categoryColumn>

and you will see the added categorized column in your rendered XPage.

Answer 2

I don't know the discussion template in detail, but when the All Documents Xpage is using a repeat control, then you cannot expect an automatic category expand/collapse feature as in a Notes view. If you want that, you need a View control on the Xpage.