Ed Brill

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1. 1  UIrich Krause http://www.eknori.de | 3/12/2007 9:49:33 AM

   Kudos to the team!!!

   I guess Notes 8 will be a great release, when i'll goes gold.

1. 2  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 3/12/2007 9:55:33 AM

   As a stand alone Notes client user it makes life much easier, especially the rss feeds in the sidebar.

   I was tired of so many different viewers to find everything, this looks to be the most useful for me.

1. 3  Gerco Wolfswinkel http://www.domino-weblog.nl | 3/12/2007 10:04:55 AM

   We're seeing a lot of progress in this beta. It feels faster and more stable. Good work!

   The server is running fine, too. We have upgraded one of our internal servers, and it's been running fine. It's been only a day and a half..but so far so good.

   My server at home is running the new beta as well, without problems.

1. 4  Dave Armstrong http://www.reviewthenet.com/synnik/daveblog.nsf | 3/12/2007 10:10:10 AM

   I haven't had a chance yet to play with the new features, but I did have time to install and kick it around to see if there was anything that would either amaze or hinder our users.

   I found it to be stable, and look better than 7, but not so much so as to cause any re-training issues. The install and upgrade was smooth, and all looked to be working well.

   I'm looking forward to playing with it more when I have more time, but first impressions are good.

1. 5  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 3/12/2007 10:13:18 AM

   There's a lot of nitpicky details that aren't quite right. Yes, I know it's beta, that's why I haven't said anything. I'm still working through those, trying to figure out what's broken and what's "working as redesigned".

1. 6  Heiko Voigt http://www.sit.de | 3/12/2007 10:31:43 AM

   Congratulations to the team - beta 2 is very impressive for me compared to earlier builds. Especially the Composite Applications part seems way ahead than in earlier builds, this helped us a lot in our first customer demos and the upcoming LCTY-Events. Will there be a public beta for activities/connections as well ?

1. 7  Fred Antille  | 3/12/2007 11:34:59 AM

   Congratulation for the beta 2 ! It's very fast on my laptop and looks very nice.

   I'm very very excited after long time of LN8b2 Syndrome ;)

   Sorry for this question but is there a "Limited Use" version of Sametime 7.5 or what version could 1 use with LN8b2 without purchasing the full Sametime 7.5 version ?

1. 8  David Russell  | 3/12/2007 11:44:12 AM

   I think its impressive. It is faster than I thought it would be (eclipse), I like the installer routine. I like the side-bar, I have some minor things I don't like, but I'll reserve that for the beta forum.

   I can't wait to give this beta to my test group (about 20 individuals) - I picked some employees who 'hate Notes' and prefer Outlook and I can't wait to get their reaction.

1. 9  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 3/12/2007 11:47:28 AM

   Hey man, don't forget I created the custom Google search engine for the bloggers. I found tons last night on the topic using it

1. 10  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 3/12/2007 11:51:03 AM

   Wow, I don't think IBM could buy this kind of intensive Q+E...sorta like testing/usability version of Extreme Programming and Open Source...

1. 11  Kerr  | 3/12/2007 12:19:05 PM

   @ed, tisk, What have I told you about double hyphens ;)

1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/12/2007 12:24:57 PM

   @7 are you asking in the context of client or server?

   @9 I've looked there, didn't see "tons" yet but I'll look again

   @11 oops, bad habits die hard :-) I've fixed it in the title which seems to be good enough, don't have to change URL.

1. 13  Irv Schor  | 3/12/2007 12:25:20 PM

   Any way to install it along side an R7 install (without upgrading)?

1. 14  Ports http://www.mrports.com/ | 3/12/2007 12:43:05 PM

   @13 Ivr, this is not supported or recommended but it does work. Install 7. The delete all references to it in the registry. Then install 8 into a different directory.

   Do back up your registry first :-)

1. 15  Mika Heinonen http://siipi.com/mika | 3/12/2007 12:47:38 PM

   @13 I have all Notes versions (didn't get Notes 1 to work under XP (or the installation file seems to miss one file)) installed on the same PC, and I can run them all simultaneously too. While IBM recommends to poke around with registry settings besides renaming the Notes program directory, I've always succeeded just by renaming the previously installed Notes program directories prior to installing a new version (the COM/OLE links will then point then to the latest Notes version, which is what I want anyway). After it's installed, I just rename them all back (actually I move them to a subfolder using a .cmd script).

1. 16  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 3/12/2007 1:00:52 PM

   We need a common technorati tag for all beta postings, much like we did for Lotusphere2007. I am prepending all of my Beta posting "Notes 8 Beta: "...

   Anyone have a problem using "Notes8Beta" for technorati?

1. 17  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 3/12/2007 1:21:45 PM

   I have a bigger problem relying on Technorati. :-P It's the best we have, though, so I'll use it.

1. 18  Bruce Elgort http://www.TakingNotesPodcast.com | 3/12/2007 1:32:51 PM

   @16,

   I pinged Ed about this last week. May I suggest Notes8Beta2?

1. 19  Fred Antille  | 3/12/2007 1:39:33 PM

   @ed : The server side... because the LN8 can only connect to sametime 7.x server if I'm right...

1. 20  Tim L  | 3/12/2007 1:51:45 PM

   I'm going to get nitpicky on just one little (?) thing...and only because of all of the angst there was around it awhile back. We 'accidently forgot' double-right click?!? Mary Beth???

1. 21  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 3/12/2007 2:12:01 PM

   @16 Was just about to suggest the same idea...

   Stick to "notes8beta" please, as it makes sense to have a common theme running through all the beta versions (and besides, I've already started with that tag ;-P )

1. 22  Ben Skelton http://benskelton.blogs.com | 3/12/2007 2:19:09 PM

   Where is the Mac version?

1. 23  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/12/2007 2:27:13 PM

   @22 as was said in the prior posting, the Mac is not part of the 8.0 kit. It is not planned to ship until 8.0.1, and as such, there is no beta for it at this time.

1. 24  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 3/12/2007 2:32:16 PM

   @22 Ben, you should read the rules :-) { Link }

1. 25  Stephen hood  | 3/12/2007 2:37:54 PM

   Wow. Just wow folks.

   Running client for a few hours against our 7 Server. No crashes. UI is looking great...a bit of spit and polish in a few places and some menu rationalization .. but i'm talking MINOR stuff at this point for a Beta.

   One other co-worker that has long admired Domino - but has always dumped on the Notes UI at every opportunity - also installed the client "hoping" it would alleviate his "pain".

   Well barring an earthquake he ain't going back - the beta just became his new friend after all of 3 hours. He is very impressed. Hitting a home run with one your harshest critics is what it was all about right?

   Just fabulous stuff guys and gals.

   Btw he really liked the feed reader integration as well...one of his first comments.

1. 26  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 3/12/2007 2:43:06 PM

   @20: Double right click is still there - it just needs to be enabled in notes.ini. See Nathan's post for more details { Link }

1. 27  David Bell  | 3/12/2007 3:14:43 PM

   @26 - if you run the basic client (nlnotes.exe) I think the preference is still listed in the UI, rather than editing notes.ini.

1. 28  Slawomir Lipski  | 3/12/2007 3:41:49 PM

   Really great job! This is a real NEW version:)

   But also still a lot to do regarding "old Notes users in great new Expeditor environment" :) (but this is well pointed by others in Beta forum)

   I did only about 7 hours of extensive testing, found two problems, which I posted on Beta forum, but about one -

   { Link }

   - I'd like to ask here. Because it's not for the first time when IBM put effort and create some new functionality, and then, for 'God know's why' turn it off by default.

   Previous big example was for me "LZ1 compression for attachments" in R6 - built-in but turned off (still turned off in R7 and R8!).

   May I ask about reasons behind such decisions? Why *new* server installation in R8 default to ODS 43 ??

   I'm CLI (often teaching people from companies just getting onto Lotus Notes express:), and it's really frustrating to tell this students: "Here is one fine new function, but don't ask me why IBM didn't turn it on by default."

   If there are no business reasons behind, that this is just something to correct in java server setup. If you are in java setup for a new server - just add 'Create_R8_Databases=1' to notes.ini.

   If you're upgrading server, you are never in this java setup.

   I hope this is possible to do before going Gold if there is nothing against.

   BTW, kudos for java setup finally get rid of Statistic Collector issue. Finally in R8 when you check Statistic Collector in setup it is correctly added to notes.ini

1. 29  andre p.  | 3/12/2007 3:43:48 PM

   i´m still missing a class browser in designer ;)

   UI etc. is great!

1. 30  Pete McPhedran http://www.corefusion.com | 3/12/2007 4:14:09 PM

   Could be me, but I tried to install the client on an IBM Think Pad X41 Tablet, with a previously installed version of 7.0.2 already there.

   Minimal hardware, i.e. 512MB RAM, lots of HDD left. Meets the minimum requirements!

   After chugging along for 15 minutes, it started the install and then when it was about to configure the server settings, it said I was trying to install in a multi user environment and would not complete. Multi-user environment?!

   I uninstalled Notes 7 as it was not important to be there anyway and reinstalled. Took about 4 minutes to get to the server settings portion and it went through ok. When I tried to launch Notes it opened the "frame" with nothing inside, I could see a search box and the "location" switcher. Nothing else.

   I shut down and restarted and got the same.

   I have not tried to install on a better PC yet. I presume it's a tablet thing until someone else confirms it works on XP Tablet Ed.

   --Pete

1. 31  Paul Gagnon  | 3/12/2007 4:18:47 PM

   Overall I think it is probably going to be a great realease, lots of things are left to clean up, most of which I am seeing in the feedback forum, which is good.

   They aren't kidding about system requirements, my poor Thinkpad just couldn't deal with it (only 768mb ram) so I've reverted back to 702 after too much system crawling and massive disk I/O. I am moving to a test machine that has much more horsepower and a clean install. I have a feeling that a clean install will also alleviate some of the quirks I had going on.

   There are 4 things that open on the first startup: mail, calendar, address book, and getting started. This will floor your system if it is older. To change this behaviour, you must remove mail, cal, and contacts from the startup folder which can be found by opening the launch button, more bookmarks, startup. I could not find a way to manage the startup folder with a right-click, so you have to right-click each of the 3 entries and remove them 1 by 1. The getting started page was omnipresent. It should have a checkbox that can be selected to stop it from reappearing at every start, like the Admin client has. Also on that getting started page there should be a pointer to the startup folder or something to tell you what is going on.

   When starting up notes, a task called notes2w.exe wants to act as a server according to my firewall. Not sure what that is, but very few tasks ever get that privelege from me.

   If you are a workspace user and have a lot of DB icons, the new workspace will give you a headache. It is utterly hideous IMO. And those clear borders on the workspace tabs, they are really nasty looking and impossible to read any overlapping text.

   The help says that I can enable advanced right click options from the view menu, but there is no such entry for advanced options in the view menu. Again, maybe a clean install will solve this one.

   Double right click to close an open tab is not there. Fortunately, Nathan shows us how to fix it with a notes.ini adjustment. But this one should not be overlooked.

   If you need to revert your mailfile back, make sure that the Memo form is set to the default form and also check your preferences to make sure you are the mailfile owner and set that.

   Save your custom smarticon bars prior to upgrading so you can get them back if you need to.

   I've got Domino 8b2 setup in a VM without problems. The Domino server install continues to be easy in this release.

1. 32  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/12/2007 4:21:05 PM

   Pete, sounds like something b0rked. 512MB is definitely "minimum", but it sounds like you're having install-related issues. Very odd. Might be tablet-related, but not sure.

1. 33  Kevin Mort  | 3/12/2007 5:02:19 PM

   Well so far so good as many have said. I have server and clients installed under Win2k3 server and XP. My team in our office may install it on System i here soon as well.

   I didn't get much time over the weekend but plan on working with it more this week to see how she goes.

   Install was smooth on both client and server. Tonight or tomorrow I will add Sametime 7.5 to the mix and see how that runs.

   Thus far I call this a well executed beta. I am very pleased to see multiplatform support for the beta as well.

   Kevin.

1. 34  David Bell  | 3/12/2007 5:35:45 PM

   @28 - because the ODS of Notes/Domino 8 is still 43.

1. 35  David Bell  | 3/12/2007 5:37:42 PM

   @30 - sounds like your Notes 7 was installed as a multi-user setup (check box at install time) which means each individual user of the machine can have an independent client experience and the data structures are in their XP profile.

   Nothing tablet specific about it.

1. 36  David Bell  | 3/12/2007 5:41:13 PM

   @31

   If you run nlnotes.exe you should be able to get to the preference to enable the textured workspace which looks like the Notes 7 workspace.

   While you're in there, re-enable the double right-click closes window option. I think there might be a bug where this gets disabled when you change preferences in the Eclipse preference panel. But the capability is still there.

   You can enable Advanced Menus which means expose more menu options that many users will not typically use. It is not specific to right-click menus I don't believe. When you click the View menu option, the last item should be Advanced Menus.

1. 37  Brett Hershberger  | 3/12/2007 5:51:15 PM

   @31 - Paul I had that same problem when starting the client, but read that it "will" take some time. I left it, moved on had a coffe etc, came back to it and...lo and behold!! Woo Hoo! R8 on my very own machine! Worked fine, just v slow on starting up initially. i have since restarted it a couple of times and its much faster than the initial startup.

   Looks awesome by btw Ed. Love the in-line spell check and the stacked tabs and the cool new way of addressing emails... and personally i love the "Home" page with the mouse over effects, my users will love this. It's little dynamic UI things like this that make the users go "oh wow" and "I want it" instead of "I wish we had Outlook again!"

1. 38  MarvinK  | 3/12/2007 8:08:01 PM

   Heads up for other Vista users... don't try and install 'standard' with UAP enabled. Seems to work fine without it.. and 'basic' installs with UAP.

   How about someone fix the Administrator (windows) icon? Or is the teal background intentional?

1. 39  Ports http://www.mrports.com/ | 3/12/2007 8:50:08 PM

   @15 You said "IBM recommends to poke around with registry settings besides renaming the Notes program directory"

   IBM Recommends no such thing. Hence why I wrote "this is not supported or recommended". Running multiple versions on a single machine is never supported or recommended regardless of how you do it :-( Even if a few of us geeky folks have different ideas ;-)

1. 40  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 3/13/2007 2:11:13 AM

   @12 - yes, you have to play with the search strings I found since not everyone has a current theme to naming yet.

   @31 - I found on my laptop I had to go with the 'Basic' beta code instead of the standard to get it to run fast enough.

1. 41  Axel Janssen  | 3/13/2007 2:45:09 AM

   The positive feedback shows clearly that this path taken is the right way. Much more open to realities and sustainable than this "we only need this 5 features"-attitude so often heard from the community.

   Its pointless to stick too much to the old flag declaring everything else "complicated", "bloated" or overhyped.

   The Ruby guys were heavily attackign Java and J2EE. The reaction of the dominant platform for enterprise computing was not to complain about unfair attacks, but to include dynamic languages in the Java platform with lots of initiatives (JRuby, Groovy, Grails, etc.)

   Same with Lotus and Eclipse/Java/JSR[1|2]68. And I certainly do aplaud to this effort a lot.

   We won't here much funny "technical" argument anymore, like in "Eclipse all is funelled through a vm". Am going to miss that, because it gave reason to quite a few good laughs.

1. 42  Simon Scullion http://simonscullion.com/ | 3/13/2007 3:41:27 AM

   @16, I'm going with Notes8Beta also, good idea!

1. 43  Fred Antille  | 3/13/2007 4:00:47 AM

   Hi, I come again with my Sametime questions and I have found new informations.

   I read on { Link } that there is no planning for Lotus Sametime 7.5 Limited Use and I think there is no way to use Lotus Sametime 7.0.x with LN8.

   Does it mean that all user of Lotus Sametime 7.0.x need to buy Sametime 7.5 licence ?

1. 44  Peter Wilson  | 3/13/2007 4:27:23 AM

   > the new workspace will give you a headache. It is utterly hideous IMO.

   Agreed. IBM don't ruin a lot of great eye candy by including a ugly workspace. You've worked wonders on everything else...work your magic on the workspace !

   Pete

1. 45  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/13/2007 5:44:36 AM

   @43 There is no planned change to the entitlement for limited use instant messaging and presence in 8. Even though the -code included- is Sametime 7.5.1, it is part of Notes 8. If you are using the embedded IM, you'll continue to be able to do so.

   Watch for more on this when pricing/packaging is announced, typically 30 days before ship.

1. 46  Kevin Mort  | 3/13/2007 7:16:17 AM

   @44 - The more I look at it the more I think perhaps nix the drop shadow altogether. It is unfortunate that the mock up and real code couldn't be closer.

   Additionally, do other folks notice the black box window that opens & closes briefly when you launch the Notes icon? Maybe I missed this in the release notes but I figure this needs to go away, else folks wonder what is going on when they launch it.

   I also noted at a couple of points during install & first setup that the Notes taskbar icon was actually the Eclipse icon. That should change too for the sake of consistency.

   K.

1. 47  Mika Heinonen http://siipi.com/mika | 3/13/2007 9:46:54 AM

   @46 - You can select in the Notes 8 icon properties to run it minimized, then you don't see that window.

1. 48  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 3/13/2007 11:15:00 AM

   Ed,

   A testament to the quality of Lotus Notes and Domino. I am running the Notes 8 beta with a 6.53 server. Trying doing that with Exchange. Still some major UI bugs that I ran into, but hats off to the team.

1. 49  Kevin Mort  | 3/13/2007 3:41:51 PM

   @47, thanks I will give that a shot. Now the question would be as to why it needs to be there to start with and to the team...to pitch it by gold.

   Methinks the ol user crew won't really like that...

   I know the execute line is certainly not just nlnotes.exe anymore...at least for now.

   K.

1. 50  Mika Heinonen http://siipi.com/mika | 3/13/2007 5:09:59 PM

   @49 - I already posted to the Beta Forums that IBM would IMO just need to replace the main() with WinMain() (for Windows, dunno how they do it in Linux and Mac) and recompile the rcplauncer.exe as a Windows Application instead of a Windows Console Application. Then there would be no more DOS window at the launch.

   However, the rcplauncher is not the only Windows Console Application in Notes 8 Standard, I saw at least one other when you launch a cai:// link from the OS (cai:// links can be created from the workspace by choosing "Edit/Copy As/Application URL", for example).

1. 51  The Unofficial Poster Child For Lotus Notes and Domino http://www.bobbaehr.com | 3/13/2007 7:12:25 PM

   Hmmmm..... faster, more stable, better looking, and easier to install/upgrade than Windows Vista!

   Notes 8B2, so far, has rocked my world!

   Cheers!

1. 52  Mike Brown  | 3/14/2007 12:23:50 AM

   Overall, very good. The Productivity Editors rock! I know that my previous company were looking into ways of dumping office, so I'll make sure that they know all about these babies!

   One major dislike. Sorry, but the new grid format for the weekly calendar view sucks, IMHO. Include it if you must, but not at the expense of the old style weekly view. I'm sure the developers can arrange some kind of toggle between the two styles.

   And while we're at it, can we have the two-week view back as well?

   I've posted this in the feedback forum { Link }

   Cheers,

   - Mike

1. 53  David Bell  | 3/14/2007 2:00:45 AM

   @28, @34 - apologies - I had not seen the details of ODS48 when I posted this.