Lotus Notes: Survival of the Unfittest

blog
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here is a list of some mail shortcuts that were distributed to users at my company:

Open mail window: Alt+B+1
Move to next unread document: F4 or Tab
Move to previous unread document: Shift+F4 or Shift+Tab
Delete selected items permanently: Shift+Delete
Select or deselect item: Spacebar
Mark as read/unread: Insert
Send and close: Shift+Esc
Reply: Alt+2
Reply to all: Alt+3
Forward: Alt+4

these aren’t uber powerful shortcuts, but hopefully some people find them useful.

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I’m amazed that (what I assume to be) I.T. professionals griping about Lotus Notes because they don’t like the keyboard shortcuts!?!?

Let’s all pause for a moment and calculate the ROI or TCO of ‘F5 vs. F9’ … then let’s get on to the real issues.

M. Donohue (April 6, 2006) hit the nail on the head when he listed the FIVE MS servers he would need to reproduce a simple Lotus Domino/Notes application. There is no question that Lotus offers the better value when it comes to custom enterprise apps.

Likewise, Berto (July 27, 2006) made the point that there really isn’t THAT much difference between the client experience (see also: Hotmail vs. Yahoo mail, etc.).

I’ve trained hundreds of novice PC users on Lotus Notes over the last 12 years and it is the easiest app to teach. The best part is that once they know the E-mail, learning any other custom Notes app is a cinch.

I realize these things can be driven by highly relative matters of taste and preference, but c’mon people. Domino Notes are not even the same KIND of software as Exchange Outlook.

Each have their place, but the choice should be driven by business requirements and not arbitrary grouchiness about keyboard shortcuts and minute features.

Duh.

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While I appreciate all the comments in support of Notes, it pales in comparison to a tool such as MS Outlook. The only reason my company continues to use it is because we are signed into such a stranglehold contract with IBM and have spent mucho dineros on Domino servers.

It is shocking that people still consider building apps in Lotus a plus. While easy enough to do, try getting data out or integrating with the rest of the non-Lotus world. I should not need to run out and get a third party API for everything I want to do.

Someone back in 2006 mentioned ROI and I totally agree. The biggest challenge is calculating enough of an ROI from a migration to the Exchange platform that would justify the expense of all the Domino hardware.

Lotus is slow, not friendly, and fat.

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The beauty of Notes is in its flexibility and the Domino server. Also being IBM, they will support a product to the end of the earth. Except for version 8, all code base is a direct descendent of the last version. So, a version 1 database (application) can run on a Domino 7 server and vice versa.

The Domino server is so power packed and extensible. Anybody can develop new server task and addins if they know C/CPP or Java.

The other reason is can you can create apps in the same database (nsf file) that can be simultaneously viewed through a web browser and a Notes client.

Notes/Domino supports LotusScript, Visual Basic/Basic/VBScript (with some exceptions), C/CPP, Java/J2EE, JavaScript, HTML, XML. With some configuration, you can use Perl, PHP, Python, Rexx, ORexx, etc.

The same apps and software can run all major plateforms natively

Just some food for thought

A nsf file is a blank canvas…it is up to the talent of the person writing the code… As they say…it’s not what you got that’s important but how you use it.

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How about the fact that Notes will not take a virus and send it to your first 100 contacts in your address book? Some Companies might like that feature. Spamming your customers, a great feature of Exchange/Outlook. Love that one.

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“Lotus Notes, one of software’s biggest triumphs” - Fortune Magazine.

Fortune magazine published this glowing article about Microsoft with interview quotes from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie. It’s so heavily-biased that it should have carried the term “Advertisement Feature” at the top of the page. Yet despite themselves they included this nugget: “Ozzie - a renowned programmer who had created Lotus Notes, one of software’s biggest triumphs”.

Read the full article below, if you don’t mind wading through a mound of propaganda. Groove barely gets a mention. The final quote from Ozzie is very interesting and suggests to me that he still has a place in his heart for Notes.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/01/8375454/index.htm

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the stupidest moves are in the top of the box office.

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care to elaborate?

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Now that my company has moved from Outlook to Notes 6.5 am having trouble to do the most basic thing as cut-and-paste into Notes say something off a website. Anyway to over come this?? Had tried pasting it to Ms Word and then to Notes and it works but is there a more direct method?!

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I’ve been using Lotus at work since 3 years now. And following is why I think it is better than Outlook.

  1. It does more than just email.
  2. It is more secure.
  3. It has something as good as Domino webmail access which enables mail access on any other computer, which does not have Lotus installed.
  4. I can lock display by pressing F5 when I need to run for a meeting. Any messages I am editing, creating at that time will remain that way once I unlock.
  5. I like the organisation structure that is built in. That ways you get to know who is in IT and who is in Operations and stuff…
  6. Sametime IM is integrated since long in Lotus. IM is something Outlook/ Windows mail is coming to now.
  7. Webmail works on a Firefox browser.
  8. It does more than just email. :wink:

For those who say its slow, I would say I find outlook slower since it is always downloading mail messages, and clogs network traffic, even when I might be working on excel application. But with notes I can choose to download those mails at my convenience. And none of us uses systems with 8MB RAM anymore.

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but it’s just so damn sloooooooow… they shouln’t have done it in java.

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@ AG

Why I absolutely disagree with any of your statements:

  1. It actually does more than just email, though why do more than just emailing when you don’t even get the full emailing functionality right??
  2. It most likely is more secure because you simply cannot access anything without the app crashing or finding the right function for that matter
  3. You can only access LN from the only client you are using. Any other computer besides your own is uncapable to show your emails except for the webmail functionality: it’s just plain stupid! Besides, Outlook webmail is exactly the same, only MS did it right…
  4. Ehh, Windows key + L? Ever noticed?
  5. Maybe you should take a look at Active Directory or NDS (Novell)… When you can read that (which Outlook can), you have that same thing, but not stored in several places – better and easier maintenance
  6. Sametime: yes i have to agree that Sametime 7.5 really works for me. The only good thing about IBM Software.
  7. Not every webpage is Firefox compatible. Besides, I absolutely dislike the functionality to have LN open every single thing for you WITHIN LN. The LN tabs are so unclear, it’s annoying to read every single tab over and over again.
  8. See first point. :wink:

About the slow thing: even with just a 400MB mailfile at startup, I could get coffee, drink it if it’s not too hot, make another cup, go back to my spot, wait some more and put in my password.
(@chila: I agree… Novell Netware did the same thing. Big mistake)

On top of all this: have you ever heard of the apps “killnotes.exe” and “notesreloaded.exe”? I install it on every PC I deliver to my users just because the app crashes SO often (No, it’s not me, it’s the app, trust me). And the best thing is: without such a program you can’t simply restart Notes, you have to perform a full reboot! Isn’t it a shame that actual users have to write their own program to shut down LN properly? I mean… It doesn’t work right, but what kind of program did you write when it can’t even CRASH right?! Ain’t that just a little sad?

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@ chila and diceman: they didn’t do it in Notes. Notes 8.x uses (optionally) the Eclipse framework for its UI. The core Notes code is not Java.

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While Notes does have its foibles, don’t underestimate the business importance of replication. I work in a consulting firm with 100s of users. We work on client sites, often w/o access to the internet, and mobile broadband is useless outside of major cities. Yet with Lotus Notes we can access all our corporate apps - TE, CRM, Knowledge Management, etc. - all without an internet connection. Try doing that with another product! Until internet access is EVERYWHERE, plenty of professional services firms with similar issues (McKinsey anyone?) will continue to use Lotus Notes.

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Everyone!
In Notes there’s only ONE keyboard shortcut you need - F1
This brings up (context sensitive) help. Here you’ll find answers to all your queries

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Everyone

There is only 1 ketboard shortcut yuo need - F1.

This brings up (context-sensitive) help and one of the best help systems around. From here you have all the answers to useabillity questions.

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F1. The one next to the ESC key

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There are three things I definitely hate:

1-Mary-Kate
2-Lotus Notes
3-Ashley Olsen

If you give support to ppl who is trying to the things by their own, Lotus Notes is not the best thing…I mean you can self-repair other software but for Lotus Notes u will need to check a lot of crap, delete, move, edit, “Error encountered while openeing a Window”, Too many Local Replicas, Nsfs Currupted, “Ohh I deleted my Mailfile and the notes.ini”, etc,etc. Everyone should go gmail…hehehe.

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Opps I think it was: Mary and Kate Ashley. I do not feel stupid for getting her names messed up though…lol

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I use notes8 daily on my Linux workstation. Something I couldn’t do with outlook. My browser uses ctrl+r to refresh, so why should notes use f5? Thats different to what I’m used to.
Im not saying notes is the best app in the world, or even in its domain, but just because its different to outlook doesn’t make it bad.