Intranet Journal
The online resource for intranet professionals
Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 Coming Soon
9/23/2009
The release of the latest version of Lotus Notes and Domino is slated to happen in early October, bringing with it speed enhancements, bug fixes and loads of new features. I've been using the beta versions for a couple of months, and Lotus has lifted the NDA so we can let you know what is coming.
That said, I'm basing my observations on what I see currently in the 8.5.1 beta, and it is subject to change. IBM Lotus makes no guarantees that the functionality I discuss here will make the shipping product in a couple of weeks. Now that the lawyers are happy, let's get you up to speed.
When I Say Speed, I Mean Speed
When Notes 8.0 was released, it was a beautiful update to a very stale looking client. It looked great, and had features users had been clamoring for, but unfortunately it was slow. With each point release since, the speed has gotten better, but with 8.5.1 is really feels like they finally got it right. The client uses less memory than it did in 8.5, so there's more left for other system processes. In addition, everything from startup, to switching between apps is much faster. Simply upgrading a user to 8.5.1 should really alleviate previous speed issues.
In addition to speed increases, lots of little annoying bugs have been fixed. Also, some things that would crash the client have been fixed as well. So overall there should be a much better, more stable experience for the end user.
Client Improvements
Notes 8.5.1 is more than bug fixes, it adds a bunch of features, and brings back features that users missed. One example of the latter is unread marks. In Notes 8.0 and 8.5 unread marks in the client were bold and black in color. In all previous versions of Notes, those unread marks were red in color. You could change those in 8.0 and 8.5, but it would have required IT help to change and update CSS files and the like. With 8.5.1, they have added a preference to make it simple for users to make the change themselves.
There are also enhancements to spell checking. You can tell Notes to correct common errors such as changing the misspelled "teh" to "the" and you can have Notes automatically correct when you accidentally start a word with two capital letters. Notes can also be set to capitalize the first letter of every sentence automatically. These are all checkboxes under a section entitled "Instant Corrections" within the Spell Check Preferences.
Instant Correction Preferences in the Notes client
The Calendar gets a huge overhaul in 8.5.1 as well. Federated calendars was something introduced in 8.5, but didn't work really well. Basically the concept was that you could subscribe to an external calendar (through things like Google Calendar and the like) and they would show up in a different color on your calendar. They kinda worked, but subscribing could be problematic and the information wouldn't pass through to your mobile device.
That's changed with 8.5.1. Subscribing to calendars is much easier, works well, and passes information through to your Blackberry or iPhone if you check the "View this calendar when off-line or on a mobile device" box.
There is also decent support for clicking Add to My Calendar links on the web. In the past it just didn't work well, and the team at IBM Lotus worked hard to make this go off without a hitch. If there is a theme that Lotus has really focused on, it's making things easier overall for the end user.
Adding an iCal feed to your Notes calendar
Simplification
Even the way things are labeled has undergone subtle changes. The Replicator tab is now called Replication and Sync which was done to make it easier for end users to understand what is going on. In addition, a button labeled Application-Specific Options was added for users to figure out where to update settings for individual applications within the Replicator.
Another minor tweak is with tables. If you use tables a lot within your email messages, you know that in order to resize the table in the past, you had to view the ruler and then set margins within that ruler bar. Now you can simply drag and drop the borders on the table itself. It's a minor thing, but something that will save new users time, and work the way people new to the product expect it to.
When viewing your inbox, calendar invitations now have action buttons inside the preview pane. This allows you to accept or decline meeting invites without having to leave the inbox preview. In the past, you had to open the message itself for those buttons to show up. Once again, little things like this are making a big difference.
Making Notes work the way everyone is used to in other applications is something the UI team focused on quite a bit. There are numerous minor changes and tweaks in addition to what I've written above that create a better user experience. They've tried to streamline how things are done and simplify how things are labelled to make everything as easy as possible.
For the Designers
If you have read my series for awhile, you know that one of the best new features of 8.5 is XPages. XPages is a new tool for designing robust web applications with many of the AJAX qualities you are used to in current Web 2.0 apps. 8.5.1 will have the first support for XPages in the Notes client itself. This allows your design team to create applications that will work the same within the Notes client as they do in the web browser. This eliminates double-work, and allows the cool new features to be used within Notes-only applications as well.
In addition, the Domino Designer for Eclipse software is finally usable. DDE 8.5 was well intentioned, but very buggy, very slow, and very crash prone. In 8.5.1 these issues have been eliminated. It's now fast and stable and is finally a development environment you would want to live in every day.
But they didn't stop with stability, Lotus added additional programability features to the environment along the way. Type-ahead code with linked help, the ability to better customize the designer client much like Eclipse, Lotuscript code templates, customization by color coding your types of code, ability to add line numbers to the code, better integrated spell check, and much more. This is truly a strong client, and one that you'll want your developers on as soon as possible.
For the Server Administrators
Administrators aren't left out in the cold on this release either. There have been a ton of policy enhancements and additions that make it easier for you to manage your environment. For example, new iNotes policies allow you to manage auto refresh, unread counts, scroll hints, archiving, attachment warnings and more. There are also some new notes.ini settings that give you additional capabilities as well.
Of course recent features like DAOS and ID Vault have matured a bit, but the main draw of this release will be Lotus Traveler. Lotus Traveler brings push email, calendaring, and contact sync to the iPhone. I've been using it for months on my iPhone and the ability to have your email and calendar at your fingertips is something people have been requesting since the iPhone was first released. It's finally a reality, and is an additional install on your server. I'll have more on this in a future article.
Get Ready
While Notes and Domino 8.5 was a great release feature wise, 8.5.1 really improves on it in every imaginable way. This is likely to be what many organizations will consider to be their standard Lotus version to build upon.
If you are looking to upgrade your Notes environment right now, I would wait a few weeks for 8.5.1 to hit. If you are already at 8.5, upgrading to 8.5.1 is a no-brainer. The speed and reliability pieces alone are worth it, and you'll have a lot of goodwill gains with your end users.
And trust me, it will make your life easier as well.
About this Series
This series of articles on intranet solutions with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and its companion products is intended to help readers understand the fundamental methodology and capabilities of the product and how to utilize it to deliver a feature-rich, secure, and functional corporate intranet solution. It will include implementation strategies, case studies, industry-tested tips and tricks, and, with your input, true value to the administrator or developer who wants to utilize IBM Lotus technologies to deliver winning intranet solutions.
If you have any questions on the series, Lotus Notes/Domino, or if there's something you'd like to see addressed, visit the Intranet Journal Discussion Forum.
About the Author
John Roling is the Manager of Information Technology for a North American trade-show exhibit company and a certified Lotus Notes Administrator, Developer and all-around geek. You can keep up with him at his blog (www.greyhawk68.com) or drop him an e-mail at jroling@gmail.com.
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