Lord Lotus Blog - Category : Notes Client

The case of the missing Search toolbar button

Mike Sobczak — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:53:06 -0400

One client I'm working with currently has a few users who are road-testing the Notes 8 Standard client before it is rolled-out throughout the company. One of the users mentioned to me that the Search button is missing from the View toolbar. This button is still there in the Notes 6 and Notes 7 clients:

However, the same button is not available in the Notes 8 Standard client:

Even more interesting is that the button is still visible in the Toolbar Preferences dialog:

Well, it turns out that the user now needs to enable the new Search toolbar for Notes 8 Standard:

I'm guessing that the Search toolbar button is still in the preferences for Notes 8 Basic users.

Another change the user mentioned is how unread mail messages now appear in black bold typeface instead of being "red".

Since Notes 8 has been available since August 2007 (over 1 & 1/2 years), I'm sure that these items are common knowledge to everyone reading this. I guess my reason for bringing this up is that the user in question (and the company he works for) has been using Notes since version 4.0. I can see a lot of initial confusion when people are migrated to the new client. In Notes' defense, this UI confusion won't be any different than switching to the new Vista interface or the Office 2007 "ribbon".

Just out of curiosity, has anyone seen a document that compares the Notes 7 (and prior) UI with the Notes 8 (and 8.5) UI? I'm thinking of something that has screen shots akin to before and after photos...

You can export to a CSV file, but you can't import a CSV file?

Mike Sobczak — Sun, 5 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Since I usually write LotusScript code to handle importing data from spreadsheets, I never noticed this until now. Unbelievable. I wonder how Lotus Software justifies decisions like this one...

Punk'd Again - the case of the missing toolbar

Mike Sobczak — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:45:10 -0400

Since I've been using Notes since v3.33, I'm very accustomed to the Workspace. However, since I upgraded my Notes client on my home PC to 6.5 several months ago, I haven't had the toolbar that includes the Access Control List button:

My Notes client at work has this toolbar, which I confirmed is the "Workspace Toolbar". Its one of the context sensitive toolbars, so I figured that the reason why I wasn't seeing it was because I hadn't enabled it. I just checked my Toolbar Preferences for my Notes client on my home PC, and that wasn't the case. It was enabled, but just wasn't displaying.

I guessed that my toolbars must have gotten messed up when I did the client upgrade, and figured that the way to this toolbar back was to edit it and save it. Many of you will recognize this technique as the first way to resolve the occasionally weird things that happen with either Notes documents or design elements. I added a button to the toolbar and saved it, and lo and behold, the toolbar came back! The mysteries of Notes will never cease...

Never saw this dialog before:

Michael Sobczak — Thu, 7 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0400

One of the applications I support allows the users to switch between logos for the parent company and a subsidiary. Nothing special there. My customer asked me to change the logo for the subsidiary to something new and fancy. When I went to detach it using my Notes R5 client, I got this dialog:

My initial response was, "what the heck is a resource fork?", followed immediately by "what the heck is a data fork?" After having spent the past seven years working with the Notes R5 client, I honestly thought I had seen every dialog there was. However, I hadn't seen this one before. Then again, I haven't been anywhere near a Macintosh since the mid 80's, so whatever funky stuff is going on with Macs these days I would be completely oblivious.

Starting the day off right: An error was encountered while opening a window

Michael Sobczak — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 10:13:33 -0400

I don't know about you, but I really appreciate being greeted by Notes with this friendly message when I attempt to start the client:

Fortunately, Jake's error database put me at ease. The main message seemed to be that I needed to restart my computer. I tried using ZapNotes, and that worked fine.

Hiding the Notes 6.5 [Chat] button in the Notes client

Michael Sobczak — Fri, 3 Dec 2004 00:00:00 -0400

I found out today that the hide/when formula behind the [Chat] shared actions in the Notes mail template only check to see if the user has a 6.5 Notes client, not if they're authorized to use Sametime or not. It would have been nice if these buttons instead your Notes.ini, current Location document or something to see if you are even configured to use a Sametime server ($SametimeHost, maybe?).

So, what did I end up doing? Well, since Sametime isn't set up at my current customer's location, I changed these actions so that they would be hidden for all Notes client users. There has to be a better way...

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 6: Florian to the rescue!

Michael Sobczak — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

After reading through some of the documentation for INTEGRATE!People, I realized that I wouldn't be able to understand the product in just a few hours. So, I wimped out. I e-mailed my desktop6.ndk to Florian and asked very nicely if he could fix it for me. He e-mailed me and said that INTEGRATE!People was able to repair my desktop6.ndk. I detached it and launched my client again, and it worked! Wow. Based on the output messages from the product, I can tell that INTEGRATE!People is a very powerful product. (Click on Read More if you want to see the messages.)

I am definitely in Florian's debt. I have to see if there's a way I can repay him somehow. Perhaps I could write a review of the product. I'll have to see if anyone else has reviewed it anywhere else.

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 4: "Prompt for location on startup" option mystery solved!

Michael Sobczak — Mon, 8 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

I asked my fellow NuTechnicians about why I don't have a "Prompt for location on startup" option in my Notes client, and got back a very usefull response from Ken Sutter. He pointed me to a document in the Lotus Software Knowledge Base titled "Why Can Some Notes 6.x Users Force 'Prompt for Location Change on Startup', While Others Cannot?" (document number 1108193). Here's what it says:

The 'Prompt for Location on Startup' option is obsolete (unavailable) in Notes 6.x. It is no longer a choice in User Preferences. When you launch Notes 6.x Client, you are prompted with the Password dialog box, which now also contains a drop-down for changing the user name and/or location document.

However, if you installed Notes 6.x Client with the 'Single Log On' option, then the 'Prompt for Location' option still exists in User Preferences (in the Additional Options box), since the Password dialog box will not show up under these circumstances.

So, I can get the "Prompt for location on startup" option if I select this option when I install the Notes client. Wow. This install option has probably been around for years, and I just now found out what it meant. I guess I've spent way too much time developing Notes/Domino applications!

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 5: Installing SSO did not bring back my desktop

Michael Sobczak — Mon, 8 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

I installed the SSO option from my Notes 6.5.2 install CD. I opened my Notes 6.5.2 client and enabled the "Prompt for location on startup" option and closed the client. Then, I opened my client again and disabled it. I then switched back to my busted desktop6.ndk and launched the client again. Nada. Still get the same "Database already added to your workspace" message box. So much for Plan A. Plan B is to download a trial copy of INTEGRATE!People and see if it can fix the problem.

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 3: the mysterious "Prompt for location on startup" option

Michael Sobczak — Sun, 7 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

I replied to Florian that I didn't see the "Prompt for location on startup" option in either my 6.0.3 or 6.5.2 client, and he replied that it is there in Notes 6 and 7. He even sent me the following picture:

Florian again gratiously offered to fix my desktop6.ndk for me. He also recommended downloading a copy of INTEGRATE!People, a product available throuh his company, ICODEX. Still not wanting to put Florian through the extra trouble, I decided to keep looking into why I don't have a "Prompt for location on startup" option.

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 2: Lotus Geek posting

Michael Sobczak — Sat, 6 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

My Google seach on "Database already added to your workspace" returned a reference to this post in Rocky Oliver's blog. In one of the comments to Rocky's post, Florian Vogler offered to fix the desktop file. I decided to e-mail Florian directly to see if his offer was still good. He wrote me back and referenced the same topic in the Notes 6 Discussion Forum. This post suggests disabling the "Prompt for location on startup" option as a workaround. From what I can see in my Notes 6.5.2 User Preferences box, I don't have this option. I do see that option in my Notes R5 User Preferences, though. Florian offered to try to fix my desktop6.ndk if I sent it to him, but I figured I should try to get this workaround working before I ask him for more help.

Desktop6.ndk hozed - pt. 1: Database already added to your workspace

Michael Sobczak — Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0400

One of the responsibilities of my current assignment involves creating shared Notes mail files. The first step in the process is using the Notes Admin client to register a new Notes mail user. This creates a new Notes mail file and Notes id as a result. The second step in the process is creating a Location document that switches to the new Notes id and points users can copy to their Personal Address Book. Once a the users have copied the Notes id to their computer and the Location document to their own Personal Address Book, the I was testing a Location document I'd created for a shared Notes mail file I created, when my Notes 6.5.2 client started to flake out. Suspecting that Notes may have been experiencing a memory leak of some kind, I shut down my Notes client. When I launched Notes again, the following message box appeared:

When I clicked the [OK] button, the Notes client shut down. Since I have a lot of icons on my Notes desktop, I was kind of in a panic at this point. I really didn't want to delete my current desktop6.ndk and readd all 100+ icons to my desktop. I tried searching the Notes 6 discussion forum for an answer to this problem, but the discussion forum wasn't responding. I searched Google for "Database already added to your workspace", and found a reference to this entry in the discussion forum. If only the discussion forum was available...