The appearance of the action bar has been modified from previous versions. If the new look confuses you, hover over the icon for a text box description of the icon's functionality.

For basic functions (such as creating a new memo or replying to a message), you can click once on the icon. Notice the arrows next to the action bar items. Clicking on the arrows allows you to choose more options such as Reply without history or Create a new meeting.

A new menu called Show now appears in the upper left-hand corner of the Notes 8 client interface.

From this menu, you can alter the way your client displays your documents. One of the options in this menu controls how Notes displays the preview pane. We detail these options in the next sections.

As mentioned previously, you can choose how to display the preview pane. The two options allow you to preview on the right or on the bottom. This fits into the philosophy of being able to customize the client's experience.

If you choose to display the preview pane on the right, the text of your messages will resize so that they fit in the preview pane. This allows you to view the same information regardless of the preview pane selection. The other option is to remove the preview pane altogether.

Lotus Notes 7 allowed you to view the mail thread in the header of the e-mail. Lotus Notes 8 builds upon this mail thread functionality. There are now two new options for mail threads when viewing directly from the inbox. By default, when you highlight a message in the inbox, it will display a twisty next to the subject if the message is in a thread.

To see the contents of the entire mail thread, click this twisty.

In most cases, replies to an e-mail contain the original subject line preceded by Re:. The mail thread functionality in Lotus Notes 8 displays the first line of the e-mail rather than the subject. This allows the user to scan the thread for useful information without having to open a memo to see the contents.

The mail thread will display all messages in a thread, regardless of the location of the actual message. If you move a message in the thread to any folder other than the inbox, the thread will display the name of the folder containing the message.

By making the mail threads resilient, the Lotus Notes 8 client will still display messages in the thread even if one of them is deleted. It also displays messages that originated outside of your Lotus Domino environment. If someone sends messages to you from the Internet, those messages are displayed in the thread.

Notes 8 allows you to display your messages in a Conversations view. This compacts e-mails to one message per conversation. This view provides an uncluttered inbox. The e-mails in a topic will be grouped together by the latest entry in your inbox. To switch between the conversations view and the individual messages view, use the Display menu.

In the Conversations view, you will see the number of e-mails in the conversation in parentheses at the end of the subject. Clicking on the twisty will display the messages in the conversation, just as it does in the default mail view.

Another time-saving feature in this view is the ability to perform actions on the entire conversation. These actions include filing into a folder or deleting the entire conversation. To prevent accidental deletion of an entire conversation, a dialog box will appear when someone deletes a conversation.

This dialog box can be suppressed by checking a box.

If you only want to display the header options that are pertinent to you, now you can. In Notes 8 you can choose what header options to display in your mail file.

This figure displays all of the options in the mail header. To limit the header options, click on the Display button in the memo. This will allow you to choose what options to limit. You can hide everything except the To, Cc, and Subject fields.

Sending confidential messages is easier in Notes 8. There is a checkbox named Mark Subject Confidential. When you check this option, the text *Confidential is added to the beginning of your subject.

One of the biggest improvements in the Notes 8 client is the manner in which type-ahead mail addressing works. There is now a "type down" feature. As you type in an address, names that match the characters appear in a drop-down list. This allows you to address e-mails quickly. The names that appear are in the order of frequency of use rather than alphabetically. If you have a contact that you frequently mail, this user will appear at the top of the list and can be brought up with minimal keystrokes. Clicking on the name in the list will add that name to the address field.

The multilevel undo functionality for text editing in Notes 8 is now up to 50 levels. This applies to any text field in Notes 8, not just e-mail text fields.

Inline spell checking can now be enabled. When this is enabled, a red squiggle will appear underneath any misspelled word (or more precisely a word that does not appear in the dictionary) in a rich-text field. This option can be enabled in the unified preferences.

Right-clicking the word with the red squiggle displays a list of suggested spellings. Clicking on one of the suggested spellings will replace a misspelled word with this word. You can also add the word to the dictionary. This will prevent the word from being marked as misspelled in the future.

Lotus Notes 8 has changed the way in which documents are selected. In previous Notes releases, a check mark was placed next to a document's name. Notes 8 now supports common operating system commands and mouse clicks. To select multiple documents, hold down the Shift key and select the documents. To select an individual document, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the document. This will highlight the selected documents and allow you to work with them in a group.

Common operating system commands and mouse clicks work in the Calendar and Contact views as well.

Have you ever wanted to view your conversations with a specific person, from multiple tools such as instant messaging, e-mail, activities, and calendaring? Notes 8 contains a right-click option that will allow you to view all your dealings with that person. A window titled Collaboration History will display a list from which you can select and open any recent collaboration.

The right-click option to view recent collaborations will work in the Calendar and Contact views as well.

Sometimes users accidentally send a message before finishing it, or send it to unintended recipients. Message recall can now help you in these sticky situations. To recall the message, just select it in your Sent view and click on the Recall Message button.

After you click the Recall Message button, a dialog box will appear with options. You can select which recipients from whom to recall the message. You also have the option to recall a message even if it was already read.

If you would like to receive a recall status report, check the Send me a recall status report for each recipient option. This will send you a status report.

You will only be able to use this feature from the Sent view of your mail file. The sent message must be available for the information about the recipients to be used to recall the message. If the message was not saved when sent, you cannot recall it.

The "Out-of-Office" functionality has been enhanced on the Notes client, as well as on the server. This section will cover these enhancements. The settings are now more granular, allowing you to set the hour that you are leaving and returning. You can also choose to only have the "Out-of-Office" message sent in reply to the first message that someone sends or in reply to all messages that they send.

Manually disabling the "Out-of-Office" feature is a thing of the past. The feature disables itself when the "Out-of-Office" time expires. This saves time by requiring less administrative tasks upon your return. A person who is delegated to your calendar cannot enable and disable the Out-of-Office for you.