A Beginner's Guide to Developing Documentum® Desktop Applications Techniques and Solutions Using Visual Basic® and the DFC M. Scott Roth A Beginner's Guide to Developing Documentum® Desktop Applications A Beginner's Guide to Developing Documentum® Desktop Applications Techniques and Solutions Using Visual Basic® and the DFC M. Scott Roth Disclaimer The author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book is complete, and accurate. This information is provided "as is". The author makes no warranty concerning the information, and shall have no liability with respect to loss or damages arising from its use. Trademarks All terms and product names mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks have been properly spelled, capitalized, and notated. The use of a term or name in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, registered trademark, or service mark. Documentum, Documentum Desktop, Documentum Application Builder, Documentum Server, Workspace, Docbase and Content Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Documentum, a division of EMC Corporation, in the United States and other countries. Windows, Visual Basic, Visual Studio and IntelliSense are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and other countries. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Verity, TOPIC and KeyView are registered trademarks of Verity, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle, Corp. in the United States and other countries. Copyright © 2005 M. Scott Roth All Rights Reserved Dedication I thankfully dedicate this book, as with all of my labors, to the glory of God. I also dedicate this book to my loving wife, Rachael, who has tolerated me sitting at this keyboard every night. I love you. And to my daughter, Kristin, who is my treasure. Micah 6:8 Joshua 24:15 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE.......................................................................................................... VII ABOUT THE AUTHOR ........................................................................................VIII CONTACT INFORMATION...................................................................................VIII REFERENCES .....................................................................................................VIII 1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................... 1 1.1 WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK?............................................................ 2 1.2 ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK................................................................ 3 1.3 SOURCE CODE.......................................................................................... 4 1.4 CONVENTIONS USED IN THIS BOOK......................................................... 5 1.4.1 Typographic .................................................................................... 5 1.4.2 Variables And Source Code............................................................ 6 1.4.3 Class And Interface Nomenclature ................................................. 6 1.5 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCUMENTUM FOUNDATION CLASSES 7 1.5.1 Docbase Classes ............................................................................. 9 1.5.2 Service Classes.............................................................................. 10 1.5.3 Documentum Desktop Classes...................................................... 12 1.6 OVERVIEW OF A DOCUMENTUM DESKTOP APPLICATION...................... 12 1.7 INTERFACE INHERITANCE AND TYPE CASTING IN VISUAL BASIC.......... 15 2 GETTING STARTED WITH APPLICATIONS AND .............................. COMPONENTS.......................................................................................... 19 2.1 BUILDING A STANDALONE APPLICATION .............................................. 20 2.1.1 Setting Up A Standalone Application Project............................... 21 2.1.2 Application Skeleton Code............................................................ 24 2.1.3 Debugging And Testing The Application...................................... 27 2.1.4 Packaging And Deploying the Application................................... 27 2.2 BUILDING A COMPONENT...................................................................... 28 2.2.1 A Word About COM And Documentum Components................... 29 2.2.2 Setting Up A Component Project.................................................. 30 2.2.3 Component Skeleton Code ............................................................ 36 2.2.4 Debugging And Testing The Component ...................................... 41 2.2.5 Packaging A Component............................................................... 48 2.2.6 Adding A Component To A DocApp ............................................. 50 2.3 MODIFYING THE DOCUMENTUM DESKTOP MENU ................................. 54 i 2.3.1 A Word About Menus.................................................................... 55 2.3.2 Adding A Global Component To The Menu.................................. 55 2.3.3 Adding A Type-Specific Component To The Menu....................... 58 2.3.4 Adding An Executable Application To The Menu......................... 59 2.4 MODIFYING DOCUMENTUM DESKTOP COMPONENTS............................. 60 2.5 TROUBLESHOOTING COMPONENT DELIVERY ......................................... 62 2.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY .............................................................................. 63 3 WORKING WITH QUERIES AND COLLECTIONS .......................... 65 3.1 HOW TO QUERY THE DOCBASE............................................................. 66 3.1.1 Using Run Query........................................................................... 66 3.1.2 Using The Query Manager ........................................................... 68 3.1.3 Using The IDfQuery Class............................................................ 74 3.2 TYPES OF QUERIES ................................................................................ 76 3.2.1 SQL Pass-Through Queries .......................................................... 76 3.2.2 Cached Queries............................................................................. 78 3.2.3 Full-Text Queries.......................................................................... 82 3.3 HOW TO PROCESS COLLECTIONS........................................................... 95 3.3.1 Basic Collection Processing ......................................................... 95 3.3.2 Tracing For Open Collections...................................................... 98 3.3.3 Calculating The Size Of Collections............................................. 99 3.3.4 Recursive Processing Of Collections.......................................... 101 3.3.5 Processing Collections With Unknown Content......................... 104 3.4 USEFUL QUERIES ................................................................................. 106 3.4.1 Full-Text Queries........................................................................ 107 3.4.2 Full-Text Index Queries .............................................................. 109 3.4.3 Registered Table Queries............................................................ 111 3.4.4 Virtual Document Queries .......................................................... 114 3.4.5 Workflow Queries ....................................................................... 115 3.4.6 Inbox Queries.............................................................................. 119 3.4.7 Object Queries ............................................................................ 120 3.4.8 Content, Cabinet, and Folder Queries........................................ 121 3.4.9 Setting Up Indexes ...................................................................... 124 3.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ............................................................................ 124 4 IMPLEMENTING CORE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS............................................................................................. 126 4.1 IMPLEMENTING LIBRARY FUNCTIONS WITH THE DFC ........................ 127 4.1.1 Creating Objects ......................................................................... 127 4.1.2 Deleting Objects.......................................................................... 131 4.1.3 Copying Objects.......................................................................... 136 ii 4.1.4 Checking Out And Editing Objects............................................. 140 4.1.5 Viewing Objects .......................................................................... 142 4.1.6 Canceling A Checkout................................................................. 142 4.1.7 Checking In Objects.................................................................... 143 4.2 IMPLEMENTING LIBRARY FUNCTIONS WITH DFC OPERATION ................. CLASSES .............................................................................................. 145 4.2.1 Overview Of Using Operations................................................... 148 4.2.2 Creating And Viewing Objects.................................................... 149 4.2.3 Deleting Objects.......................................................................... 149 4.2.4 Copying Objects.........................................................................