Opening Your Mailbox
All information found in Lotus Notes is stored in a database. Mail is no exception. Lotus Notes stores your mail in your mail database. The stored mail includes copies of messages you've received and sent, and some specialized documents such as calendar entries and tasks. Your mail workspace page contains an icon that represents the mail database. This icon has a small picture of an envelope with your name on it. To open the database, double-click the mail database icon.
When the mail database is first opened, you might see an "About this Database" document, explaining the purpose of the mail database. Press the Esc key to close the document and view the mail database workspace.
No Mail?
If you do not see mail, make sure you have clicked the Inbox of the Navigator pane. If you are new to Notes, it is possible that no mail has been sent to you, so no documents are listed in the View pane.
The mail database consists of two panes, as well as a title bar, menu bar, toolbar containing SmartIcons, and an Action bar (see Figure 5.1).
The two panes are called the Navigator pane and the View pane. Many databases come with different views and the terms navigator, view, View pane and Navigator pane can get a little confusing. If you were looking at a database that contained a list of clients, you might want to look at those clients by company name, salesperson, or contact name. Views provided for you might be called "By Company," "By Salesperson," and "By Contact Name." The list of views would appear in the left pane or the Navigator pane.
The Navigator Pane
The contents of each view (or the way documents are sorted) appear on the right, or in the View pane. In the mail database, a graphical representation of view names is used (Your name, Calendar, and To Do), making the view names look like buttons in the Navigator pane. This graphical representation is called a navigator.
You can expand or collapse the name navigator (the one that contains your name) in the mail database to show other available views (this time they are listed by name). Triangles to the left of the navigator indicate that it is expandable. Figure 5.1 shows the name navigator collapsed, whereas Figure 5.2 shows the name navigator expanded.
The View Pane
The active View pane (on the right) displays your mail messages. You can see who sent the message, the date he or she sent it, and the subject he or she assigned to it (see Figure 5.3). Notes displays your mail messages in the Inbox view
As you select different navigator icons in the Navigator pane, the documents that appear on the right side (the View pane) change. For example, if you select the Inbox icon on the left, the contents of your Inbox appear as a table of contents on the right. The Inbox view shows you who sent the message, the date of the message, and a brief description of its contents. All the unread messages have a red star at the beginning of the line.
Resizing the Panes
You can change the size of the Navigator and View panes to see more of one side or the other. Point to the line separating the two panes until your mouse pointer turns into a two-headed arrow, separated by a black line. Drag that line to the left or right. You also can resize the columns in the View pane. Use the method as just described for resizing panes, but drag the lines between columns.
The Action Bar
The Action bar contains command buttons that perform tasks related to the current procedure. For example, when you select mail in the View pane, you can click one of these buttons to delete a message or reply to a message. The tool buttons change, depending on which view you're in. To select mail, simply click it, as shown in Figure 5.3. Selected mail is highlighted. Table 5.1 describes the available views found under the expanded name navigator.
| View | Description |
|---|---|
| Inbox | Displays mail that has been sent to you. |
| Drafts | Stores mail messages you're working on but have not sent yet; also contains any mail you create but choose to save as a draft. |
| Sent | Stores copies of messages you have sent (if you choose to keep a copy of the messages). |
| All Documents | Displays all messages, including those you've sent, received, saved in folders, and so on. |
| Calendar | Displays appointments and meetings you create and those created by meeting invitations emailed to you. Learn more about using the Calendar in Lessons 19 and 20. |
| To Do | Displays the tasks you've created, who assigned the task, the due date, and to whom the task is assigned; also shows priority assignments of 1, 2, or 3. Learn more about the To Do list in Lesson 8. |
| Meetings | Displays a list of scheduled meetings by date, time, and subject. Learn more about meetings in Lesson 20. |
| Trash | Holds deleted messages until you empty the Trash or remove the message from the Trash. |
| Folders and Views | Provides access to folders in which you can save various messages, discussions, and other important mail you receive. Learn more about folders in Lesson 6. |
| Agents | Contains preset, automatic tasks such as backups and deletion of expired messages. |
| Design | Offers various templates for use in creating documents. It is very possible that this view is not available to you, as it is reserved for those with rights to create databases. If the Design view is available, it is not recommended that you investigate the power of the options available in this view. |