Make Lotus 8.5 Pretty After Upgrading
A few days ago Sumeet Moghe posted about upgrading to Notes 8.5 on the Mac and I left a comment wondering aloud why his inbox looked nothing like mine. Lo and behold, The Internet responds, and I dutifully repost:
If your mail file looks like version 7 while using version 8 you need to replace the design of your mail file with the 8.5 template. Make sure Advanced Menus are turned on in the View Pull down menu first. Open your inbox, then go to File > Application > Replace Design > Select Mail 8.5 from the list and also click the Upgrade Folder design check box at the bottom. Click Replace.
Your mail file will be upgraded, the progress icon at the bottom of Notes will start to move left to right – click on this to display the full progress of the design replace – when it finishes close your mail file and any open tabs for that matter then open the mail file once more – it should now have the 8 Look and Feel!
Thanks, Anonymous!
I interned at Lotus for about a year and remain impressed with the once-revolutionary Domino while still being dismayed over Notes’ clunkiness. But I admire all the engineers I had a chance to work with there (though I was actually working on the IBM Workplace initiative, arguably a competitor to, and replacement of, Notes, but that’s a story for another day), and it’s nice to see the interface receive the overhaul it deserves.
But I’m upset that it took this long, and frankly the fact that I have to dig through a menu somewhere to upgrade my mail template by hand is pretty obnoxious. I don’t know anyone who likes their mail client looking like it was designed in 1998, and if they’re going to make users go through the effort of a PKG install rather than a simple DMG then they might as well offer to automatically drag my inbox into the 21st century while they’re at it.
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Well, normally your server admin would upgrade all mailboxes on the server when they were ready to deploy the new version. The fact that you had to do it by had is more a reflection that you’re running a version of Notes that your IS staff doesn’t yet support, than any real flaw in Notes. In fact, it’s kinda nice that you can replace the design yourself without having to wait for your IS guys to do it.
Yeah, but this itself is an artifact of Domino failing to separate the protocol and the implementation. Mail is one of many applications that plug into the Domino database infrastructure and allow for replication and encryption and all that other fun stuff. I agree that this is neat and elegant and a dream to administer. But man, am I sick of usability having to take a back seat to it all.