|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LOTUSPHERE ANALYSIS
An in-depth look at the Notes 8 announcements
By Mick Moignard
This is the second of four articles I've written on Lotusphere 2007 and all the new Lotus announcements. In the last article, "The buzz is back at Lotusphere 2007", I talked about the event itself, and provided some of the broad strokes of what was announced. In this article, I take an in-depth look at the Notes 8 announcements. In the next two articles, I'll go further in-depth on each of the key announcements and provide you with some perspective and analysis.
"Since the wobbles of a few years ago, Notes has certainly come back into its own."
|
Ok, so now, let's look at the product announcements.
Lotus Notes 8 is the big one and is what I'm discussing this week. Notes 8 is now IBM's premier, or rather, only, mail platform, Domino DWA (Domino Web Access, aka iNotes) excepted. Since the wobbles of a few years ago, Notes has certainly come back into its own. There's just so much that's new here -- starting with the whole UI -- that I can't do much more than summarise.
The basics
Starting with the basics, yes, there will be a traditional Workspace, but this time, I think that people may start to stray away from it.
The default Home page of Notes has large buttons to access mail, calendars, the productivity editors and more. An Open button at the top left starts a vertical menu that mimics the bookmark tab of Notes 7, and can be docked at the left if need be. Notes apps open to the right of that with the familiar two-pane approach, and then there is a right sidebar with more small apps in it: activities, a day at a glance calendar, an RSS reader and more.
Being Eclipse, of course this sidebar is fully customiseable and apps in it can co-operate with each other and with the main pane. The preview pane can now be displayed vertically to the right of the view instead of underneath it -- and when used like that, the view cleverly reformats itself to cope with the smaller horizontal space. Preferences from Notes and from Mail are consolidated into a dynamic but non unfamiliar preferences menu. What I don't know is whether that can be extended by your own app's profile stuff.
I have to say I played with the Notes 8 client in one of the Hands-On sessions, and it is very cool. It's neat, and does so much more, yet is really very familiar in a fresh kind of way and things are easy to find. It really does look good; Mary Beth Raven and her team have done a first class job of the redesign.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
-- Advertisement --
Sophisticated Meets Simple For Document Management
Share. Control. Manage.
Documents, emails, and content in the context of how work is done.
Native to Lotus Domino. The User Experience unseen for Lotus Domino.
Do more with less. Really.
See the possibilities Docova unleashes for Lotus Domino. |
-- Advertisement --
Integrate your Notes Applications with Microsoft Office and Symphony
Integra for Notes Integrates Microsoft Office and/or IBM Lotus Symphony
Requires NO change to the design of the appliation or Installations of DLL's and EXE's
- Integra is a ready to use solution, enhance static reports with Excel data analysis, pivot tables, macros
- User friendly aproach, using a point and click access to features
- Reports from any Lotus Notes databases
- Runs reports through a Notes client, web browser and scheduled basis
- Allows use of LotusScript for advanced data manipulation
- Enables self service reporting capabilities to end-users
Learn more at www.integra4notes.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
