IBM Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition public beta now available!
December 13 2012
It's the holiday season, and I brought you a present a little early.
This morning, we posted the public release of IBM Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition beta. I've been running this build for a couple of weeks, and it's singing to me.
According to a survey of our Design Partner Program, two-thirds of the Notes/Domino Design Partners plan to deploy the new Social Edition release within three months of eGA. It may say 9, but this is anything but a "dot zero" release.
For many of you, this is the first opportunity to actually check out IBM's investment in this new beta: modernized UI, embedded experiences and OpenSocial, activity streams, improvements in mail and calendar, the "Discover" page to guide users, the Notes browser plug-in, Domino SAML support, Traveler updates for Windows Phone support, and much more. I hope you'll share some of the excitement of the participants in our IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition webcast last month: Scott Souder, Lance Spellman, Daniel Lieber, and Eric Peterson.
If you are not already registered for public beta, visit http://bit.ly/ND9BETA . To provide feedback and access additional resources, visit the beta feedback forum on ibm.com developerWorks.
There are so many great new features in this release... I would be hard-pressed to pick just one, but in the new public beta build, I love that when you finish with replying or forwarding a mail, the original closes as well. One less click. I love that calendar entry updates auto-process, without having to always click "update calendar." I love that the toolbar only shows up in edit mode, since I almost never have a reason to use it in read or view mode. Clean. Simple. More intuitive. Notes 9.0 Social Edition beta delivers.
Looking to learn more about IBM Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition beta? Look no further than the agenda for IBM Connect 2013; sessions will be posted on the website starting Friday. I'll see you there!
Thank you in advance for your interest and support. My team and I are excited to hear your feedback.
Post a Comment
- 3
Ken | 12/13/2012 2:31:17 PM
Thanks. It works now. I think the date group headers could be narrower. I think as wide as they are is a waste of space.
Only big problem I see on the OS X version is that there's no menu bar notification icon for new mail.
- 4
Frédéric Antille | 12/13/2012 3:18:31 PM
Congratulation for this Big step. Long Life top IBM Notes 9 !
- 5
Ken Yee | 12/13/2012 5:25:04 PM
My top two favorite items:
- embedded browser plugin
- 64-bit Linux support finally!
Now I just have to see if I can install Domino and Traveler on headless/non-GUI servers. Prior to this, Traveler needed a GUI to install on Linux and Domino refused to install on Windows Foundation w/o a GUI :-P
- 6
Ravi | 12/13/2012 5:56:52 PM
Downloaded and Installed.Awesome.
The speed and response in designer is great. The UI is cool. Group by date is great and it works in all documents view as well with quick response for over 50k mails. Mail Snippets are nice. Like the Find and search across mail and archives.Discover page is my favorite and realized it is using Dojo and html. The toolbar is needed in views to expand and collapse.
Congratulations and wish we would get many more great features in 2013.
- 7
Andy Steven http://www.organisedit.com | 12/13/2012 7:10:24 PM
First impressions are great. Smooth and sexy :)
- 8
David Brown | 12/14/2012 3:15:19 AM
Great, look really good!! ...But the Workspace is a retrograde step. It needs some work done on it as it looks like we have stepped back in time to pre 8.x version of Notes. There is no clear differentiation for what workspace tab is active and the mouse over that is present in the older theme is no longer there either in the OneUI. I'll post more info on the Beta forum on this one.
- 9
KS | 12/14/2012 4:15:47 AM
Upon R9, any roadmap for the upcoming few years?
There is a rumor that IBM has decided not to invest more money on Lotus Domino and Notes platform after 2015. Decision maker treat it as a fact to persuade company to migrate to MS Exchange. As a Notes developer, I really don't believe it.
- 11
Patrick | 12/14/2012 6:55:26 AM
Hello Ed,
are there any news/updates regarding the Development of DAMO for Notes 9?
{ Link } states that it will only get fixes for the existing functionality, but no new features (like support for Outlook 2010/2012).
- 12
Rene Kirk | 12/14/2012 6:55:42 AM
Where has all the colour gone? It just me or is there is too much grey.
64 bit server for Linux is much appreciated
- 14
Kevin Johnston | 12/14/2012 7:44:09 AM
Was so excited, Christmas come early etc etc etc but no....
I see the 64-bit Linux but we use LinuxMint which uses the Ubuntu libraries so no joy at all.
Is there a reasoning behind this or do I have to shift to a different distro to join the party?
- 15
Steve Medure | 12/14/2012 8:50:19 AM
First impressions:
I installed the new Notes 9 SE and Domino 9SE. Upgrade the templates to the latest and greatest. The look is very nice for 85% of the interface. There are still many dialog boxes that have that old "Lotus" 4.x feel to them. It's rather disappointing that IBM didn't go far enough under the hood to clean that stuff up. I picture a car that was once yellow, the customer got tired of yellow, the manufacturer paints it blue. But the manufacturer didn't bother to paint any of the details, so under the hood is still yellow, inside the door jams it's still yellow. The customer is left with a hodge podge of car.
The admin client is hideous, it looks like the worst mish mash of Lotus Notes history combined into one ugly interface. For example, the Files tab, was it really worth it to change the appearance of the folders if you didn't change one other thing on the interface. The column icon for the databases is still the ugly teal green book. If you guys are going to improve the appearance don't half bake it. Update the small details too.
Would it be that difficult to create a uniform appearance in all areas of the client? The UI just seems very out of touch with itself. Click on More, Preferences to be transported back several versions to the exact same dialog box. Even the forms for calendar entries, to-do's all look the same as previous versions. It just seems like the same old same old with a new coat of paint.
Things I do like:
The new color scheme is very smooth and easy on the eyes. I like the buttons for new mail, reply etc no longer have icons. I also like that the dark grey left nav doesn't have icons anymore. Believe it or not, the workspace even looks better. It at least follow the rest of the design cues.
Overall, it still looks like IBM has some work to do if they are going to convince anyone that they put any effort into this release at all. I know I'm being extra critical, but it's a beta and that's the point.
Thanks
- 17
Dusan Mataruga | 12/14/2012 10:46:26 AM
Are there any plans to spread the word? Advertisement, commercials, anything like that?
I have been working with Lotus Notes for the last 15 years, and I have an impression that it is dying too. Even my manager who is everything but MS supporter, mentioned the other day about switching to Outlook due to heavy Lotus Notes client...
- 18
Patrick | 12/14/2012 12:05:54 PM
The new client looks great. Good progress.
FYI, The Connections plugin from Greenhouse does not install properly, at least on the MAC. It is still looking for the install location for 8.5.4. The actual widgets install fine if you do a manual install (File>Application>Install), and point the installer to the contents folder hidden in the dmg.
- 19
Steve Medure | 12/14/2012 1:09:36 PM
@16 - If I were and end user I would be confused by the interfaces inconsistencies. I would wonder why some stuff looked one way but other things looked dated. I would think that my admin had done a terrible job upgrading my client. If I were a brand new user I would be asking why does one screen look nice and the other look like it's from the early 90's.
My point is, if IBM is going through the effort of revamping the client, please don't keep the old dialog boxes around and old 4.x, 6.x, and 7.x stuff laying around. Revamp them too with the nice OneUI interface, give them the same color schemes and look. They are so apparently different now a user could really question if they were in the same program. For example;
- Open the preferences in the client, tell me that doesn't look horrific next to the revised UI.
- Open the Add a flag dialog, tell me that looks awesome.
- Create a special Phone message and tell me that looks great.
- Create a special message to the Database Admins, which by the way should never be an option. Seems like a good way to do some social engineering. Most windows admins rename the account, Notes lets they users send and email to all of them and show all their names, groups etc. Should be removed.
- Create a folder dialog, old and dated.
- Create a quick rule, old and dated.
I could go on...
- Calendar, create a group calendar, yep that old crappy form looks fantastic.
- Contacts, go to the advanced section, same old left nav that's always been here.
- iNotes, no more My Calendars link? How do you add a Google calendar now.
Ok that's what I noticed in the first 5 minutes of navigating around.
I realize the admin client may only be used by 1% but it's very important. Have you yourself ever used it? The admin client looks as if it were the trial and error spot for icons and colors. Some of the icon set is updated to the new style, mixed in with very old icons. It's just plain horrible, things just look very out of place.
So far in the little time I've had to play around with it, I'm not impressed. An inbox that can be orderd by date, gasp! Your competitors has been doing that for years and you're just now advertising it as if it's a break thru. See snippets, again your competitors have been doing this for a very long time. Maybe the release should be called We've sorta caught with up email and added social. I know, I know Notes is more than just email...even though that's what 90% of the users have open for a majority of their day.
Sorry to be so blunt and negative Ed, but this really is disappointing.
- 21
David | 12/14/2012 2:00:03 PM
@19 Some of my users tease me about these very things all the time, the deeper you go in to the Notes prefs the older things look. Group calendar is awful to look at.
Would love the Properties boxes to be updated - File > Application > Properties - you can't resize them for a start and they've not changed at all in over 10 years.
Mind you Outlook does suffer in this area too. If you dig around the account prefs.
@13 Outlook 2013 now supports active sync - interesting to see if Traveler support for this was added.
- 22
Dmytro Pastovenskyi http://dpastov.blogspot.com | 12/15/2012 3:24:58 AM
Hi Ed, when does IBM plan to come with 'release candidate' of Domino/Notes 9 ? an approximate date if possible or month :)?
- 23
Kanagaraj | 12/15/2012 8:51:08 AM
Hi Ed,
I have installed the Lotus Domino and Admin, Notes and Designer Clients. Its fast !!! I am yet to explore the new features in detail. I am sure the Lotus Notes workspace GUI requires a change. The view looks like windows 8 but the color scheme is very dull(resembles win 95) , Please do something to improve the look and feel. The New memo again requires a change. I was expecting something like the new gmail new memo. It should be lite , rich in look. Over all the I see the Notes is re-born ! Thanks !!
- 25
Tzahi | 12/16/2012 8:23:55 AM
Ed, are there any plans to change the search engine in the near future? will it be similar to the outlook/google search engine? for my expirience, the number 1 feature users are looking for is the feature that microsoft and google have implemnted in thier search engine. As for now, the LN client search engine still far behind after the outlook/gmail searche engine clients.
Pls share this with your decision makers personel.
Thanks
- 27
Tzahi | 12/17/2012 3:37:06 AM
Thanks Ed for the reply.
I do not know the name of this search technology but I can describe it... As you type words in the outlook search bar, it is immediately filtering the documents and mark the words you entered in yellow color, you do not need to press enter to process the search, it is very fast and you see results while you are typing the words you are searching for.
in my mix outlook and Lotus notes environments when users having both email clients, our users doing more often searches in the outlook - because of the technology mentioned above - and not in LN, althoght they have full text index on their mail LN mail box.
Hope it much clear now
Thanks again
Tzahi
- 28
Rasmus Spendrup http://dometicgroup.com | 12/17/2012 8:16:59 AM
Hi Ed,
Thank you for making the Beta public to all customers!
A great client (as always). Here are my initial thoughts:
Likes:
1. Lotus Notes goes IBM Notes. A much more powerful name!
2. UI are finally looking modern even for us Scandinavian people :)
3. The workspace UI looks like it's post year 2000 and not pre... Thanks!
4. The new sort option under "search this view" is much appreciated.
5. The removal of the top menu bar in views. - Great!
6. The search suggestions in the Find dialog.
Dislikes:
1. The Link, Phone and Database Owner Message form (really embarrassing design and totally un-synched with the rest of the UI)
- Are we talking about 15 minutes here to tidy up the design? I know it's not true, but the users will continue to feel that the client is old underneath it's nice surface.
2. The Group Calendar cannot be resized. Which makes it totally useless. The view design is another very obvious point of improvement.
3. The Day-At-A-Glance view is displaying entries on the wrong day. So far I've seen meetings from yesterday and tomorrow mixed up with todays.
4. Adding another users calendar as a layer are very slow. It loads the added users entire mailbox (normally Gigabytes) when it would only need to retrieve a few kilobytes of calendar data.
- An obvious error and an easy fix.. or?
5. The Mark all Unread/Read is for some reason much slower now than in 8.5.3 FP3.
6. The date group headers should be graphically narrower, it takes much more space than needed especially if your on a device with a 11 or 13" screen.
- It really has an negative effect on the overview and adds a lot of unnecessary scrolling.
Non-related to new version but I'm still surprised it's not changed in this beta.
1. The strange priority in type-ahead where the NAB (highest data quality) are only used if there are no hits in Recent Contacts or Contacts. And recent contacts which has the worst data quality is considered primary source.
- Really annoying. On top of that it cannot be changed via the location document or any other setting. And the clients is not learning which contact I prefer.
- 29
DGoutagny http://dgoutagny.wordpress.com/ | 12/18/2012 8:16:11 AM
thanks for this beta,
like other comment, please don't forget view with old design. the new look is great, just sametime icons i don't like
the welcome page is usefull, with learning videos
in Mail client, my favorite option it's Group by Date and Beginning of Message
in French client Notes, please keep same shortcut than Enligh version, (Ctrl+A it's better than Ctrl+T)
replicate of Contacts by default is very good idea, but the replicate task is not enable and configure. and Make Available offline for maildatabase should be easier and more visible.
and for finish, please add by default SwitfFile in Notes 9
regards
Damien
- 30
RK | 12/18/2012 6:56:01 PM
Overall the look and feel is good. But many features we have been waiting for years,are still not available.
->Grammar check
->Option to minimize a Dialog box.
->Shortcut for "search this view".
->Embedded view sorting and programming events.
->Run mail rules manually and fix numerous bugs with mail rules.
->Ability to copy text(outside editable fields) in edit mode.
->Ability to provide title for the Keyword dialog, instead of "Select Keywords"
->Make Indexing faster.(Search will not show the documents in the resultset till the database index is updated by server).
->Ability to sort address dialog in client by firstname or lastname.
->Export to PDF from Notes
->STOP button that is visible to the users.
In Notes 9:
->Please remove the word "total" in group by date.
->The Discover page is cool.
->FIND is superb.
->"Change Password" is now under file Menu. Nice
- 31
Miroslav | 12/19/2012 2:09:51 AM
Sadly there is still no Linux 64bit version for Notes 9 beta.
- 32
Miroslav | 12/19/2012 2:14:50 AM
I meant Notes Client of course. Will there be available Linux 64 bit version Notes client later?
- 34
Miroslav | 12/20/2012 2:43:38 PM
@33 Right now is not possible to run 32-bit client in 64-bit versions of Linux desktops. 32-bit Linux clients are history of computer industry.
See links like this: { Link }
You find many such pages of them in Internet. A lot of unhappy Notes users. Many of them waited for 64-bit version of Notes.
I afraid they will be dissapointed. Like me.
- 35
Paul Benwell | 12/21/2012 9:11:13 AM
Paste as Plain Text... sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference. Thanks on that small but pleasureable change.
- 36
VladSh | 12/24/2012 8:28:29 AM
@34
"in Internet" they (IBM) do not care. Required number of clients under Linux you have. You do not have, because it is impossible to install. And this is a great solution. "No man - no problem." (c) :)
- 37
Stefan Schneider | 1/2/2013 3:39:34 AM
The first impression is great, but:
Some dialog boxes still look like W98.
There are four!!! different button styles within N9.
Some parts like the follow up view still look old.
I think there's a lot of work to be done by IBM until the final release of ND9
- 38
Phil Olleton http://www.freshtl.com | 1/4/2013 4:19:41 AM
Hi Ed - I've installed the beta client, and on the whole it's a vast improvement on previous releases.
However, we use IBM SmartCloud mail and the beta release of 9 is incompatible with SmartCloud mail. Is this due to the fact it is a beta release? Can you give me a timeline when Notes 9 client will work with Smart Cloud Mail? Thanks
- 39
Doug Morrison http://www.rockteam.com | 1/7/2013 5:22:26 PM
+1 to this...
When will this work with Smartcloud Notes?
Thanks!
38 Phil Olleton { Link } | 1/4/2013 4:19:41 AM
Hi Ed - I've installed the beta client, and on the whole it's a vast improvement on previous releases.
However, we use IBM SmartCloud mail and the beta release of 9 is incompatible with SmartCloud mail. Is this due to the fact it is a beta release? Can you give me a timeline when Notes 9 client will work with Smart Cloud Mail? Thanks
- 41
Mauro | 1/13/2013 8:19:32 AM
Half the UI still looks like it's from 1995. Like some people said here, once you scratch the surface you notice this is just a half-baked attempt of a redesign. Scroll lag is still there, as is the flickring, the sluggishness, and overall clumsiness of the experience.
- 42
David Groenborg http://www.birn.com | 1/25/2013 12:59:30 AM
Hello Ed
Are there going to come a Sametime Entry public beta server ?
I would like to test Sametime Entry, because we are not using it in our enviroment yet. But i see many uses for it !
Regards
- 43
Damian | 2/2/2013 3:01:36 AM
Hello,
I would like to test LN9 but I am still using LN8.5 - is it possible to install Notes 9 as I have old version? It was possible to always install an old and new version on one PC :-)
Kind regards,
Damian.
- 44
Manuel Osorio http://www.gemini-systems.com | 3/22/2013 9:20:15 AM
Ed,
On the Server Side, Windows 2012 do you recommend 32Bit or 64Bit and why?
Regards,
Manny
- 45
john http://ewinkler.ca | 3/26/2013 2:12:15 PM
Well the new non-beta 9.0 is out and having used the beta version I wasn't expecting anything new and different. I was expecting that it would work out of the box so to speak. My first attempt at installing 9.0 seemed to go smoothly. I made sure that there weren't any Notes processes running, installed, rebooted and tried to start the client. Sadly I wasn't that surprised to find that again the Notes installer sucked horribly and wasn't able to produce a working installation.
How is it that Notes could be around this long and still not figure out how to install properly the first time 'round on Windows. This is only eclipsed by the Oracle database installer for biggest piece of junk I've ever seen. I was hoping that IBM would get their act together and make an installer that worked, but I am again disappointed.
- 46
Gagan | 3/29/2013 1:37:12 AM
There is a lot of grey, is it possible to change the color somehow? The interface is sleek though.
- 47
Bill Robertson | 5/20/2013 1:52:28 AM
@19 Steve, did you find a an answer to the missing Google Calendar links in v9?
PS Our users also find the dated Group Group Calendars quite disappointing when compared to Google Calendars
- 48
Zeeshan | 5/29/2013 1:28:45 AM
LN9 look pretty!
Can anybody share LN9 user and administration manual.
Thanks in advance
This is huge, Ed! So much cleaner-looking. Thanks so much for posting this. One thing I can't find, though, that's mentioned, is the "Group by Date" function. I'd really like that, but it's not in my Show menu. Is a template update required?
Thanks.
-Ken