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Notes Design Blog

Get some new visual themes for your Notes 8.0.1 client, and then go build some more yourself, here’s how!

Mary Beth Raven  August 15 2008 10:51:55 AM

Gabriella Davis blogged  about the new visual themes that you can install from the Widget Catalog.    

There are a couple of  things (and people) I'd like to highlight about how this was made possible.

First, the people who created the different themes were the following members of our  team in China:   Hui BJ Li, and Qian Liang
Many thanks to them for the time and effort it took to create those themes!

Second, you can go to a Widget catalog and install an Eclipse plugin to get these new themes. The Widget catalog is a plain old Notes database, really, with a bunch of widgets and, now, plugins. Using a catalog and having people pick and choose plug-ins is much more user-friendly than going to an update site! This idea has been brought to you by Andrew E Davis and Doug Macdonald (and probably a few other smart people I've forgotten to mention) of the Widgets team.

Third, you CAN create your own themes and deploy them. It does require a bit of work, tho. Matthew Hatem and I explained how to do it in our Lotusphere talk. I have attached the info from our talk below. In the demos that Matt showed you at Lotusphere, he used 2 additional plugins that he created for himself when he was making the Notes 8 theme. I'm in the process of working with Gabriella to get them in the public widget catalog so that you can use them also.

On days when I can tell you cool stuff like this, I REALLY LOVE MY JOB!


The Notes 8.5 sidebar will be more scalable and eaiser to manage

Mary Beth Raven  August 15 2008 09:13:08 AM
We've made the sidebar in Notes 8.5 more scalable. We've also  made it easier to manage turning on or off different sidebar panels.

First, the scalability part. We've made it easier to drag up or down and have other panels get smaller.  We also added the ability to keep dragging and have the title bars collapse into a row of icons, either at the top or the bottom, as shown in the screenshot below. And yes, these are screenshots of a daily beta build. So you'll be able to play with this yourself in the upcoming Public Beta 2 soon.

Figure: Samantha can drag up or down and collapse panels into a row of icons.
Image:The Notes 8.5 sidebar will be more scalable and eaiser to manage

If you have lots  and lots of sidebar panels and there are too many to fit as icons, you get an overflow indicator, and the additional panels appear in the overflow menu. We also added 2 menu items to the overflow:

The first is the "Sidebar Panels"  with its list of panels. You can remove or put back panels by checking them "On" or "Off". This menu item is in Notes 8, however, it was only on the View menu, and users had a hard time finding it. It's still on the view menu, but now  it is reachable from the sidebar itself.

The second is the "Sidebar" general menu that allows you to make the sidebar open, thin, or closed. This was only only on the View menu in Notes 8.

Figure: the overflow menu
Image:The Notes 8.5 sidebar will be more scalable and eaiser to manage

Last,to make it even easier to manage your panels, we added the Sidebar Panels menu item to each sidebar panel (we did not want you to have to have an overflow in order to get to it.)

Figure: The "Sidebar Panels" menu item is on every Panel menu

Image:The Notes 8.5 sidebar will be more scalable and eaiser to manage

And yes, I really do have the countdown to Lotusphere in my sidebar.

While I designed  this interaction, Jamie Liu is the developer who made it all happen. So when you see her in 162 days at Lotusphere, tell her "Thanks!"

    Do AA’s set up signatures for their Principals?

    Margo L Ezekiel  August 12 2008 04:04:20 PM
    Using our well-known personas Betty Zechman, AA to Ted Amado, we're wondering if Betty sets up Ted's signature (through Preferences), or does Ted do it himself?  Even if Ted sets it up initially, does Betty go in and edit it?

    If she does work with Ted's signature, is it hard for her to always know whose signature she's working on?

    Thanks,
    Margo Ezekiel, Notes Client Mail UI Designer

    Notes 8.5 splash screen with progress indicator

    Mary Beth Raven  August 12 2008 09:51:20 AM
    As you know, we've changed the startup sequence so that  you are prompted to log in sooner (before we paint the window shell in the background.) As part of this change, we display a progress indicator in the splash screen. We chose to put it in the splash screen  so that there was less flashing of closing one window and opening another, and so on.

    Here is what the progress indicator in the splash screen looks like in the August 11 Yellow Day build.
    Image:Notes 8.5 splash screen with progress indicator

      In honor of Yellow Day, a yellow swoosh Symphony template

      Mary Beth Raven  August 11 2008 08:24:00 PM
      Hi again,
      Someone pointed out a few issues with the first template that I posted, so here's a fixed version.

        My challenge to you: Download Notes 8 (point 5) on 08/08/2008 if you have not already done so!

        Mary Beth Raven  August 8 2008 12:27:02 PM
        I know of at least one customer who is beginning deployment of  Notes 8 Today-- specifically because today is 8.8.08.

        So, in the spirit of "Notes 8 on 8.8.08",  if you have not already tried the public beta of Notes 8.5, give it a try today!  
        http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd85forum.nsf/DateAllThreadedWeb/a6a60b2adfabe227852574490072d7a5?OpenDocument&Click=

          Mama Turkey took her kids to play on the wingset this morning

          Mary Beth Raven  August 7 2008 09:23:11 AM
          Here is Mama Turkey and her 5 babies, playing "on the swings" in my backyard. Of course, their interpretation of "playing on the swingset"  is not the same as a human interpretation.

          Image:Mama Turkey took her kids to play on the wingset this morning

          I’ll be speaking at The GSX Annual Senimar in October!

          Mary Beth Raven  August 4 2008 09:49:54 AM
          Je suis heureuse de vous dir que je vais donner une presentation a la GSX seminaire annuel en Octobre!

          I'm happy to announce that I, like Paul Mooney, will be speaking at the GSX annual seminar on 3 October, in Nice, France.
          And, as Paul alluded to in his blog posting, yes, buy then I should have some nice solid Notes 8.5 demos to show you, and some future ideas to  get feedback on!
          I also hope to be validating one or more of our new personas at the seminar.

          I hope to see you there. So if you have not already signed up,  please go sign up soon.
          Allez! Inscrivez-Vous, Vite!

          >24 Hour Meetings

          John Lance  August 4 2008 09:39:28 AM
          Hi all, John Lance here. You may remember me from such past blog posting as "Offline Federated Calendar" and  "Lance: Lord of the Dance" (a blogged version of my off-broadway one man dance show. A sneak peak: "Tappity. Tappity. ball-change. Tap. Spin, Leap, Flashdanceshoulderwiggle. Tappity. Spin....")

          Moving right along...

          It's a quick and easy question today. Periodically we get requests to be able to create meetings that last longer the 24 hours. The question I would like answered is how important is it that those meetings also be able to repeat? E.g. what is the use case for Samantha wanting to create a 36 hour meeting that repeats every week? And if we only did single instance >24 hour meetings, is it worth it or should we not bother?

          Basically, I'm wondering whether we can treat >24 hour meetings in a similar fashion to All Day Events. I.e., you can create an All Day Event that spans multiple days, or a single day All Day Event that repeats say every month. In >24 land you could create a single instance meeting that spans more the 24 hours or a 24 hour meeting that then could be made to repeat.

          Thanks in advance,
          - John

            Reminder: Lepofsky-palooza on Wednesday evening!

            Mary Beth Raven  August 3 2008 09:37:06 PM
            Please join us on Wednesday August 6th at Flat Top Johnny's in Kendall Square (walking distance from the Cambridge office) to celebrate Alan's time at IBM and his new adventure. The party starts at 5pm, so feel free to drop by whenever is best for you. Rumor has it Johnny's has Canadian beer on tap, so the fun will probably continue well into the night.


            Directions: http://flattopjohnnys.com/contact.htm

            ...Maybe someone can call him and make him an honorary GONAD (Geeky Order of Notes Admins and Developers...)....