Ed Brill

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1. 1  Frank http://www.domino-admin.co.uk | 4/6/2004 10:00:00 AM

   Oh, how I have waited for such a piece of news. Now I have more ammo! This will give me hours of endless, sadistic pleasure (sad, I know..) when debating Notes & Outlook UIs with my M$ biased colleagues.

   But wait! Isn't this story 6 days too late? Somebody pinch me....!

1. 2  Jan Van Puyvelde  | 4/6/2004 10:14:27 AM

   So "Windows compatible" isn't what it claims to be.

1. 3  Al Hughes  | 4/6/2004 10:27:55 AM

   I have just spammed all of our little side-alley Exchange community on the assumption that all of 'em must have mentioned this at some point in the past.

   Still, what is the nefarious purpose behind this change and what does F5 do now? Nothing as far as I can tell. I'm guessing MS are trying to encourage you not to do Send/Recive anymore and instead rely upon the mighty Cached Mode to keep you up to date...

1. 4    | 4/6/2004 10:29:18 AM

1. 5  jonvon  | 4/6/2004 10:37:24 AM

   maybe this is the first step toward getting away from using the IE engine, for um, better security...

1. 6  Tonyo www.tonyollivier.com | 4/6/2004 11:11:14 AM

   did the guy not like Notes or something ? it was unclear

1. 7  Mike Brown  | 4/6/2004 11:53:51 AM

   And unlike the Excel refresh key, there's a chance you might actually use it in Word, once in a while. I often use it to refresh a Word document's Table of Contents, for example.

   Cheers,

   - Mike

1. 8  Mikkel Heisterberg  | 4/6/2004 1:24:00 PM

   OK - please read the following as constructive comments (though it may not sound like it)... :-D I myself have been working with Notes for many years and own a company doing Lotus Notes consulting, is an IBM business partner etc. etc.

   Anyways - here goes...

   The comments above are all well and good, but it didn't take long for the Lotus Notes followers here to read this is as a "victory" for Notes. The problem is that while Exchange uses F9 to fetch mail it probably uses F5 to update the display just as other program does. I don't think that "fetch mail" is the same as "refresh" and hence it is fair to use different keys.

   Unless the application is called Lotus Notes where the key bindings are the same all over off cause...

   The problem I see in the whole F5/F9 issue is that while Lotus does its best to make Notes friendlier to newcomers (welcome pages, new snappy layout etc.) they fail to resolve a major issue: Windows compatibility. Users are used to pressing F5 in all applications, so why not switch use F5 in Notes as well. I middle group could be to allow users to enable a "Windows compatible" mode (or switch back to the old key mappings).

   I know that some might think: "But Notes is multi-platform !!". Please !! Lotus Notes is available on two platforms - Windows and Mac with the Mac as a distant second. The wast majority run Notes on Windows. The Mac client isn't even a whole hearted client. It doesn't contain all features (Sametime integration and DXL/XSLT to name two).

   I think it is time to start catering for the majority and look into some of the key bindings.

   That's my two cents.

   lekkim

1. 9  Jack Ratcliff  | 4/6/2004 1:25:02 PM

   Before my company switch to Outlook for email, one of the biggest arguments was that since it is a Microsoft application will have the same look and feel and similar functionality of the other ms apps (mainly office).

   However, in Outlook 2000, you use F4 to do a find within an email. In word, excel, and powerpoint, you use Ctl-F

   To do a Find and Replace in word, excel, and powerpoint, you use Ctrl-H. However, you can NOT do a find and replace in Outlook. When I asked one of our MS guys at work how to do a find and replace in Outlook... he told me to open word, copy the email into word, and then do a find a replace!

   Oh, and don't get me started on not have an ALL view in outlook and on how SLOOOOOOOW it is to search an outlook mail file!!!

1. 10  Tony C http://www.tonycocks.com | 4/6/2004 1:35:52 PM

   Has it come to this? Your dog is bigger than my dog because of what F key if uses for something? You are joking ain't ya....tell me this is a spoof? <cheesy grin>

   Besides since using Outlook I've never pressed an F key, remind me what they are.

1. 11  Tony C http://www.tonycocks.com | 4/6/2004 1:37:01 PM

   Come to think of it I hardly ever pressed one when when using Notes....

1. 12  Colin Pretorius http://www.e-md.co.za/web/colin.nsf/ | 4/6/2004 4:12:26 PM

   There are only two contexts in which I regularly want to "refresh" what I'm seeing on-screen. The one is Notes documents/views, the other is web browsing. Both IE and Mozilla/Firefox use F5 to refresh. Notes uses F5 for something different, as we all know.

   Now, I don't remember or care how Outlook works (having been fortunate enough to not have to touch it in 6 years), but I'd say that in a world where the browser still reigns supreme, Notes is on the losing side ;-)

1. 13    | 4/6/2004 6:12:14 PM

1. 14  Ports http://sideburner.tripod.com/ | 4/6/2004 6:53:04 PM

   I agree with my mate TonyC, I don't use F* keys to refresh content in mail. I mostly use the Notes client and new mail just appears automatically. Likewise, if I use Domino Access for MS Outlook, new mails just arrive (against a Domino back end). A Domino messaging infrastructure gives you the choice (in fact even the MS Office team have created a connector to allow Outlook to natively access Domino). So if Exchange is an open platform, when will it provide native support for Notes? In the Domino world clients are not a religious war because it supports all the main clients (Notes, Outlook, Web, Wap, PDA, Blackberry, WAP, IMAP, POP3). If you don't like Notes then there are a raft of clients one can use that still provides the scalability, reliability, security of Domino.

1. 15  Nathan T. Freeman  | 4/6/2004 7:12:04 PM

   The problem has never been that F5 wasn't the refresh key in Notes. F9 is used many places, and I'm delighted to see that it's used in Outlook now, too. The problem is, and always has been, that F5 is "logout" in Notes. If it were ANY other action, then the differential wouldn't be so bad, because the user who's used to some other tool (browser, Outlook, whatever) would press F5, and then think "oh, that's right, it's F9 in Notes." Instead, they press F5 and it's "DAMN! I LOGGED OUT AGAIN!" It's not like this issue has ever been rocket science. Lotus could have made the logout key assignable via a preference back in R4 (which was the first time I brought the issue up with Iris developers.) It was never considered important, despite what is probably millions of users who have been totally displaced by the radically different behavior of the F5 key between platforms. Ed, I'm glad that Outlook now matches the refresh key of Notes. But shame on Lotus for going, what... eight years now? without giving users the ability to configure what the F keys do -- a feature that was available in AmiPro from the day it was released.

1. 16  Tony C http://www.tonycocks.com | 4/7/2004 1:02:49 AM

   Nathan make a good point, I did press F9 to refresh the view to delete stuff. But this is still a spoof right? <bigger cheesy grin>

1. 17  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 4/7/2004 6:18:45 AM

   I mean, with M$ being hurt bady by the EU, and then paying, what, $2b to SUN recently, why even discuss function keys ?

   Why not discuss "monoculture", or "security", or the M$ "rip and replace" upgrade policy. Or how Garner is pointing out that there is still no significant run to Exchange 2000, let alone 2003. Making exchange the least well performing M$ franchise.

   Stuff that they're bleeding badly from..

   ---* Bill

1. 18  Tony C http://www.tonycocks.com | 4/7/2004 6:46:48 AM

   I now know where the 'wild' bit comes from. :o)

1. 19  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/7/2004 10:45:21 AM

   if you happened to click through on the link I used for "usability of Notes is supposedly poorer" -- well, Mr. Benedict Poole himself added quite a zinger to the comments on that thread...

1. 20  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 4/7/2004 11:21:19 AM

   I can be really obnoxious when I put my mind to it :o)

1. 21  arda www.locomobile.net | 9/29/2004 9:28:05 AM

   who f**king cares? new email arrives automatically to my outlook inbox. i don't need monkey biz like notes warning me "You have new mail!"

1. 22  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 9/29/2004 10:35:12 AM

   My question for arda is "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

   Some people actually like having that visual signal. Remember the difference is that Outlook is going out and downloading the mail to your local client. The notes mail file may be on the server or there may be a local replica. You just refresh the UI or just wait a couple of minutes.

   No need for the foul language.

1. 23  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 9/29/2004 11:30:01 AM

   It's a moot point. As we know, the current version of Notes doesn't require manual intervention to show new mail. Nevertheless, you have to concede that arda's a great commercial for locomobile eh?

1. 24  arda  | 1/10/2005 9:57:33 AM

   -> "Remember the difference is that Outlook is going out and downloading the mail to your local client. The notes mail file may be on the server or there may be a local replica."

   come on guys, how many of you doesn't click ok when new mail arrives? by the way, i use a brand new notes (6.5) and the auto-refresh inbox doesn't work. (i changed my preferences to refresh automatically, don't worry) when new mail arrives, an orange ball appears at system and still no refresh! notes requires "manual intervention"

   ->"Some people actually like having that visual signal."

   really? i wonder who they are. sorry guys, notes is not an entreprise software and i guess it never will be. writing and reading mail has never been that hard (mailing is 90% of business in todays world, don't tell me about that workflow form crap..)

1. 25  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/10/2005 11:59:26 AM

   Arda,

   How ten do you define what is 'Enterprise software'. Does software that brings an entire mail network down if a single user is corrupted and clustering is ineffective count as 'enterprise software'?

   and I do not click ok or even use the pop-up notification becaue I do not think thwat ANY email is that important. Aside from that, don't you think Outlook users might appreciate a notification so they do not physically have to go to their Outlook client to check for mail?

1. 26  arda  | 1/14/2005 9:31:52 AM

   Do u really think that notes/domino solution is really more secure than ms outlook/exchange? if nobody writes a virus for notes, than we think that notes is safer. that's the point. if u use strict policies and keep your network safe, i think u won't have any problems. employing an army of notes admins and help desk must be more costly than paying good antivirus software. in the end, use notes or not, a big company just HAVE TO use updated antivirus filters and firewalls.

1. 27  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/14/2005 11:48:41 AM

   you did not answer the question I posed.

1. 28  Owen O’Connor www.systemdynamics.ie | 2/21/2006 6:21:57 AM

   F5 Logout - its origins:

   Remember, Notes has been around since 1973 ('PLATO Notes'), so there are some quirks in there which might seem illogical until you examine its history. I first came across Notes in 1987 before it was ever released by Lotus. Back then it was known as DEC Notes and was widely (internationally) used within Digital Equipment Corporation on their VAX network, but never commercially released.

   A DEC Notes user would logon to their VAX host using a 'dumb' VT terminal. To logout, a user could use a menu option or the command line, in which case their process was gracefully terminated by the host, alternatively they could hit the shortcut F5 key. On the back of your terminal was a DB25pin male RS232 port - on hitting the F5 key, the voltage on pin#20 (DTR - data terminal ready) would drop to < 3 volts. The modem (DCE) to which you were connected would respond by dropping its carrier signal which would hang up your phone line (no Hayes commands either). At the far end of the phone line, the host modem would respond to carrier loss by dropping the voltage on its pin#6 (DSR - data set ready), and the comm port on the host VAX would respond by killing the user's process. This was the standard of the time.

   When Ray and the guys took their idea to Lotus, pc networking and client/server architecture was just evolving. In the absence of any standard they simply carried over the tradition of F5 logout from the DEC environment. Up till then, the nearest thing to 'groupware' was internet newsgroups or bulletin board services (typically a host/terminal topology) - at the time, F5 was a well-considered choice for a logout shortcut

   Soonafter, Windows emerged and some ignoramus up in Redmond decided to assign F5 as refresh in WINFILE.EXE.

   Read about Notes history here...

   { Link }

1. 29  Belle http://n.a | 12/9/2008 9:26:15 PM

   Er...now that its been 2 years ......in Lotus 8 you use F5 to refresh, as well as F9. So yay for everyone?