Domino as a rapid development tool for web applications

My colleages know very well what an impatient person I really am. "Don't make me wait" is the number one rule with me. I also like speed racing. Not with cars, but with web development. That is also the main reason why I like developing with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino so much. But now I really want to find out how fast it is humanly possible to develop a site in Domino, starting from a complete blank database and blogging about the process at the same time.

The requirements

• The site has to be XHTML 1.0 Strict, using semantic HTML and non-obtrusive JavaScript. These are the minimal requirements for any website developed today.
• The maintenance will be done in a Notes client.
• The navigation will be a configurable, one level horizontal menu of sections.
• Each section can be an index page with a list of pages or a page on itself.
• A normal page can contain text, images and links.
• Besides these normal pages, the website will contain also image galleries and a list of external links to other websites.
• The site will have a breadcrumb trail on every page except the homepage
• The site will also contain a full text search possibility.

Because normally you already have a style guide, the time to make this is not included in the development time.

The planning

It's almost 11pm when I write this. Tomorrow I have to go shopping and in the evening I am going to the movies with my daughter, so the biggest part of the development will be on Sunday. I plan to finish the application and a few documents Sunday night. First thing to do is empty a database and make a nice design. Here is the link to the database. If you are fast, you will find it is empty.

To be continued tomorrow...