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HANDS-ON NOTES CUSTOMIZATION
Add random quotes and signatures to your Notes mail messages
By Richard Echeandia
I don't know about you, but I like Notes mail. It's pretty straightforward; it's powerful and highly extensible. If you're a Notes developer or administrator, you can modify the system to suit your needs or tastes.
One of the things that I've always found lacking (pre-R5) was signature file ability. In most mail systems, signature files can automatically be appended to the bottom of your outbound email messages. The signature file can contain a standard "signature" to your memos and many users also include contact information and sometimes a quote that the sender finds meaningful.
The fine folks at Iris and Lotus have now added a signature file capability to the Notes client in R5. You can either enter some standard text to be inserted at the bottom of all your messages, or you can choose to insert the contents of an ASCII or HTML file. What about those of us that still need to use R4 or want a random message placed at the bottom of the email, though?
If you've ever wondered how to do those types of things, this month's article is for you. I know it's not the most technically aggressive topic in the world, but this'll be one that will have your co-workers asking "How did you do that?"
"Quote-ster" design criteria
Even though this isn't incredibly serious work, it's still a good idea to step back and think about what we want our enhancements to accomplish. That way, we can design the features accordingly. I'd like the modified version of my Notes mail signature file to:
- Automatically place my name, phone numbers and email address at the bottom of every outgoing message;
- Automatically put a random quotation below the contact information of my email;
- Work with a second Notes database that stores the quotations.
In short, I'd like to automatically generate a signature at the bottom of each message. Check out Figure A for an example.
FIGURE A
 
A name, contact information and a randomly selected quote can be added to the bottom of your mail messages. Roll over picture for a larger image.
Because we're modifying the design of our mail database, you'll need to have a Notes designer ID, not just the access privileges of a desktop or mail user. Additionally, because we'll be changing the design of one of the most important databases in Lotus Notes, don't forget to make a copy of the database (or just its design) before beginning the changes shown below. That way you can recover your original design if something should go wrong. Let's say that again. Make a backup. Backup. Make a backup.
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