In this chapter, you see a quick view of the the new features of Lotus Notes 7. This is also your roadmap to where you can learn more about these new features in this book. This chapter assumes you have previous experience with Lotus Notes. In this chapter we discuss:
The new features of the Desktop include:
Close All Windows—. You can now close all open windows in Notes by choosing File, Close All Open Window Tabs from the menu. This is covered in Chapter 2, “Getting Started.”
Exit Prompt—. Notes 7 prompts you when you attempt to exit. To disable this prompting, choose File, Preferences, User Preferences. Under Additional Options select Do not prompt when exiting from Notes/Domino Designer/Domino Administrator. Click OK.
Right-Click menus—. Notes 7 has enhanced some context-sensitive menus accessible by right-clicking the mouse.
Saving the state of window tabs—. You can now save the state of window tabs when you exit Notes. By doing so, the next time you open Notes you’ll see the same window state. To enable this feature choose File, Save Window State from the menu. To learn more about this new feature, see Chapter 19, “Customizing Notes.”
New enhancements to Lotus Notes Mail help you create, sort, follow up, save, and locate mail items more efficiently.
Faster follow up formatting—. You can now drag and drop an email message to the Follow Up view. You can also access the follow up menu by clicking on a Follow Up item with your right mouse button. To learn more about Follow Up, see Chapter 4, “Managing Mail.”
Sort by Subject—. You can now sort by Subject in all of your mail views by clicking on the Subject header of the mail view.
Find the folder where a document is stored—. To locate which folders a document is stored in, go to your Inbox and click the Folders button on the Action bar. Choose Discover Folders and a new dialog box displays the list of folders that contain the document you’ve selected. To switch to one of those folders click Open Folder. From this dialog box you can also add or remove the document from folders.
Auto Save—. If you’ve ever had a power failure or computer lockup while writing a lengthy email in Notes, you’ll love this new feature. Now Notes can automatically save your work as you create it. To enable this feature, create a local Auto Save database by choosing File, Preferences, User Preferences from the menu. Under Startup Options select AutoSave Every 15 minutes and click OK. To learn more, see Chapter 19.
Mark messages to show whether your name is in the “To” or “cc” field—. To help you determine how much of the responsibility to reply to a message is yours, you can display icons in your mail views which indicate whether your name appears in the “To” or “cc” field of an email. To enable this new feature, open your mail database and choose Actions, Tools, Preferences from the menu. Under Mail click the Message Marking tab. Click the Recipients tab. Select your icon display preferences. To learn more about this new feature, see Chapter 8, “Setting Mail and Calendar Preferences.”
Calendar Clean Up—. The calendar Clean Up tool helps you easily delete past calendar and To Do items. For more information see Chapter 9, “Using the Calendar.”
Calendar Auto Feature—. Notes 7 allows you to automatically accept a meeting even when there is a calendar conflict. To learn how to set the auto feature, see Chapter 10, “Working with Meetings and Group Calendaring.”
Calendar and To Do MiniViews—. To keep track of Calendar and To Do items without having them appear in your Inbox, use the new MiniView. The MiniView displays all notices you have not yet responded to, responses that include comments, and the date of the To Do item or meeting as well as any mail messages you have flagged for follow-up action. When you first install Notes 7 you’ll see a Configure button on the left side of your Calendar under the Date Picker. To configure and use the MiniView in Notes 7, see Chapter 4, Chapter 9, and Chapter 11, “Working with To Do Items.”
All Calendar Entries View—. This view replaces the Meetings view of previous versions of Notes. This new view can display all meeting invitations, meeting workflow documents such as responses to invitations, updates, or notices about your meetings and other Calendar entries including holidays. To open the All Calendar Entries view, click the All Calendar Entries tab in the Calendar. To learn more about this new view, see Chapter 9.
Two new features of Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing are available only if your company is running an instant messaging and conferencing server and the features are only available for Windows versions of Lotus Notes.
Show instant messaging status for names—. Given conferencing capabilities, you can use instant messaging to chat with people or include them in instant meetings. This feature is enabled by default. To learn more about this feature, see Chapter 18, “Instant Messaging.”
Instant Meetings—. Instant meetings can take place when you have Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing capabilities. The Instant Meetings feature of Notes allows people to chat through text messages, communicate using computer audio or audio and video, and use a whiteboard or share computer screens during the meeting. To learn how to use this feature, see Chapter 18.
In this chapter, you learned about some of the new features of Notes 7 and where in this book you can learn more about those new features. In the next chapter, you learn how to log into and navigate the Notes Client.