Testing process, take 2
I had begun to install and configure the beta version of Shimmer when the folks at Lotus let me know about another way to preview the product, a hosted iNotes Web Access server off of the Notes.net site. Point your browser to http://www.notes.net/inoteswebaccessdemo and you can create your own iNotes mail account. The account will only be active for 48 hours on their server, but it makes it much easier to test drive the beta without downloading all of the server and client code. An additional benefit is that you get to install and use the product from an end-user's perspective. To test the product, I went to the Web site, created a temporary logon account (only four fields on the registration form, thank you Lotus!) and was up and running in less than five minutes.

Working with the program
Once I was registered, the opening screen was displayed, as seen in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Once installed, the beta version of Shimmer displays a standard welcome page. Click picture for a larger image.

By clicking on the "Edit Layout" button, I was able to modify the layout of the welcome page. The options in the Web version aren't as extensive as those available in the R5 client, but it still affords a high degree of customization for your users. You can choose to display up to four windows on the welcome page, and these windows can contain the email inbox, calendar, to-do list, Web quick links, a Web page and, if SameTime is installed, a listing of who's currently online. Some nice additions to the inbox are that you can choose to display only a certain number of messages, only display messages from a specific user, or display messages of a certain priority.

After modifying the welcome page and saving the settings, I was off and running. My modified welcome page is pictured in Figure B.

FIGURE B

I was able to easily modify the welcome page to the one shown above. Click picture for a larger image.

iNotes Web Access component #1: Email
The Shimmer implementation of email will probably be instantly usable for anyone that has worked with any Web-based email system before. Creating new messages or viewing old ones happens in a new browser window, removing a major inconvenience from the current version of the Web client. Available within the mail form are the usual To, Cc, Bcc, Subject, and Body fields. Message addressing is accomplished by clicking on any of the field labels for the To, Cc, or Bcc fields, displaying a window with contacts that can be double-clicked. Any number of file attachments can be dragged and dropped from Internet Explorer into messages. The attached documents will appear in a view at the bottom of the message window. The format for this view can be toggled between varying levels of detail.

As with the regular Lotus Notes client, messages can be saved as drafts, use delivery priorities, use delivery confirmations, and return receipts. For the first time, the Web client offers the ability to check the spelling of messages. This function isn't available in the current off-line version of the beta product, but it should be an important feature if delivered in the final product. Unlike the Lotus Notes client though, there are some additional attributes that can be applied to the Body field of messages. The current build allows you to apply graphical text with animation, hypertext links with rollover titles, or in-stream images. The iNotes Web mail component is pictured in Figure C.