C
New in Notes Release 4.0
This appendix provides a quick list of the new features in Notes Release 4.0, arranged by category. This is not an exhaustive list of every new feature. Not all of these featuresespecially the application development featuresare discussed in
this book.
This book is for administrators, not developers. For a discussion of development features, see Lotus Notes Unleashed, also from SAMS Publishing.
Administrative Features
- Administrative agents automatically propagate name changes to Address Book documents and database ACLs. You must update document ACLs (ReaderNames and AuthorNames fields) manually.
- Server and user ID files can be updated automatically when a name is changed.
- Roles are incorporated into the Public Address Book to enable delegating responsibility to specific document types.
- Events and statistics have been moved to a separate database.
- The administrative panel gives quick access to commonly used functions.
Desktop
- You can launch non-Notes applications from an icon on the Notes desktop.
- The menu bar dynamically changes contents based on current user selections.
- This version features context-sensitive SmartIcons.
Views
- Navigators are graphical maps used to quickly access a form, document, view, or another navigator.
- You can browse views and documents at the same time, using multiple panes. Three panes are configurable: View/Folder container, current view, and current document.
- Buttons are now available on views, not just forms. Buttons can be stationary while the view scrolls up/down. Button display can be dynamic, based on formula evaluation or field value.
- Public/Private folders are now configurable. You can drag documents into a folder and store them by reference to avoid duplicating data.
- The user can temporarily alter view sorting on his or her desktop by pointing and clicking.
- Column widths can be dynamically adjusted, using a mouse.
- Views can wrap text to multiple lines or be set up to have multiple lines per document.
- Viewlinks are newsimilar to doclinks, except that they take you to a view.
- Doclinks and Viewlinks are available via OLE to other Windows applications.
- You can use text, bitmaps, or graphics for buttons, doclinks, and viewlinks.
Forms/Documents
- The preview pane allows viewing of one document while composing\editing another. Contents of the preview pane are configured as part of the form.
- You can use forms as sections on other forms, allowing standard commonly used forms to be reused rather than re-created.
- Keyword type-ahead lookups are no longer limited to the first character when entering the value.
- Form sections are expandable/collapsible. Sections that are expanded/collapsed are dynamic. Section names are dynamic. Nested sections are allowed.
- Documents can display information from a parent document without having to copy its fields into the child document.
- You can read/update fields in the parent document while editing its child documents.
- Revision mode now tracks changes to documents.
- Application designers can create forms from a collection of subforms. Subforms allow companies to create form headers, signature lines, and other common form elements once for reuse.
Macros/Programming
- LotusScript is supported, and a debugger provided.
- Agents can be used to respond to events.
- The hide design feature allows key users to access and change the design.
- @Commands execute in sequence, not at the end of the macro.
- New @functions have been added (@Sum, for example).
- Infoboxes replace the current dialog boxes. Infoboxes offer more options.
- OLE 2 support in Windows is now available.
- The menu bar is changeable from within macros.
Security
- Local security gives the look and feel of security on local databases, preventing the authoring of documents on local databases when the user has only reader access. This is not actually a security feature, but instead a user interface feature.
- Database encryption is now available for local and server databases.
Mail
- Notes will offer the Internet SMTP mail gateway standard (to be released in early 1996).
- Notes mail/cc:Mail are now closely linked.
- The single object store reduces disk space required on mail servers by storing redundant messages one time in a shared database.
Replication
- Field-level replication rather than document-level replication reduces the amount of data transferred during replication.
- You can selectively replicate responses to changed main documents.
- You can set up selective replication locally, using a rule builder.
- Multiple (up to 4) replicators per server.
- Multiple replicators can simultaneously update a single database.
Dial-In Support
- Passthru allows access to all Notes servers on the network. You need only a single call to reach all servers.
- You can set up ports, dial numbers, home servers, and databases based on location. Multiple location settings are allowed.
Miscellaneous
- Attachments are stored in the local database rather than in each document.
- Database managers can set limits on the size of a database.
Easter Eggs
Select Help | About. Type release the power.
Select Help | About. Type elvis is not dead.