ready well
positioned. Still, as 32-bit OSes, applications suites, and Web browsers all add groupware and work-flow features, Notes' lead is not invulnerable.
Love Notes
For people who use Notes on a daily basis, the new release is a gold mine of clarity and improvements. Lotus has junked the Byzantine menu structure of the client interface, reorganizing navigation, applications-development, and administration tools into logical groups.
For example, in Notes 3.0, you had to open databases from one menu, view information about database replication and access control from another, and create a new database from a third. Notes 4.0 provides a single menu gateway to database services; you can also bring up context-sensitive menus by right-clicking on the database's icon. Choosing the Properties item brings up the new InfoBox dialog box. The tabbed window "floats" above the Workspace, letting you make interactive changes to replication settings, design and launch options, an
d modify other relevant properties.
Browsing Notes databases is made more intuitive by a cc:Mail-like pane interface. Double-clicking on a database icon now defaults to
a two-pane view
, with a hierarchical Folders and Views pane to the left and a larger Active View pane filling the balance of the screen. You can split the screen again vertically by choosing the Document Preview menu command or click on the appropriate SmartIcon. The Preview pane lets you browse documents without clearing the Unread Mark flag. We found this a great way to get a quick overview of new documents while leaving a more thorough look for later.
The Folders and Views pane displays the names of all views, folders, agents, and (if allowed) design elements of the database. As with Notes 3.0, views use selection formulas to determine what documents appear in each view. Notes 4.0 designers can set up user-sorted view columns, where clicking on the column can toggle or cycle among ascending, descending, an
d no sort order. This is easier to use than the old View menu, and it cuts down on the number of views needed.
Folders are new to Notes 4.0; they let you store and manage related documents without needing categories and the required Categories field. Folders can be private or shared. Users with reader access to a database can create private folders, while you must have designer access to create shared ones.
You can base the folder's design on any view or create one from scratch. Then it's a simple matter of dragging and dropping documents on a folder's icon. The dragged document remains in its original view and can be simultaneously stored in multiple folders. You can move folders themselves into other folders, but only if they are hierarchically unrelated.
Notes 4.0 provides a new front-end design type for databases called Navigators. Accessed from the View/Show menu, these graphical buttons replace the Folders and Views list in the navigation pane. Clicking on these objects triggers Not
es actions (e.g., opening a view or launching a program). The designer can use Navigators to assign aliases to folders, giving users an intuitive way of dragging and dropping information onto visually descriptive icons.
The action buttons from Notes 3.0 now behave more appropriately. They remain in place in the new action bar at the top of views and documents while you scroll through your data. This allows one set of buttons for reading and another for editing documents.
Feel the Power
Under the hood, Lotus has reworked the scripting technology to accommodate both the average user and the advanced programmer. Notes 3.0's macros have given way to agents. The Agent Builder window serves as an introductory gateway to Notes 4.0's centralized scripting services. Harnessing an agent to process some documents is as easy as choosing Create/Agent and selecting either a time or event that triggers the agent.
The designer can access programming tools from several directions. In
the navigation pane, you click on a design tool such as Forms or Views and then double-click on a component to open it in design mode. The integrated development environment
(IDE) includes
the Design pane, the Actions pane, and the now-familiar Properties Box. Depending on the type of Notes object that is involved, you can apply another simple action, a formula, or a script by choosing the appropriate option button.
At the intermediate level of complexity, Notes 4.0's formula language retains compatibility with release 3.0's macros, adding @Functions and @Commands that support the new design capabilities. Now you can write formulas for a variety of Notes objects, including buttons, SmartIcons, sections, hidden paragraphs, window titles, keyword fields, and subforms.
The new @DialogBox function exploits Notes 4.0's layout-region technology to create modular custom dialog boxes that float on top of the current document. Subforms are used throughout the new applications templat
es to store common fields and other form elements in reusable modules. For example, the standard mail Memo form lets you select from one of several letterhead subforms. You can use another computed subform to add a new Mood Stamp graphic to indicate visually the nature of the message.
If formulas don't provide the needed automation, Notes is now turbocharged with LotusScript, a cross-platform, Visual Basic-compatible scripting language with object-oriented extensions. LotusScript interfaces with Notes through predefined object classes and their associated methods and properties. They deliver capabilities beyond the scope of formulas, such as the ability to manipulate a database access-control list.
Visual Basic users will feel at home with LotusScript. An object browser window allows you to navigate through Notes classes, constants, subs, functions, and variables, as well as OLE 2 classes resident on your workstation. Activating the debug mode pauses script execution at the first line and opens
the debugger window. You can set breakpoints, step through scripts, and view the name, value, and data type of a procedure's variables.
Help for the Wary
As with Notes 3.0, you implement the Help system as a Notes database. The default installation adds a slimmed-down HelpLite database, but we selected Custom Install to add the full-blown 22-MB Help file. Virtually all the printed documentation is available on-line. Unfortunately, it is scattered among similarly named categories, including How Do I...?, Tell me about..., Common tasks, What's new, Troubleshooting, and the instrument of last resort, a comprehensive index. A LotusScript tutorial introduces you to the Notes classes, but the Tell me about... view's LotusScript Notes Classes A-Z is the only rich source of sample code.
Notes 4.0 ships without its predecessor's sample applications, but with newly designed templates that take advantage of the new interface and programming tools. Some of these new features are automat
ically enabled during the migration from release 3.0 to release 4.0. The Mail template adds user-friendly options, such as the Out-of-Office agent to replace the kludgy vacation macros you had to manually configure in the previous incarnation.
It's in the Mail
Action-bar buttons and agents turn the Mail database into a full-fledged Grand Central Station for your communications work flow. You point and click for various send and delivery options, most notably a Prevent Copying setting that keeps designated messages from being copied to the clipboard, forwarded, or printed without permission. Work-flow tools abound. You can choose the Convert to Task action and route a message to an assistant and then track its status in the Task folder.
Mail also includes special forms, such as the Serial Route Memo, which pauses at each of multiple addresses until the contents are read and signed off on. If you come across a document you'd like someone to review, just select Create/SpecialBo
okmark and a doclink is automatically created and pasted into a memo, ready for addressing to a single recipient or multiple recipients. Another time-saver is the Add Sender to Address Book action, which converts the From field of a received mail memo into a Person document in your private Names and Address book.
The Lotus SmartSuite and Microsoft Office Library templates leverage OLE 2 to launch embedded documents in Review Cycle routing applications. You might use this feature to assign a list of document reviewers, specify how edits and comments are stored, and perform a "file lock" at the server to warn editors that a review is in progress. Other release 4.0 templates include the Personal Journal, Room Reservations, and Approval Cycle databases. Templates from release 3.0 continue to work without any problems, but you'll need a migration strategy to access the new features.
Managing the Network
Although Lotus recommends first upgrading the server to release 4.0, we were
able to use a 4.0 client in conjunction with a 3.0 server without problems. Upgrading the workstation proved uneventful; the installation program migrated all current Workspace and connection document settings. We had to find User Preferences in the Tools menu to turn on right-double-clicking to exit a document, and we had to manually configure some of the favorite SmartIcons (e.g., Scan Unread).
Notes 4.0 makes huge strides in its replication tools, both in terms of performance (see the sidebar
"Notes Replication: Outstanding in Its Field"
) and interface design. The Workspace now includes a Replicator work page, where you can select and configure which databases, folders, views, and/or design elements will replicate. You change the order in which databases replicate by dragging and dropping database icons. You right-click on a database icon to immediately replicate just that database or click on the action bar to send and receive mail or replicate high-priority databases.
There are man
y nice touches for mobile users. The installation program creates four default location documents: office, travel, home, and disconnected. If you connect to remote databases via an Internet service provider, an Internet document is added (see the sidebar
"Passing Notes on the Internet"
). You can switch locations from the File/Mobile menu or more easily via the location indicator on the status bar.
Other innovations include icon stacking, where a single icon represents replica icons for remote and server access. You can single-click on the icon stack to switch from one replica to another via a menu, but the program is smart enough to do the right thing, automatically depending on which location document is loaded.
If you're concerned about security when using your laptop on the road, Notes now lets you encrypt local databases at one of three levels. A database's access-control list is now also locally enforced, letting assistants work with the same kind of information they would be allow
ed to access if they were connected to a Notes server on a LAN.
Administrators will find it easier to do their job from remote locations. The Public Address Book contains a Server Configuration document in which you can specify NOTES.INI settings for a single server, a group of servers, or for all servers in a domain. You can reach the Server Configuration view by clicking on an icon in the Administration Control Panel (ACP).
You launch the ACP database from the Tools menu, or you can configure the Notes client for administration mode, which loads the database on start-up. The ACP's GUI brings all of release 3.0's scattered administration tools under one coherent roof. You can click on icons to open the Notes Log, the Statistics and Events database, and the Database Catalog; register and certify users and servers; and track down mail problems with the new Send Mail Trace feature.
The Public Address Book contains new roles and groups that allow the delegation of administrative tasks withou
t giving complete administrator access. An Administration agent automates the renaming and deleting of users on servers throughout the enterprise. Administrators can also control which users can create agents in a particular database via the enhanced access-control list.
Notes 4.0's 32-bit multithreaded architecture can take advantage of symmetrical multiprocessing, with up to six processors per server allowing as many as five times the number of users. This reduces server-to-server replication and makes enterprise management simpler to maintain. The new server pass-through technology lets remote users make a single phone call to replicate with any available server on the LAN. Also, users of Microsoft Remote Access Service (RAS) remote LAN services can now perform all Notes tasks, including replication and routing mail, as if directly connected to the Notes servers.
Flies in the Ointment
Notes still has a way to go before Visual Basic programmers will feel completely at home
. You can't easily move buttons around on the screen by clicking and dragging; instead, you cut the object to the clipboard and then paste it in at a new location. The LotusScript object-oriented extensions are powerful, but you won't find much help on the subject in either the printed or on-line documentation.
Importing data from a non-Notes database source is now viable using the new Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) support, but it requires scripting instead of a wizard-type helping hand. The product still ships without any calendaring or scheduling templates or sample applications. Lotus has announced a second-quarter release of a pair of updated Notes clients that add some Lotus Organizer functions.
With release 4.0's extensive and growing support for OLE automation and OLE custom controls (OCXes), the stage is set for Lotus's component strategy. It plans to have shipped by now a toolkit of spreadsheet, word processing, project scheduling, image viewer, and other OCXes. This neatly dovetail
s with Microsoft's announced intention to provide OCX-creation capabilities in the next version of Visual Basic.
Hitting the Grace Notes
Notes may still have its idiosyncrasies, but release 4.0 goes a long way toward reaching the mass audience its developers envisioned. By standardizing on a BASIC familiar to millions of Visual Basic programmers, enhancing Notes' lead in replication and cross-platform development, and adding a mature groupware product to the Web equation, Lotus and IBM have taken giant steps in cementing Notes' role in the next evolution of computing.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Lotus Notes release 4.0
estimated retail price, single-processor server.......$495
desktop client.........................................$69 ($275 with development tools)
Lotus Development Corp.
Cambridge, MA
Phone: (800) 343-5414 or (617) 577-8500
Internet:
http://www.lotus.com
Circle 1193 on Inquiry Card.
Notes 4.0: Now It's Webware
