Customizing XPages applications using Bluemix™ and Domino® Designer

Overview

XPages applications created on Bluemix™ can be imported from the Bluemix™ site into your Designer client to make local modifications. You can then push the newly modified version of your application back to Bluemix™ so that the original application stored on Bluemix™ will be replaced by the new version to reflect the changes that you made.

This process can be useful for making minor application user interface changes, making changes to existing forms and views, or adding code to the application created on Bluemix™. You currently are not able to do these kinds of application modifications from the Bluemix™ site.

Another way to use Bluemix™ and Domino® Designer together when developing XPages applications is to create the original application in Domino® Designer and then modify it so that it can be pushed (deployed) to the Bluemix™ site. You can then work with the application back and forth between Bluemix™ and Domino® Designer to make future modifications.

Use cases covered

The use cases covered in this section include:

• Bluemix™ and Designer Use Case 1 - Bluemix™ to Designer to Bluemix™ - In this scenario the original application was created in Bluemix™ and then imported locally to Domino® Designer for modifications. After modifying the application in Designer, the application is then pushed back (deployed) to the Bluemix™ site to replace the original application with the modified version.
• Bluemix™ and Designer Use Case 2 - Designer to Bluemix™ - In this scenario the original application has been created in Domino® Designer and split into data and design elements so that it can be compatible with the Bluemix™ model. It can then be deployed (pushed) to the Bluemix™ site to be hosted there. You can then work with the application back and forth between Bluemix™ and Domino® Designer if you need to make to make future modifications.
• Bluemix™ and Designer Use Case 3 - Hybrid applications - In this scenario, the key characteristic of the hybrid application is that the application data resides outside of Bluemix. The advantages of the hybrid application model is that you can use trusted Domino® server configuration options like password management and directory assistance to help span the cloud and on-premises platforms used in association with Bluemix.