Lotus Notes

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• Optimize all images as GIFs
  
• Availability time range is invalid
  
• Starting the week on a Sunday
  
• What the different icons mean in Notes
  
• Turn off Prevent Copy
  
• Swiftfile
  
• How to put a database on CD
  
• Server names and filenames on Workspace icons
  
• CLI
  
• Add a hotlink pointing to a local file
  
• Rebuilding views
  
• Notes icons
  
• Replicating unread marks
  
• Anchors: intra-document doclinks
  
• Buttons & column headings are the wrong font
  
• Drag & drop attachments
  
• By Attachments view
  
• Logout screen
  
• Moving list items and table cells easily
  
• Sending & receiving faxes via Notes
  
• Killing Notes
  
• Compacting your mail database
  
• Entering special characters
  
• Notes 6 column sorting on by default
  

Optimize all images as GIFs

See http://blogs.tap.ibm.com/weblogs/page/caton@mx1.ibm.com?entry=reduce_pasted_image_size_in [31-Mar-07]

Availability time range is invalid

If you get either of these error messages:

Error: Your availability time range is invalid, and cannot locate field.
Error: Your availability time range is invalid. Please correct.

See http://d02ntcl02.ibm.com/viewContent.asp?pid=7042&lid=1&ucid=21

Starting the week on a Sunday

Notes doesn't use the operating system setting to determine what the first day of the week is when displayed in the Calendar views. The day that starts the week is defined in the notes.ini file:

There are two entries in NOTES.INI:

ViewWeekStart=2
NavWeekStart=2

2 means "start with Monday". 1 means "start with Sunday"

NAVWEEK sets the month (mini) calendar picker display, ViewWeek sets the weekly view.

What the different icons mean in Notes

See http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&context=SWD00&uid=swg21102918 [31-Mar-07]

Turn off Prevent Copy

If you've received a note that the sender has prevented printing, forwarding, or printing with the option Prevent Copying, you can undo this by creating a smarticon with the following formula:

FIELD $KeepPrivate := "0";
 @All

Then simply highlight the email in your inbox and click the smarticon. The print, copy, forward, and reply/history functions are now available again.

Swiftfile

Swiftfile can be downloaded from http://w3.ibm.com/software under Sales XL > Software Downloads.

If Swiftfile stops working, try the following:

1. Exit Notes
2. Open the Notes data directory
3. Delete all files from the swiftfile subdirectory
4. Restart Notes

How to put a database on CD

The following steps are necessary to put a database onto a CD-ROM or other read-only media:

1. Open the database and press CTRL+SHIFT+F9.  This key combination  will refresh all of the views in the database.  This includes open  views, hidden views, and private views.  It is important to build the  view indexes before copying the database to the CD or other read-only  media as, if they are not created and stored in the NSF file prior to  adding it to the read-only media, Notes will attempt to create them and  will not be able to because it cannot write to the media.

Note:  If a view index is not built, pressing CTRL+SHIFT+F9 will cause  Notes to build the view.  If the view is already built, pressing  CTRL+SHIFT+F9 will cause Notes to update the view, not rebuild it.

2. Create the full-text index for the database if you intend for the  database to be queried using Notes' full-text indexing capabilities.   You can do this using the File - Full Text Search - Create Index  command.  This index must be created prior to putting the database on  the read-only media for the same reason described for view indexes in  Step 2 above.

3. Do an operating system level copy (such as using the DOS or OS/2  COPY command) of the .NSF file from the writeable media which you are  currently using onto the media which will be used to press the CD or  other read-only media.  Be sure that you do an operating system level  copy during this step and not a File - Database - Copy from within Notes  as using Notes to copy the database will remove the view indexes.

Server names and filenames on Workspace icons

By default, the Notes Workspace only displays the name of the database. You can add two extra pieces of information:

Server name: Right click on a blank space of the desktop and click Show Server Names. You then get "on Local" or whatever the name of the server is.

Database filename: With the server name not showing, right click on a blank space of the desktop and, with the Shift key down, click Show Server Names. This shows both the server name and the filename of the NSF file associated with the database.

Note: for the best affect turn off Textured Workspace in File > User Perferences

CLI

Here's a command-line interface into your Notes mail:

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/NotesCliEmail

Add a hotlink pointing to a local file

If you want to add a clickable hot-link to a Notes document that points to a file on a local hard disk enter it as follows:

file:///filename-with-complete-path

For example:

file:///c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

This also works for UNC paths (\\server\share). If the filename includes spaces, replace the spaces with "%20" (without the quotes).

Rebuilding views

To rebuild all the views in a database, open the database and press Ctrl-Shift-F9. [26-Aug-04]

Notes icons

Notes has a set of small graphics or icons to be used in views and documents. Information on how to use them is in Notes Designer Help, in a document called "Displaying an icon in a column". That document contains a table with all icons and their numbers.

You specify an icon by its number, adding the intersecting row and column numbers. For example, the icon of a house is number 69, being in column 60 and row 9.

Replicating unread marks

By default, unread marks are not replicated between copies of your mail. To enable it on Notes 6.5 or later clients, open the properties box for your mail database, then in the propeller hat tab, enable it by clicking Replicate unread marks: All servers.

Note that the OSD level of the database must be at least level 43. Verify this on the i tab in the properties box. To upgrade a database to OSD 43, click the Compact button in this tab.

Note that this option isn't available in older clients such as v6.0.2.

Anchors: intra-document doclinks

Notes lets you create anchors in documents just like the HTML equivalent <a>. This means you can create a link to a specific paragraph in the document. Here's how:

1. Save the document if you haven't already. You can't create an anchor, for example, in a new memo, until you save it (Ctrl-S) at least once.
2. Put the cursor in the paragraph where you want to link to
3. Click Edit > Copy As Link > Anchor Link
4. Enter a name for the anchor. Leave it as is if you don't care what the name is.

Now the anchor is in the clipboard. You can paste it into any document (including the one you're currently in) using Edit > Paste.

Buttons & column headings are the wrong font

If the buttons and your column headings are the wrong font (eg wingdings or something), then to fix, change the font used for Default Multilingual Font is something it shouldn't be. Change it via File > Preferences > User Preferences > Basics > Default Fonts. You'll need to restart Notes for this change to take affect. [25-Feb-04]

Drag & drop attachments

Notes lets you drag and drop attachments:

• From explorer (Windows folder) into a document in write mode (eg a new memo). Equivalent to Attach.
• From a document to explorer (equivalent of Save)
• From one document to another. To do this, have both documents open then drag the attachment to the tab of the target document. The target then appears where you can drop the attachment.

By Attachments view

The new IBM mail template R6V1 doesn't include a "By Attachments" view that displays all documents with attachments. This view is good when you need to quickly reduce the size of your mail database. The easiest way to get it back is to copy it from a database that uses the R5 mail template. Here's how. The Notes Designer client is required.

1. Create a new temporary database that uses the R5 mail template. You'll be deleting it later.
1. Click File > Database > New
2. In Title, enter some dummy name
3. In the lower half of the window, select your mail server in the Server field
4. Select IBM Mail Template R5V4.0 (R5 or greater)
5. Click OK to create the databaes
2. Open the new mail database and click View > Design
3. Expand Views and select the By Attachments view. Press Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard
4. Close the Designer client
5. Open your real mail database (with its R6V1 template)
6. Click View > Design to reopen the Designer client
7. Select Views and press Ctrl-V to paste the view
8. Close the Designer client and save the design when prompted
9. Delete the database you created in step 1 by selecting it from the workspace and clicking File > Database > Delete. This deletes both the icon on the Workspace and the .NSF file in your data directory.

Now your mail database should have the By Attachments view.

Logout screen

You can configure Notes to logout out after a preset number of minutes of inactivity or when you press F5. The graphic that gets displayed in the logout screen can be tailored to be whatever you like.

1. Click File > Preferences > User Preferences
2. In the Basics tab, click the button Customize Logout Screen
3. Click the New button and specify the graphic (GIF or JPG) you want to use and click Open.
4. If your image doesn't appear in the list, click the Image Type field to specify the correct image file format (GIF or JPG)
5. Click OK.

Moving list items and table cells easily

By pressing Ctrl-UpArrow and Ctrl-DownArrow, you can move text items in the following:

• Bullet lists
• Numbered lists
• Cells in a table
• Entire rows of a table (must select the entire row first)

Sending & receiving faxes via Notes

To send faxes in Notes simply create an email in Notes addressed to

recipients-name@fax-number@emailfax

Note the "@emailfax" at the end. The fax number should be as if it you are in the US. So for other countries, include 011 and the country code. If the recipient's name has commas in it, enclose the name in double quotes. The subject line of the email and the receipients name and fax are used in the cover page that's automatically generated. 

You can also send attachments such as Word documents, spreadsheets, and images. These are automatically displayed as separate fax pages.

See Using eMAILfax for more information.

Examples:

David Watts@1-209-231-5614@emailfax
"Peter Hedges, IBM"@011-61-2-9212-1098@emailfax

If this is the first time you've sent a fax via this system, you'll get an email with a userid and password which you can use to go to the configuration/status Web site. Here you can configure the information that is to appear on the cover page that's automatically sent out with your fax.

You will get a return email describing the status of your fax, but you can then check the status of the fax by going to: http://9.56.253.254/rpxumon/

To receive faxes, you need to sign up for a fax number.

For more information, see Using eMAILfax.

Killing Notes

if Notes crashes, you can use ZapNotes to kill it, but you can also use the following command by running it from your data directory:

nsd -kill

You may need to specify a full path to nsd, as in:

"C:\Program Files\Lotus\notes\nsd" -kill

Compacting your mail database

You can compact any database by going into properties, click the "i" tab and clicking Compact. However, you can get better results on your mail database with the following command:

notes\ncompact -D nsf-file

This supposedly deletes all view indexes. They'll come back, as you use the database. And having removed them, you'll find the database performing worse when you encounter one you need, and have to wait for Notes to rebuild it. Still it makes the file smaller.

Entering special characters

To enter special characters in Notes, press Alt+F1 then the following keys

½: 12
¾: 34
¼: 14
®: RO (upper or lowercase)
©: CO (upper or lowercase)
¢: c|
ß: ss (upper or lowercase)
±: +-
£: L- (upper or lowercase)
°: o_

Notes 6 column sorting on by default

Notes 6, by default, remembers the last column sorting you selected for any view. So if the last time you were looking at a view and you click the Name column to sort by Name, then next time you open the view, the data will still be sorted by Name.

To turn this function off, click File > Preferences > User Preferences. Then in the Basics tab, in the list of Additional Options, uncheck Retain column view sorting.