Getting started with R5
R5's opening screen, shown in Figure A, is simple enough for nearly any end user to sit down and start using basic features such as email, calendaring/scheduling, task management, and the user's address book. This represents a huge difference between the R4 and R5 clients. The results of early pilots and demonstrations we've done for clients have been very favorable with regard to the usability of R5.

FIGURE A


When you start the R5 client, it's very easy to chose your path. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The "Welcome Page" may be easily customized. End users may select the number of frames that appear on the page, and select the information that appears in each of the frames. Choices include the user's mail, calendar entries, and to-do items, as well as user-selectable web sites.

The user may also add a "subscription" to the Welcome Page. The subscription might monitor incoming mail messages or databases for specific keywords and then display these on the Welcome Page. A customized Welcome Page may be built by administrators, then deployed with clients, allowing an organization to easily build and control the user's desktop space.

A customized Welcome Page is shown below in Figure B.

FIGURE B


You can customize your welcome page to show anything. We recommend welcoming yourself to DominoPower. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The R5 Notes client interface has taken on a browser-like feel, including the implementation of forward, back, refresh, search, and open URL buttons. Desktop icons have been replaced by the concept of bookmarks, but R5 allows the end user to bookmark both Notes database and Web sites.

Signatures and rules
It's apparent that Lotus has gotten very serious about fixing a hole in its Lotus Notes product line: the lack of a world class email client. Although you could cobble together both signature forms and mail-processing actions, these were not user-ready features of R4. These are finally available in the R5 Notes client.

Signatures give an end user a method of easily identifying themselves by adding a text message to the end of each sent message. Signatures may be added to the R4 Notes client through customization, but this simply adds another item to change and administer within the R4 environment.

Rules processing is a requirement in any email package -- especially in this world of rampant "spam". Rules processing provides for the automatic processing of mail dependent upon the sender's address, subject field, or content. A typical usage would be to automatically file mail into a specific folder based on the sender's address. In R4, this functionality must be implemented by either third party add-ons, or by writing agents (in my opinion, the equivalent of telling end users to flog themselves with sticks).

Going mobile with R5
Mobile support is greatly enhanced in the R5 Notes client. Of particular interest is the Lightweight Mobile Directory, which provides the user the ability to store the organization's enterprise directory on a laptop. This was only marginally possible in R4 by replicating the public name and address book (NAB) down to the mobile desktop. Unfortunately, within large environments the public R4 NAB requires an exorbitant amount of disk space, and (as if that weren't painful enough) search times when doing name lookups made the local replica solution unusable. Lightweight Mobile Directory solves this problem by greatly reducing the storage space required while increasing search speed.