.. and the process has had it's peaks and valleys. I have been a N/D developer and business partner since 1995 but have developed exclusively in the N?D Client environment so things like JavaScript, JAVA and the some of the concepts of XPages took some time for me to wrap my mind around. Having said that can you create the same user experience in XPages as a Notes Client, the answer is probably but I'm not sure that you want to. XPages is so much richer a development environment and you can do almost anything you want. I will make this statement -- when I started in XPages I started to do what I did in Notes in XPages and this was a mistake, because I limited my application and it's ultimate capabilities. But you have all of the standard picklists, actions buttons etc (only better). In Xpages you will use views and you can put them directly onto any XPage by dragging and dropping a view, but then I was missing all the power and flexibility of repeat controls. Spent a lot of time going down this road before I switch to repeat controls - it really is no contest.

If you are just starting out then here are some tips that have saved me lots of hours and I wish I had done this sooner::

1.. Get the books "Mastering XPages" and "XPages Extension Library" from IBM Press (available from amazon as hard copy or electronic)

2.. go to http://tlcc.com and sign up for their introduction to XPages course - it is free - then consider signing up for the whole series there is a charge but will worth it (I get nothing for this endorsement)

3.. go to David Leedy's http://xpages.tv and there are over 100 videos on all sorts of topics related to XPages. Most of them are around 10 minutes but there are several extended additions that address major topics. Can't even guess at how much time they have ended up saving me. Wish I had watched the videos on repeat controls and JAVA Beans much earlier in my experience.

Having said this I still do a fair bit of native Notes work and when I do there are so many things I know I could do better in XPage, and the Web experience and the Notes experience are exactly the same.

Andy - 

It's an interesting question....  As Bill pretty much says "why would you want to?".  

The very fact that in XPages you can work with multiple datasources at a time, you can effectively "join" 2 views, and you're UI limitations are pretty much non existant means you can do things in XPages that are literally impossible in the client.  There's just so much more functionality available.  BUT it's not a desktop application.  It's a website so there are some limitations there in talking to .dll's and stuff.  I have no idea what SWING Integrator is but that jumps out as a likely problem.  In the web world data is typically exchanged via REST type API's.

Forms, views, embedded Views, and action buttons are nothing really.  That's all built in.  Picklists might be slightly more manual depending on what you're doing. There are controls in the Ext. Library (Part of 9.0) and also custom controls on OpenNTF.  Agents are the same. There's no true "XPages Agent".  There's the concept of an "XAgent" but you can't schedule that.  So for scheduled jobs you still use the same LotusScript or Java agent that you do today.

If you go into a NEW XPage project trying to make a Client app it will likely fail.  You need to go in with an XPage mentality and not a Client mentality.  That's not to say that you can't put XPages "on top" of an existing client app and run both at the same time.  That's very doable.

XPages is like everything else.  It's all 1's and 0's.  Some things are really easy.  Some things are rather difficult. There is a learning curve. Depending on your background it might be rather steep.  I always recommend working on a low pressure "play project" to establish a little comfort zone and momentum.

My sites : notesin9.com / xpages.tv / xpagescheatsheet.com have a lot of getting started information that might be helpful.  Suggest you look at the episode guide in the getting started section.  http://www.mindmeister.com/280533435/notesin9

Good Luck

Dave