Ed Brill

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1. 1  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com | 11/23/2004 3:53:34 PM

   One of the biggest pains for me in the 6.5x release is the less than thorough implementation of CSS. It works in some places, and not in others, so you still have to do double development for notes/web apps.

1. 2  Paul Mooney http://www.pmooney.net | 11/23/2004 4:38:26 PM

   The policy lockdown is a big winner for me... I have one potential customer looking at DB2 integration, but every customer is interested in the policy features.

1. 3  Gerco Wolfswinkel  | 11/23/2004 5:07:58 PM

   Don't know how much more scalable ND7 DWA will be, but ND7 DWA on my heavily underspecced home server performs as well as the ND6 version on our corporate infrastructure!

   Oh, SMTP whitelists are important, too!

1. 4  Michael Bourak  | 11/23/2004 5:12:18 PM

   DB2NSF has lot of potential, WebServices and all stuff making DIIOP/Java access more performant too.

   With these 2, Domino becomes a really reliable and credible service & data provider for J2EE & .Net architectures...a long life ahead so :)

1. 5  mugadafino  | 11/23/2004 7:01:55 PM

   ya know.. there's a few simple things that could be fixed that would go a long way. the UI is much better ( the ST integration is generaly pretty good..but there's still a few small things that just piss me off..( and other people too)

   NOW as it's in beta is a good time to do - don't u think ?

   Email HTML rendering in the client. It was getting somewhat better in R5 then got worse in R6.. bad rendering makes the programmers look sloppy.

   update the damn address book UI! let's at least get it into the 1990s. it's old, hard to navigate and could be used for so much more - and OPEN NTF isn't a reality for most customers.

1. 6  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 11/23/2004 7:27:56 PM

   @mugadafino,

   What do you mean by that? If you mean that organization don't deploy OpenNTF apps I have collected many OpenNTF customer success stories over the years. The mail template, domBulletin, iWatch, kSpam, Blogsphere, OpenLog and many others. I do have an "OpenNTF"'d Personal Address Book that I have been working on lately and it may be a good time to throw it out for public consumption.

   Regards,

   Bruce

1. 7  mugadafino  | 11/23/2004 9:04:47 PM

   Issue is.. customer deployes OpenNTF mail template and reports a problem ( or even user reports problem to help desk) - Lotus/ IBM won't support it.

   don't get me wrong.. I think that OpenNTF is a great resource and has kicked Notes development in the backside ( where they needed it) - but for large enterprise customers - they were stuck with the shipping templates or risk support issues.

1. 8  mugadafino  | 11/23/2004 9:06:14 PM

   and oh BTW - since openNTF mail template basically added a bunch of features to mail.ntf without a lot of extra effort - where's Lotus's excuse for NOT doing that?

1. 9  Stephan H. Wissel http://www.wissel.net | 11/23/2004 10:57:04 PM

   I think the move toward web services is a great step. But there could be more! With not too much effort Domino could embrace XML more complete (DXL was a good start):

   1) have a file type XSLT like images and CSS

   2) Ammend the view properties:

   a) Allow/Dissalow ?ReadViewEntries

   b) Define a (default) XLST StyleSheet for ReadViewEntries

   c) have a &Style= that allow transformation

   d) Have properties where you can say: must use stylesheet, cannot override default style etc

   3) Allow a ?ReadXML for a form (off by default)

   a) Define a (default style sheet)

   b) have a field property "render in XML" Y/N

   c) allow &style= to overrite

   d) have a Cannot override style Y/N

   e) have a render hidden fields in XML Y/N

   f) have a render fields not it form Y/N

   4) Allow XML Post to Notes Documents (this is probably the more tricky one?)

   1-3 should be pretty straigt forward and would explode the integration possibilites.

   my 2c

   :-) stw

1. 10  Kevin HK  | 11/24/2004 12:11:57 AM

   I like what I see so far in 7. However I feel some new simple tools/features help to entrench Notes/Domino in organisations.

   Why has the 'todo' list not been updated? With the ability to 'Copy To' and small preview panel it now becomes easier to create/view todo's but after that the functionality hasn't improved.

   A simple integrated phonebook app would make a great impression on users. ie.search for people/numbers, view organisation in hierarchical view, search by title. All the information is in the person documents. The ability to access it from your mail file/calendar would be very cool.

1. 11  Philip Storry  | 11/24/2004 2:46:38 AM

   mugadufino [7,8] said:

   "and oh BTW - since openNTF mail template basically added a bunch of features to mail.ntf without a lot of extra effort - where's Lotus's excuse for NOT doing that?"

   You answered your own question when you spoke about support in your previous comment.

   The Mail template is, for many companies, the largest and most complex application they will ever deploy in their Notes/Domino installation. (In some ways this is a shame - these companies are under-using their investment!)

   How large? Well, the Domino Web Access templates in R6.5 come in at around 6Mb a person, if you include the forms database etc... That's large. And it's complex - remember that Notes still has far superior repeating calender entry support than most of its cmopetitors, and most of that support is done via LotusScript.

   Back in the days of R3.x and R4.x, I happily learnt development under Notes by picking apart the mail template. And I used to tell those that were interested in the product to do the same. But I wouldn't dream of doing that with R6.5. It's just too big, and contains way too much advanced code. I'd recommend starting on the Document Library or Teamroom Db, and working your way up to the mail template if you feel brave.

   IBM have to have something that they can support, and they can only add so much to that baseline. Bear in mind that if they keep adding features to the template, users on laptops keep having to replicate the changes for those features. IBM probably get enough queries as to why fixes cause longer replication times - I doubt that they want to cause administrators further concern by adding features every point release. Better to concentrate on each major release.

   And as for customisation of the mail templates, I'm seeing more and more of it in the Domino/Notes ecosphere. Companion products sometmis require mail template modification. And companies that already employ developers full-time to work on internal applications do often realise that mail is their most used application - so customising it can bring high returns. Support isn't an issue then, either - you take it to your developers. Who check to see if the bug's also in IBM's mail template. If not, they check their code. If it is, they check for fixes and make recommendations from there. Because templates can inherit their design from other templates, you can make it pretty easy to get fixes from IBM into your mail template just by never modifying parts you don't intend to change.

   All these points apply, to a lesser extent, to any Domino/Notes database application or feature that ships from IBM. You could easily modify the Personal Name & Address Book template, for instance - you just need to be sure you will get a good enough ROI to justify the "risk" you're undertaking.

   (Although frankly in the case of the Personal Address Book, given that Domino has such excellent directory handling - through Directory Assistance and Directory Cataloguing - I'd push for a server-side shared solution that the whole organisation can use, and leave personal address books for personal addresses. Which the organisation has no obligation to care about, because they're personal - not organisational.)

1. 12  Simon  | 11/24/2004 4:04:21 AM

   Unless I've missed something, I'd love to see more native support for *consuming* web-services in N/D7.

1. 13  Nathan T. Freeman  | 11/24/2004 4:07:52 AM

   I find myself, surprisingly, agreeing with mugadufino -- the OpenNTF mail template would be a much bigger reality with Notes/Domino customers if IBM supported its use.

   Then again, OpenNTF would be a bigger reality if IBM gave stronger support *in general*. As far as I know, we haven't scored so much as a documentation reference or a link from developerWorks.

   Not that it's the end of the world, mind you. It's just that IBM's support is personal (people like Ed and Alan helping us out) and not generally institutional.

1. 14  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/24/2004 6:04:59 AM

   actually, two links from ibm.com to OpenNTF: 1) in the blogging overview { Link } and 2) in Lepofsky's "why Notes/Domino matters". { Link }

   Where else would you expect IBM to link to OpenNTF?

   Hey Mugadifino - at least Notes CAN be customized. Wanna add a feature to Outlook? Hmmm, let's see, send it in and wait until the next release in 2006...

1. 15  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/24/2004 6:38:59 AM

   Heini says there is "nothing" in ND7 that excites him: { Link }

   Note that his feedback form doesn't work with Firefox, but I waddled over to IE and provided some input there.

1. 16  Nathan T. Freeman  | 11/24/2004 8:06:08 AM

   "Where else would you expect IBM to link to OpenNTF?"

   How about in the documentation included with the product? Or better yet, on the Designer home page. :)

   In all seriousness, right here: { Link }

   Note that one of your links is from a Lepofsky, which definitely constitutes an instance of that personal support I was talking about. :)

1. 17  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/24/2004 8:29:28 AM

   Linking in the documentation would, unfortunately, imply support. Which as you know, we're not in a position to do.

   From the website; fair point, though i don't see -any- non ibm.com/lotus.com links there at present.

1. 18  Alan Lepofsky  | 11/24/2004 8:34:10 AM

   @8, you know very well the challenges IBM has adding features vs a group like OpenNTF. IBM has to test for things like accessibility, multiple platforms, multiple languages, reverse character sets, etc. While that is an "excuse" it is also a very practical explanation.

1. 19  Alan Lepofsky  | 11/24/2004 8:39:12 AM

   @13 and @16, Nathan I think OpenNTF does get its fair share of IBM traction. We have 1000s of partners, we can't "highlight" everyone all the time. If developerWorks had a direct link to OpenNTF it would need to have direct links to 100s of other partner sites that offer development related content. If you want more promotion, how about submitting a case study { Link } that showcases how a customer is getting more out of Notes/Domino via all the things Bruce mentioned (mail template, kNews, iWatch, etc)? That story could then be highlighted on lotus.com.

1. 20  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 11/24/2004 9:22:00 AM

   @Alan,

   Great idea Alan. In addition to the story you suggest for Lotus.com I have approcached developerWorks to get more articles published covering OpenNTF applications.

   On another note OpenNTF is not like a traditional Business Partner who needs to make money to stay in business. OpenNTF is a free service for the Notes/Domino community. Many BP's make money off of installing and configuring OpenNTF applications within organizations. With this I would consider OpenNTF a "resource" which does not compete directly with BP's.

   Our mission states:

   "to provide applications for Lotus Notes as open source which may be freely distributed, in order to increase the awareness of the power of Notes"

   I would also like to thank you and Ed for the support you have given us over the years.

   @Back on topic:

   I strongly believe that the changes to the Notes client UI should come sooner rather than later. I do appreciate all of the new server side improvements to the Domino 7 server, however the richness of websites has dwarfed the Notes UI and it has created an unexpected challenge for end-users to continue to use an outdated UI when they use other applications that are better UI citizens. Don't jump all over me for stating this, I do believe that IBM finally is "getting" the importance of the installed Notes/Domino base.

   I hope we can see 7.5 in mid-2005 to follow on the momentum of the 7.0 release. I would also be interested in helping out in any capacity possible.

   @9 (Stephen),

   Excellent suggestions!

   @Lotusphere,

   Don't forget to stop by the OpenNTF booth at Lotusphere 2005 so we can demonstrate some great apps that you can show and install for your customers.

1. 21  Ben Rose http://blog.jaffacake.net | 11/24/2004 10:58:42 AM

   @7 - Even I tell Lotus support I'm using the standard template and I code the damn OpenNTF one! It's simple enough to reproduce it in the standard code and log it. What you're using in house is irrelevany.

   @8 I'd hardly say it wasn't a lot of effort!

   @18 - Alan, I'm glad IBM/Lotus support multi-language...so do we ({ Link }

   @19 - Alan, I think you're missing the point here, we're a bit different from a BP. OpenNTF certainly don't sign my paycheque each month and I spend hours developing code for them.

   @20 - Naturally I agree about the client UI, leaving us on an old interface is not going to drive us to Workplace...

   Just tell me that "auto-save" is going to make it to 7.0!

1. 22  Ben Rose http://blog.jaffacake.net | 11/24/2004 11:01:04 AM

   Ed your blog swallowed by { Link }

1. 23  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/24/2004 11:18:49 AM

   Auto-save is in 7.0.

1. 24  Ben Rose http://blog.jaffacake.net | 11/24/2004 11:20:53 AM

   Thanks Ed, that alone is a big win for me as we all know how long people spend drafting emails without saving!

1. 25  Henning Heinz  | 11/24/2004 11:32:16 AM

   Hm, I posted a commment to my blog using Firefox (1.0) yesterday and I am using Firefox since Release 0.3 but I will check that.

   I posted a longer response to my "Nothing" statement in the meantime. At least the question "What's big in ND7" has many responses but not many about biggies in ND7. The beta forum is quite calm so far. I used all beta releases, I posted in the forum. It is not that I have not tried to get it.

   But it is okay if I am the only one. I could need everything else but ND7 becoming a low-seller.

1. 26  mugadafino  | 11/24/2004 12:38:07 PM

   @11 - using a shared template reduces the footprint so that IBM could ship a 20 MB template ( or build more functionality into the core code instead of adding all the features into a template -hey that's a great idea...

   and to Ed's point of at least the client can be changed - My point exactly... if it can be changed - why hasn't the template team added the damn high function features that customer have been requesting for years ? ( like sorting by subject)

   OpenNTF mail being the key point that it can be done... hat's off to that org by showing that it could be done.

   it was funny but 6.5 had many of the features that OpenNTF - but they were only put in after the Open NTF template shipped - Coincidence ? or conspiracy ? ( queue X-files music...

1. 27  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 11/24/2004 12:40:38 PM

   While we as developers and admins are welcoming many of the new Designer and Domino features what do the end-users think? Has anybody asked?

1. 28  Brian Green  | 11/24/2004 2:01:29 PM

   @27 - I asked three end-users during lunch. They had general comments such as:

   Will the Smart Upgrade feature stop removing their Workspace? (Most of my users are still using the Workspace bookmark as their "home page".)

   Will Lotus Notes load faster?

   Why is the Internet Browser defined in the Location document instead of a under User Preferences?

   Does rich text editing get any better? (referring to Notes documents when they are published to the web)

   Did they fix HTML email? (referring to how some HTML emails are displayed)

   ... and some general questions about email and archiving.

   (No need to reply to these questions. My $0.02 on what end-users are asking.)

1. 29  Philip Storry  | 11/24/2004 2:39:37 PM

   mugadufino [26],

   Shared templates save you storage space on the server, that's true. But they do nothing for you on the client, so your laptops are still an issue.

   Just under half my users seem to have laptops. When they get the iNotes template, there will be a howl of pain and anger from my users that will probably be heard across the pond by Ed himself. You may not care if the mail template is 20Mb or not, but I have to.

   Can I have your name and address, please? When my users complain about our next template change, I want to be able to refer them to you. I'm sure you'll set them straight.

   (P.S. Try not to bleed on their laptops as they batter you to death with them. I may be roped into cleaning them when the users bring them back as faulty...)

   *grins*

   Ooh, something else comes to mind. You mention adding a sort by subject. Well, that has a performance impact - the more sorting a view/folder has, the larger it will be when built.

   I get enough hassle from a large portion of my users about their quotas - your sorting is going to take yet more space from them. I guess IBM/Lotus/Iris have to choose to balance function & performance (in terms of view build time & space required).

   Coo. This gets complex, doesn't it? ;-)

1. 30  Vince Schuurman http://vinceschuurman.com | 11/24/2004 3:39:39 PM

   There are other performance issues to consider too. One of the main reasons i did not add the sort by subject to earlier versions of the OpenNTF Mail template is that accommodating sorting options in the inbox will not encourage users to clean up their inbox. And as you may know having many entries in the inbox will impact the router performance.

1. 31  mugadafino  | 11/24/2004 5:03:01 PM

   My name is: Ray Ozzie, groove technology..

   just kidding.. I'm sure when Notes was first architected, ( in '87,) the idea that a template could hit 20 MB was inconcievable) - but here we are..

   I know template size is a hugh problem if you are a laptop user - not so if you are chained to a desktop. My point.. and I intend to make it .. is that Notes is great - customizable, with great security and connectivitiy.

   However.. there's some things that need to be fixed ( and have needed to be fixed for a number of years) and enhanced - like what I said before - HTML rendering of the client, some weird UI things like some addition of requested features and fixing the N&A book..

   so.. as a Notes community, this is a place to vent frustrations. ND7 will be a good upgrade and the DB2 capability may be worth waiting for...

   But as the users have to put up with the client shortfalls - more effort should be put to making the UI a top notch - 2004 class experience..

1. 32  Huptus www.siriusonline.de | 11/24/2004 6:12:53 PM

   I have a little problem following this whole discussion on OpenNTF mail templates and sorted subject lines or whatever. Tell me where is the real benefit. I personally use the OpenNTF mail template and i really know what you guys do there - giving this for free. But all those comments on driving Lotus to implement such features - is this business value. You talk about mail - everybody does mail with all kind of clients, some better some worse. The real benefit comes if you give your users or customers Notes applications which change the way they handle their business and they never complain about mail any more. Make Notes their leading system and connect this to all kind of other systems, remember design guidelines for application design and give them an idea how this is all going to work for the next years and you will satisfy them. They won´t bother you with sorted subject any more. Can you imagine Notes apps which cost probably 20000 € saving the customer 10000000 € on annual purchase just by showing purchased materials against rebats of supplier on a worldwide base. They will not even think about not!!! buying renewals for their Notes licences. OpenNTF apps can not fill this place as they usally are made on a general idea of a solution for a smaller problem somebody could have. And on the same hand Notes can not provide such solutions as these have to fit for one special customer - Notes gives us the tools to do that - and this works pretty well for all those years now - and will so in future, i am sure...

1. 33  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 11/24/2004 6:58:02 PM

   @Huptus,

   You are right. The stuff that OpenNTF has done with mail was very simple to do and yes it probably pushed IBM just a bit to improve the Mail UI. You are also right that many of the applications over at OpenNTF cannot solve a specific problem for a specific company. However, many people use parts or pieces of these applications to build the types of systems that really make Notes ROI what it is.

   OpenNTF is about community, open source development, establishing new relationships, sharing ideas and yet another resource for the Notes/Domino community. I have personally installed iWatch, OpenLog, OpenNTF Mail, domBulletin, Blogsphere and kSpam in corporate environments and the customers were able to save a lot of time and money not having to pay me to write the applications.

   Warm regards,

   Bruce

1. 34  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 11/25/2004 3:46:37 AM

   To take one aspect of this -- the nightmare of maintainig a deisgn as complex as that found in the mail file -- some good could come out of this. The template developers at Lotus could scream loudly about the need for some decent Lotusscript OOP support in Domino Designer: a class browser and the like.

   So, could they please start screaming if they haven't already done so? Thanks.

   :o)

1. 35  Michael Bourak  | 11/25/2004 6:47:16 AM

   @34 : I think they have screamed so loud that...something...may...be...coming ;)

1. 36  Nathan T. Freeman  | 11/25/2004 11:30:40 AM

   Oh, Michael... you are *such* a tease! :)

   But yeah, everytime the template developers push the product, I love seeing the product itself change. I think I and them are going to be the only people excited about controlling the right-click menu in 7! :)

1. 37  Raj  | 11/29/2004 3:04:30 AM

   Any news on improvements to Active Directory integration in ND7 (one stop account creation, two way password sync, address book metadata sync for phone/address/title etc) ?

1. 38  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/29/2004 9:58:30 AM

   I'm not sure of any specific improvements in that area -- you might post your query to the beta feedback forum... https://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/beta/nd7pubbeta.nsf/DateAllThreadedWeb?OpenView

1. 39  Richard Schwartz http://smokey.rhs.com/web/blog/rhs.nsf | 11/29/2004 11:14:46 AM

   When I first started working with Notes, laptop hard drives were, at best, 1/300th they are today. And I'm comparing a brand-new high-end laptop of 1993 with a low-end two to three year old laptop of today. The mail template is nowhere near 300 times as large as it used to be, and I can't imagine any changes that could push it to that extreme.

   -rich