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A couple of months ago, Lotus released the second beta of their upcoming Lotus Notes 8 software. I've been using it exclusively as my email client since then, and after nearly two months (and a refresh to Beta 3) the software is approaching the finish line. I'll take you inside the features and design you can expect to see released later this summer.

A New Look

Notes used to be your smart, albeit ugly, date. Microsoft Outlook always looked better on your arm while hitting the club, and while Outlook was pretty, she wasn't relatively deep (not to mention her penchant for viruses.) On the other hand, Notes was the smart, reliable girl you could marry, but were embarrassed to tell your friends about.

The Notes 8 client.

For years, critics of Notes pointed to the interface as stale, clunky, and unintuitive. This is a perception that Lotus has set out to destroy. The first thing you'll notice about the new Notes client is that it's undergone an extreme makeover: Pastel colors, rounded edges, new icons and an overall cleaner feel. It has a very Web 2.0 vibe to it, and is now on par with the user interface of Microsoft Outlook.

Simplicity and Standards

The Notes design team really set out to make Notes easier to use and more intuitive. They've reduced clicks whenever possible, combined preferences, removed redundancies, and made finding items pretty easy.

An Open button sits in the top left of Notes at all times. Clicking the button sprouts a menu with choices for creating new documents or opening up your most used features. Right next to the open button is a Show Thumbnails button which shows all of your open tabs in a window for quick switching. It's very reminiscent of Expose in Mac OSX and a great way to find something at a glance.

A ubiquitous search button rests in the top right of the screen. You can use it to search Mail, Contacts, your Calendar or even for particular applications. It can also search Yahoo and Google.

Lotus has also done some things to conform to the way people use standard applications. For example, you can now Control or Shift-click on items in views to choose them. In the past, those keyboard shortcuts didn't work in Notes, but that has now been remedied.

For brand new users and Outlook converts, all of the above changes will make it much easier for those users to get familiar with Notes. For the old pros that have used Notes for years, certain conventions will take some getting used to. Make sure to have some training ready before you get ready to upgrade.

Integration

One of the biggest selling points, aside from the new look, is the integration possibilities of the new client. The new Notes client is built on an Eclipse framework, and that means that additional applications can be plugged in rather easily. For example, the full Sametime 7.5.1 client can be used within the Notes client itself (in an area called the Sidebar) instead of running as a separate instance. Also, developers can create Composite Applications that work within the Notes client and can talk to each other via internal wiring.

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