That's it, that's all you need to do to both help organize your emails more efficiently and make your mail file more visually appealing. I've come to rely on this feature so much that I find it hard now to look at my mail file directly on a Domino R5 server because I can't see the color-coding. Of course, this could be because I am easily amused.

You can find the PowerBoards discussion for this tip at http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee7005a.

Using the "Copy View as Table" feature in Notes 6
One of the many cool new features of Notes 6 is the "Copy View as Table" feature. This allows you to select documents in a view and then copy them as a table that you can then insert into another Notes document such as a mail message. What's especially nice is that the table will even include doclinks that the user can click on to go to the full document being summarized.

The instructions on how to do this are simple. First, select the documents in a view you want to copy as a table. Then, from the Edit menu choose Copy View as Table. Finally, choose a Notes rich text field you want to put the contents into and choose Paste from the Edit menu or press CTRL + V. Presto, the selected documents from the view are now summarized in a neat little table, complete with doclinks.

I tested sending a message with a view table using Notes 6 Pre-release 1 to both a Notes R5 user (thanks, Sladin!) and a Hotmail user. The R5 client received the message just fine, as you would expect. The formatting in Hotmail, however, while readable, was obviously not nearly as nice. The table was created using dashes and pipe characters and could not be forwarded without losing all of its formatting. This feature is best reserved for communicating only with fellow Notes users and is one of those things that make Notes fun to use.

You can find the PowerBoards discussion on this topic at http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6ff91.

Make Notes 6 quicker with Quick Notes
Yes, I'll admit it, I'm still a Workspace-aholic. I haven't been able to break the habit since I first started using Lotus Notes way back in 1996. I've tried Welcome pages, but it seems like I always end up going back to the good ol' hard stuff, the Workspace. I'm always open to change, though, and one of the new features in Notes 6 that has got me re-evaluating my Workspace dependence again is the cool new Quick Notes capability.

Quick Notes can be found in the Basics Welcome page (at the far right--click the blue arrow if you don't see it), and it allows you to do the following things without having to open any databases:

• Compose a quick email message consisting of a To field, a Subject, and a Body;

• Create a new contact in your Personal Address Book by specifying a First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and Phone Number;

• Write a journal entry with a Subject, Category, and Body;

• Create a Quick reminder that can notify you about anything you want to be reminded about.