Looking forward to the Notes 7 client

The Lotus Notes 7.0 client, presently in Beta 3, is not a massive step change
from the 6.5 client. In this blog I’d like to look at the enhancements in the
Beta and also the announced enhancements in the Gold version (not yet available).

The BETA

• Autosave (at last) … for enabled applications an autosave function will
  save any open document locally for recovery after a client or OS crash.
• Close all tabs :o) one button to close all open databases/views etc.
• Save state of windows on exit … to allow your client to open with selected
  views and databases already open (like your in-box, to do, etc)
• Message marking – this is cool. A circle shows various messages. Empty =
  more than x recipients apart from you. Half filled = 2 to x recipients apart
  from you. Solid = you are the only recipient. great for prioritising that
  busy inbox.
• In build presence awareness now extends to calendar and to do lists. On
  the server side it extends to include the Domino Directory.
• Presence awareness icons changed (more messenger like)
• Close notes confirmation dialog box – for those like me who accidentally
  "X" notes!
• Microsoft office smart-tags now supported!
• Opening views does not lock your notes client!!!!! So that slow server or
  huge database view doesn’t stop you getting on with other work.
• Button in mail message to show message tread, so from within the message
  you can see the entire thread history.

The Gold Version

The enhancements in the client with the gold version will be mainly around
the Sametime integration. Roger Eames announced the following enhancements at
the recent DNUG conference in Hannover (where the follow on release to 7.0 was
first highlighted by IBM, funnily enough called "Hannover", much more
detail about this on Ed Brill’s site. These
were:

• Ability to launch meetings and collaboration from the integrated Sametime
  client inside the Notes client.
• Ability to sort names, show only online people and sort names in the integrated
  sametime client for Notes 7.
• Multithreaded integrated client – doesn’t stop views building etc. when
  chatting in the integrated sametime client.
• Ability to minimise the buddy list to the windows taskbar.
• Chat journalling to the notes mail database
• Ability to support notes url’s effectively allowing you to paste doclinks
  into sametime chats using the integrated client.

When I get myself sorted out I’ll blog with images so all will be much clearer!
For now words will have to do.

Notes 7 is likely to ship in August or September 2005.