Ever Get the Same Questions Over and Over?
 

I do. And it’s not because an army of 3 year old kids has invaded my office. Nope, that’s not the case: we are simply in the process of upgrading our users to Lotus Notes R8.5.1 FP1 (later we’ll apply FP2 or FP3 … for now, it’s FP1).
 

So for the past few days, I have been getting the same questions over and over again (despite handing out 2 reference sheets, doing a bit of one-on-one training and sending my users about 12 tips and tricks emails).
 

The nice thing about the upgrade is that most of the questions are not about the “core” email features: that hasn’t changed much and users plainly expect to see a “New”, “Reply”, “Reply to All” and “Forward” button and they know what those buttons do instinctively. In fact, most of the questions I get are about specific features in Lotus Notes or about the new Sametime client in the Sidebar.
 

Because of this, I have decided to share this “Top 10″ list that I’ve sent to our employees with you.
 

Keep a few things in mind however as you read these. First, “YES”, I am fully aware that some of these could be set by policy … but we decided to leave them “as-is” to see if the end users would like those features or not. Secondly, we had customized the R7 mail template to add a mail quota indicator in the bottom left corner so this is why question 03 is there. Also, keep in mind that we have a “Corporate Welcome” page set … so item 04 might sound strange to some folks out there who still rely on the beloved “workspace” day-in and day-out. And finally, I have customized our install package to automatically log people into our Sametime server so this is why question 10 is on that list.
 

Ready? Here we go …
  

01. What’s this “Open” button that I see in the upper right corner and, more importantly, where’s my Bookmark Bar?
 

• The “Open” button is an idea that Lotus is introducing to save some space on small screens. 
• You can get the “Bookmark Bar” back by [Right Clicking] on the “Open” button and [Clicking] ”Dock the Open List”. 
• You can make the icons bigger in the Bookmark Bar by [Right Clicking] on an empty space of the Bookmark Bar and [Clicking] “Use Large Icons”.
   

02. Every time I start Lotus Notes, I see this ”Getting Started Screen”. How do I get rid of it? And where’s the usual Corporate Welcome page?
 

• The “Getting Started” page is simply there to explain some parts of the new interface in Lotus Notes R8.5.1.
• You can close it by [Clicking] on the “X”.
• You can see it again by [Clicking] on the menu Help à Getting Started Page.
• The “Corporate Welcome Page” tab now says “Home” instead of “Corporate Welcome Page”.
   

03. Where’s my Quota information? It used to be in the bottom left of of my inbox? Where is it now?
 

• Lotus has moved the Mail Quota information to the top of the left side of the mail file to make some space for the “Follow-up” and “New Notices” panel.
• The Quota now appears as a green bar (or red bar if you are near your quota) next to your server name on the left top side of your mail file.
• If you put your mouse cursor over the green bar, a pop-up will appear with more information.
• If you are using your mail file on local, there is a little icon of an enveloppe with a green bar next to your name on the left top side of your mail file. You must [Click] that icon to see your quota information.
     

04. My “Unread” email now appear in “Bold Black Text” instead of “Plain Red Text”? Can I change that?
 

• Unread emails can now be either in “Bold black text” or “Plain Red text”.
• You can select your preference by [Clicking] on the menu File → Preferences → Fonts and Color.
• In the “Fonts and Color” screen, you can choose between “Bold black text” or “Plain Red text” in the “Unread mail indication” section.
• In the “Fonts and Color” screen, you can also make the fonts a bit bigger by selecting an option in the “Font size” section.
• [Click] on “Apply” and then [Click] on “OK” if you make changes to either the “Unread mail indication” or “Font size” section.
   

05. How can I turn off the “Instant Spell Check” when I’m writing emails? The red squiggly lines everywhere are driving me nuts!
 

• Lotus Notes R8.5.1 has an “instant spell check” feature (like Microsoft Word) when writing new emails, calendar entries or documents in applications.
• It can get confused if you write emails that “mix and match” languages (French and English or Spanish and English in the same email, for example).
• You can turn it off by [Clicking] on the menu File → Preferences → Spell Check and removing the checkmark in the option “Enable Instant Spell Checking”.
• If you removed the checkmark from the option “Enable Instant Spell Checking”, [Click] on “Apply” and then [Click] on “OK” to save the setting.
   

06. I have access to my colleague’s Mail File and/or Calendar. I can’t find the option to open it anymore! Where is it now?
 

• The option to open your colleague’s mail file is in own your mail file, at the bottom left side after your list of folders, after the link to the archive and after the tools section.
• So, basically, open your mail file and, on the left side [Scroll] all the way down past your list of folders, past the link to your archive and past the tools section: you will see the section “Other Mail”.
• You can [Click] on “Other Mail” to see the options to open someone else mail file (you must first have access to that person’s mail file however).
• To open your colleague’s calendar, open your calendar and, on the left side, scroll down past the calendar views and you will see “Show Calendars”.
• For other people’s calendars, you will see a check box next to their name. If you [Click] the check box, it will display (not add) that person’s calendar on top of your own calendar (this can be useful).
• If you want to open the other person’s calendar in a new tab, [Right Click] on their name and [Click] “Open in New Tab”.
   

07. The Sametime client is really nice in R8.5.1! But when someone chats with me, the chat window always appear in front of all my other windows! Can I change that?
 

• Yes, you can change it. [Click] on the menu File → Preferences.
• In the Preferences screen, [Click] on the “+” sign in front of the Sametime category.
• In the “Sametime” category, [Click] on “Notification”.
• On the right side of the panel, [Click] on “One-on-One Chat”. The panel might “move” and you’ll have to scroll left to see the next option.
• Look to see if there’s a check box on the “Bring chat window to front” option. If it’s checked, [Click] on it to remove it.
• [Click] on “Apply” and then [Click] on “OK”.
   

08. The Sametime client also makes sounds now in R8.5.1! When someone starts a chat with me, my computer makes a sound. It annoys my co-workers. How can I turn that off?
 

• [Click] on the menu File → Preferences.
• In the Preferences screen, [Click] on the “+” sign in front of the Sametime category.
• In the “Sametime” category, [Click] on “Notification”.
• On the right side of the panel, [Click] on “One-on-One Chat”. The panel might “move” and you’ll have to scroll left to see the next option.
• Look to see if there is a check box on the “Play a sound” option. If it’s checked, [Click] on it to remove it.
• [Click] on “Apply” and then [Click] on “OK”.
   

09. My Sametime Contact List used to be at the bottom in Lotus Notes R7, can I put it back at the bottom of my screen in Lotus Notes R8.5.1?
 

• Yes, you can put the Sametime Contact list at the bottom of your screen instead of having it embedded into the right side.
• To “detach” the Sametime Contact list, [Right Click] where it says “Sametime Contacts” (i.e. the title bar of the Sametime Contact List) and [Click] on “Open in New Window”.
• The Sametime Contact List will now appear at the bottom of your screen.
• If you close the Sametime Contact List at the bottom of your screen, it will return to the side bar on the right side of your screen.
   

10. Lotus Notes R8.5.1 automatically logs me into Sametime … I don’t want that! Can I change it?
 

• Yes, you can tell Lotus Notes to *not* log you into Sametime when it starts.
• [Click] where it says “Available” at the top of your Sametime Contact list.
• In the menu that appears, [Click] on “Manage Server Community …”
• In the screen that appears, [Click] on “Automatically log in” to remove the checkmark.
• [Click] on “Apply” and then, [Click] on “OK”.
   

That’s it for now … I hope this helps someone, somewhere …
 

Thanks for reading!
 

Marc

Summary
  

Since Lotus Notes R8.x was introduced people discovered that it was now possible to tweak their mail signature a bit more than before. In the Pre-R8.x days, you could only type text into the Signature section of the Preferences dialogbox … or use a file stored on your hard drive.
  

In R8.x you can now change the font size, the font color, add an image and do a few more things right from the Signature tab of the “More -> Preferences” dialogbox.
  

You can do almost anything … except change the font that’s being used … but you might wonder “is there a work-around?”. And the answer is “Yes there is!”
   

First, The Warning …
  

Whenever I get a call from an employee who asks if it’s possible to change the font of their mail signature to “Comic Sans” (or some other weird and wacky font), I tell them 2 things:
  

(1) “Yes, you can change it. However, keep in mind that only some fonts are common to most computers and some fonts are only on YOUR computer. Stick to “Arial, Comic Sans, Georgia, Tahoma” and a few other fonts if you want your mail signature to look almost exactly the same on all computers” (see site note #1 below).
  
(2) “Now that you have been properly warned, here’s how to change the fonts in your mail signature … well, I’ll just forward you the instructions in an email, it will be simpler”.
   

How To Change The Fonts In Your Mail Signature …
  

Here is the step-by-step method that I send to my employees:
  

Step 1 – Open your Mail File, go to your Inbox and click on the “New” action button to bring up an empty memo.
   

Step 2 – If your current signature is not automatically appended to new memos, place the cursor in the body of the memo and then click on the action button “More -> Insert Signature”. In the dialogbox that appears, simply click on “OK” to insert your signature.
  

Step 3 – Now that you see your signature, format it the way you want it. Select your name with your mouse and change the font of your name (for example). Change the size of your name too if you want to. Also insert “tabs” to properly align phone numbers if you want to (but keep in mind that tabs don’t display well if the recipient uses a web browser to read his emails).
  

Step 4 – Once your mail signature looks the way you want it to appear, use your mouse to select it completely.
  

Step 5 – Now that your mail signature is selected, click on the menu “Edit -> Copy”.
  

Step 6 – Click on the view action “More -> Preferences”.
 

Step 7 – Go to the “Mail -> Signature” tab of the Preference dialogbox and then delete your current mail signature.
  

Step 8 – When ready … press CTRL+V on your keyboard to “paste” your updated signature OR you can also click on the little “T” icon and then on “Paste”.
   

Step 9 – Click on “OK” to save your new mail signature. You will be taken back to the new memo you had just created.
 

Step 10 – Delete everything in that new memo and then click on the “More -> Insert Signature” action button to see your new & updated signature.
  

Step 11 – Repeat Step 3 to 10 until you are happy with the results.
  

Step 12 – Send that email to a few colleagues or friends to ask them to check if it looks good or not.
  

Note #1 : For the list of fonts that are compatible across platforms, I recommend using “browser safe fonts” like those listed here.
  

Note #2: I cannot stress the importance of using plain fonts enough … because that nice (but strange) “Mercurius Script Bold” is only installed on *your* computer and it will only display correctly on *your* computer no matter how hard you try (I had to explain this to someone). Also, for example again, “Script” doesn’t display well in web browsers based on a few tests I did.

Note #3: Now that you know that you can paste pretty much anything in there … you can even paste tables if you want to … go nuts … but test!
  

Note #4: Did I mention testing?
  

Or … Go With A Commercial Product …
  
Keep in mind that there are a few commercial products out there that allow you to set and customize your employee’s mail signature. Right off the top of my head, I can only remember the “Crossware Mail Signature” product from folks at Crossware because I stopped at their booth each and every year for the past few Lotusphere (note: I’m not one of their customers and we do not use their product where I work).
  

Anyway, if you need to “brand” your company and standardize signatures, you really can’t expect *all* your employees to do it consistently so buying a commercial product might be your only option (or coding something yourself that does that).
         

In Other News …
   

I’ve been amazingly busy since the beginning of May … but I’m currently working on version 3 of the Smart Upgrade guide in which I will explain how to create a package that includes R8.5.1 and the Fix Pack of your choice in 1 large self-contained executable file. Stay tuned for that new version in the coming weeks.
  

Conclusion …
 

Hopefully, Lotus will modify the “Preference” dialogbox in a future release to allow end users to pick and choose the fonts they want to use in their mail signature … we can hope right? Until then … have fun copy-pasting!
   

Thanks for reading!
 

Marc

The Devil Is In The Details (a.k.a. Sometimes Users Love Something Because of 1 Tiny Feature) …
   

As you know, the Lotus Notes R8.x Eclipse based UI is a departure from our beloved version 4,5,6 and 7 clients. And, just like everyting in life, some people don’t like when things change.
  

So, for some of my users here, Lotus Notes R8.5.1 is the best thing since sliced bread and for others … well it’s the worst thing we’ve ever installed on their computer. You just can’t please everyone unfortunatly.
     

However, in order to help out my users learn about the new features in R8.5.1, I send a weekly “Tips & Tricks” email each Wednesday with 1 particular tip that might help them out. And yesterday’s tip was smash hit.
  

Wanna know what it is? It’s the simplest thing … and here it is:
      

How to Quickly Schedule a Meeting From Your Sametime Contact List
 

There are many ways to schedule a meeting in Lotus Notes R8.5.1. You can do it from your inbox “New” button, you can do it from your Calendar “New” button and you can double-click anywhere on your calendar to bring up a new appointment just to name a few.
  

But since we are all hooked (and dependant) on Sametime, there is an even quicker way to schedule a meeting with someone right from the comfort of your Sametime Contact list. How quickly? Well, try this: 
   

Step 1: Open your Sametime Contact List and find the collegue that you want to schedule a meeting with.
  
Step 2: Right click on that collegue’s name and then click on the “Find Available Time” option.
  
Step 3: The system will try to find a 1 hour time-slot that fits in both of your schedules and display it on your screen.
  
Step 4: Click on “Create Meeting”.
  
Step 5: When the new meeting invitation appear, give the meeting a Subject and enter a description (if needed).
 
Step 6: Click on “Save & Send Invitations”.
  
Step 7: Enjoy (and don’t forget to show up to the meeting!).
  

Simple isn’t it?
 

Bonus Tip: How to Quickly Schedule a Meeting From Your Sametime Contact List With Many People
   

You’ve used the tip above to schedule a meeting with 1 employee … but how can you schedule a meeting with more than one person from your Sametime Contact list?
  

Well, it’s quite simple too: press and hold the “CTRL” key on your keyboard as you select the people and then, once you have all the folks you want, right-click on one of them and click “Find Available Time”. Presto … easy isn’t it?
   
Really Amazingly Busy People … 
  

It’s possible that, one day, you’ll try to use this tip with someone who’s super busy. The system will try really hard to find a time for your meeting but if it can’t find any available time within the next 7 days, the usual “Find Available Time” screen will come up but it will have this particular warning at the top:
  

Parting Words
 

Well, I pretty sure that someone else had blogged about this somewhere else … and if that’s the case, I’m sorry that I’m repeating something that’s already been said.
  

Thanks for reading!
  

Marc

Summary
  

The Mail Tracking Store has been around for a while in our Yellowverse. And as an admin, you are well aware of the fact that it’s super useful when it comes to troubleshooting mail issues (with the usual requested being “I sent this to Mr. Smith but he says he never got it” and a couple clicks later you can tell them that Mr. Smith deleted it).
  

However, one weird thing about the Mail Tracking Store is that it only keeps 30 days of data by default. In case you are wondering, the number of days of data that it keeps is controlled by the field “Remove documents not modified in the last (days)” of the “Space Savers” tab of the Replication Setting panel for the MTSTORE.NSF database on your server.
  

Nothing stops you from changing that value to 60, 90, 180 days or more! But what happens when you need to update that setting on ALL your Mail Tracking Store databases on ALL your servers? It’s easy to do it manually if you only have a couple servers … but what happens when you have 10, 20, 50 or 100 servers?
  

Well, you either put yourself on “Do Not Disturb” for the next couple days and you do the update manually OR you write some code OR, better yet, you “borrow” my code!
  

So, Where’s The Code?
  

Right below … patience … because before you download it and import it into a button (or Agent that you can run from the Action menu), you need to know what it does:
  

1. The code will prompt you for the number of days.
2. The code will then try to open the Domino Directory on your server.
3. The code will then try to open the “Servers\Servers” view in the Domino Directory.
4. The code will then prompt you to select the servers to scan for a Mail Tracking Store database.
5. The code will then go to each of the selected server and check their Mail Tracking Store database settings.
6. The code will update each Mail Tracking Store “Days to Keep” to the setting you selected in step 1 (if does not match).
   

That’s it … simple as that. The code is below and you can simply click on the image below to download it. You can then import it into a LotusScript button or Agent set to run from the View Action menu to update your Mail Tracking Store settings.
  

Addendum
  

Part 1 – If you want my opinion, don’t wait until the CIO asks you to do a Mail Tracking on a “questionable” email sent by an employee 4 months ago to update your Mail Tracking Store settings … do it now!
   

Part 2 – Maybe someone else already wrote something that does that … I’m sorry if that’s the case … I was in a hurry to get this done.
  

Part 3 – However, I wonder why this isn’t controlled by a field in a Configuration Setting document … maybe there’s an IdeaJam out there for this?
   

Thanks for reading!
  

Marc

Better Late than Never …
  

Patrick and I had noticed the DominoDefrag project on OpenNTF a while ago. Patrick had said to me “when you have a minute, test it out in the test environment”. Well, that was a long time ago and yesterday I noticed a week old post on PlanetLotus.org that version 2.2 of DominoDefrag had been released. So, I decided it was time to test it out.
  

The installation instructions are quite simple and extremely well documented so getting it up and running was just a matter of putting myself on Do-Not-Disturb for a couple minutes.
  

And The Results?
  

Seriously, give Andrew Luder, the creator of DominoDefrag a medal. Give him something. Anything. The results are nothing short of amazing!
  

For example, in my test environment, the File Fragmentation went from 91% to 31% on the 1st pass. After a 2nd pass it went down to 30%. I checked and I realized that the 30% left were files that were not Domino databases so I ran the usual Windows Disk Defrag utility and it brought the File Fragmentation down to 0%. Simply put: amazing!
  

Also, while Domino Defrag was running in my test environment, I was checking the server console to see which database it was defragging. And for test purposes (because I really don’t care about the data in the test env.), I opened certain very large databases when it was defragging them. I even added/deleted documents in those databases *while* they were being defragged and didn’t notice any performance hit. Once again … amazing!
  

And maybe it’s me but the database operations, i.e. opening a database, opening views, opening documents, editing documents, etc, etc was quickr and faster … too bad I had not done metrics tests on those database operations before to compare with the after.
   

So, after doing a bunch more tests in the test environment, I deployed it to my production servers.
  

In production, my busiest server had 99% File Fragmentation. It took all weekend but on the 1st pass, the File Fragmentation went from 99% down to 30%. Again, the 30% left were files that were not Domino Databases so I ran the Windows Disk Defrag utility and it brough the File Fragmentation down to 0%.
    

The screenshots below are from my test server … but see for yourself the results in a Test environment and imagine the results in Production (they’re amazing):
   

DominoDefrag - Before

DominoDefrag - After it has ran once and defragged all the NSFs, NTFs and Full-Text Indexes

DominoDefrag - Final Result after using the Windows Disk Defragmenter to clean up all the other files on the D: drive

In Conclusion …
  

Seriously, anyone dealing with a slow server should consider installing this on their server. Of course, test it out in your test environment before!
  

Thanks for reading!
  

Marc

Summary

A long time ago, someone needed to get something done in your company and the solution was to purchase some sort of product that you installed on top of Lotus Domino. Since then, you’ve been locked in the eternal 3 steps dance of “(step 1) a new version of Lotus Domino gets released but (step 2) wait for vendor to release compatible version of the add-in and (step 3) finally upgrade both products”. Point-in-case where I work: we needed a Fax solution that integrated with our Lotus Notes and Domino environment so someone installed FastFax from Quadrant Software on top of one of our Lotus Domino servers.

After a few years and some issues here and there, it’s been pretty much humming along. But the last issue I ran into left me wondering if there was a (free) way to monitor the 2 tasks that I see for FastFax when I issue a SHOW TASK command on the server console. So, I turned to DDM and Event Handlers for that task but, out-of-the-box, I realized that they can only be used to monitor Lotus Domino server tasks.

So, what did I do after I realized this? Well, I tried to hack Event Handlers and, oddly enough, it worked!  Here’s what I did …

Hacking Event Handlers to Monitor Add-Ins from other Vendors

Two Things Right away … First, I’m sorry if this has been written about somewhere else. I’m sure that in the Yellowverse, someone, somewhere did the exact same thing and blogged about it but I didn’t look hard enough to find it. And secondly, I’ll be blunt, this worked for me and the issue that I was faced with. There’s a good chance that this might not work for you … but you won’t hurt anything by trying. Truth be told, I’m not even sure why it works but it does…

Step 1 … issue a SHOW TASK and make a note of the Task(s) that you want Event Handlers to monitor. In my case, FFXGWOT and FFXGWIN:

Database Server      Platform Stats is gathering statistics
Database Server      Shutdown Monitor
Database Server      Process Monitor
FFXGWOT              Idle
FFXGWIN              FFXGWIN
Router               Dispatch: Idle
Router               Sweep: Idle
Router               Utility: Idle

So, now that you know which “Add-In” tasks we want to monitor … follow the steps (for the screenshots, I’m only using the FFXGWIN task):

Step 2: Open the Monitoring Configuration (events4.nsf) on the server where the Add-In task is running.

Step 3 - Open the view "Task Status" view under the "Event Generators" category.

Step 4 - Click on the "New Task Status Monitor" view Action button.

Step 5 - Select one of the Task (*any*), the Server where the Add-In task is running and "What" to monitor (status down).

Step 6 - Let's create an agent to perform the "Hack".

Step 7 - Give the agent a name and change the agent type.

Step 8 - Make sure that the agent is private and set to run on Selected Documents.

Step 9 - Add the code to change the field "Task" to the process we want to monitor.

Step 10 - Save the agent.

Step 11 - Close Designer.

Step 12 - Select the new task monitor you created and then run the agent on it.

Step 13 - Now, make a mental note of the Event Generator number because you'll need it later.

Step 14 - Now switch to the view "Event Handlers - By Server".

Step 15 - Now click on the button to create a new Event Handler.

Step 16 - On the Basics tab, select the Trigger to be a Custom event generator.

Step 17 - On the Event tab, click on the button to select the Event.

Step 18 - Scroll down to the "Task Status" event generators and select the one you just created (this is where you need the event number to make your life easier).

Step 19 - On the "Action" tab, select the "Mail" method and type your name in the Address field (yes, you could set it to run an agent or whatever you want ... I wanted to get an email).

Step 20 - Save your new Event Handler.

Step 21 - You can see your new Event Generator under the "All Servers" category.

Addendum

So, with this Event Generator and Event Handler in place, when the task FFXGWIN goes down in a ball of flames (for one reason or another), I get a nice email. Of course, I had to repeat these steps for the FFXGWOT tasks and it also works like a charm for that task.

Like I said previously, this worked for me in my environment. Maybe it won’t work for you but it won’t cost you a dime to try … Enjoy!

Summary

A while ago, you deployed Lotus Notes R8.x to some people. Nothing in your experience could have prepared you for the emotional backlash and severe beatings complaints that followed when people realized that their precious “unread” emails which used to be displayed in red since the last century were now displayed in BOLD BLACK TEXT. Nothing. And I really mean it. No amount of psychological training or even special Navy Seal training could have prepared you to support the weight of all the complaints. Ok, I might be exagerating a wee bit here (actually, I am) … but anyway, the point being is that they weren’t happy about it (even if you told them this would happen).

I get the feeling that Lotus also took a lot of flak on that “feature” so they added back in Lotus Notes R8.5.1 an option, in the Preferences menu under “Fonts and Colors”, to select “Plain red text” for unread email. Suddenly the world seemed a better place.

The option for "Plain red text" in the Preferences menu

Oh joy … so you start to deploy this to the people who complained (the most) and it appears to work correctly. But out from the woodwork, 1 employee reports that only external emails, i.e. those coming from all his FaceBook friends on the internet other companys, are displaying in plain red text and, worse, “real” unread emails appear in plain black text. So the employee has no way to track which emails are truly “unread”.

So, what’s the solution?

This bug is caused by something so pure evil that I shall not even name it in this paragraph but I will show you what it is … are you ready? Here it is: .

Yep,  nothing much to see right? That’s because the problem is caused by a plain ol’ space. Yep. A tiny space, somewhere on a line alone by itself in the senders colors tab of the mail file preference.

Seriously, this is strange. But to “fix” this you must open the mail file, click on “More”, then click on “Preferences”.

To fix the "Plain red text" issue, start by going into your Preferences in your mail file.

Once you are in the preferences go to the “Sender Colors” tab and click in each field. VISUALLY make sure that there are no “empty lines” with just a space or boxes with 1 space in it’s list of users. I am not joking but I wish I was. If you spot a space on a line by itself: remove it and click on OK.

Plain red text: an example of a list of names with no space in it.

Plain red text: an example with a space in one of the names box ... remove it to fix this.

Addendum

I was told by Lotus Support that this is an “old bug”. However, I’m a bit surprised as I have never seen this happen in my 12+ years of working with and supporting Lotus Notes … maybe I ran out of luck?

Summary

A while ago, after reading a few posts on how to hack modify jvm.properties files in Lotus Notes R8.x to speed things up, I wrote some code to find those files and modify them with the click of a button. Back then, it was easier for me to write a button that I could mail to employees rather than to explain to everybody in the company how to find those files and how to hack them. Now, flash forward a few months and, lucky for us in the Notes world, Christmas arrived a little bit sooner with the offical release of Lotus Notes & Domino R8.5.1 last October 12th 2009.

After downloading and upgrading my own client from R8.5 to R8.5.1, I thought (or imagined?) that my client was a little slower than the usual. Right away, I presumed that the jvm.properties file had been overwritten and I tried to run the code from my “old” button (grab the code in this post if you want). To my surprise, my code from the previous button didn’t work. After a bit of troubleshooting, I discovered that the jvm.properties file had moved in Lotus Notes R8.5.1. Other bloggers discovered this as well, like Mr. Andrew Pollack who posted something on his blog here.

So, what did I do? I updated the code for the button …

The Updated Code

With the change in location of the jvm.properties file in Lotus Notes R8.5.1, and after a few suggestions from the employees where I work, I updated the button to do the following:

• It supports Lotus Notes R8.5.1 (duh!)
• It warns people to never select a memory value higher than the amount of RAM installed in the machine (see the 1st comment on the original post on Andrew’s blog).
• It creates an “UndoJVM.bat” batch file to roll-back the changes IF something goes wrong (like an employee who thinks it would be fun to try to select more memory than what’s installed in his machine).
• It tells the employee about the “UndoJVM.bat” file.

So, without any further due, click on the file below to download the the code that you can import in a button and send to your users. Please see my previous post if you need instructions on how to create a button and how to import the code into it.

Please keep in mind that this code is provided “as-is” and I make *no* guarantee(s) whatsoever about it. I tested it with a few people who use Windows XP and on 1 computer Windows Vista and it worked fine in each case. Sorry Apple fans, I don’t have a MacBook (yet) and/or access to one to test it out and figure out how to make this button work on that platform. Ditto for Linux … well, anyway, the whole .bat file thing just won’t work on those platforms …

Addendum

Seriously, never ever ever select more memory than the amount of memory installed on your workstation … Lotus Notes just won’t start if you do … you’ve been warned …

Summary

Some of you might already know about this because it’s been discussed in various posts (like this page here) but in case you haven’t heard about it, there’s a way to speed up your Lotus Notes R8.x Standard client (the one that comes with the Eclipse interface). The method involves finding a file called “jvm.properties” (you might actually have more than 1 file) in a very very very specific directory (which changes from machine-to-machine).

So, you can read the link in the previous paragraph to figure out where the file is and what to modify OR you can follow-along and create a button that does the work for you … so it’s red pill (the hard way) or blue pill (the easy way) time!

The Solution (if you take the red pill and somehow enjoy pain)

We’ll, click on the link in the 1st paragraph of this article, read up the article and have fun manually finding and editing that jvm.properties file … which might be somewhere else on your hard drive than where the article suggest. And you might also have more than 1 directory that matches the one discussed in the article. For some people, this is fun and interesting but I just can’t see how I can walk a normal employee thru those steps without having the urge to stick a pencil in my skull at one point.

The Solution (if you want the blue pill and enjoy shortcuts)

I spent a bit of time coming up with a nice and easy button that I can mail to my users that does the hard work for you. And since I like to share information, here’s the code for the button … simply click on this lss file to download the code to your computer.

To create the button, simply open a new memo, put the cursor into the body of the email and click on the menu Create -> Hotspot -> Button.

Once the button appears, you can right click on it and ask for it’s properties. Set the name of the button to something like “Speed up my Notes Client R8.x”.

Then change the button code type from Formula to LotusScript and, if you haven’t done so yet, download the lss file above. Once you have the LSS file somewhere on your hard drive, click on the “Click” method of the button code (confusing … I’m sorry but I don’t know how else to type this) and then click again in the Sub Click () to put the focus in the code area.

Once the cursor is in the area where you’d normally give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome by typing a ton of code into, simply click on File -> Import. In the import dialogbox, select the LSS file you downloaded and click on Import.

Once all the code has appeared, you can either save that new email as a draft or you can go right away and email it to someone (or to yourself).

When you click on the button, you will be prompted to select a number of Megabytes (Megs) roughly equivalent to 1/3 of your total system memory. This appears to be the amount of ram that you can safely dedicate to the Eclipse jvm without hurting too much the other apps on your system so this is why I’m asking you to pick the right number. Once you’ve selected a number, it will begin to scan your the Framework folder in your Lotus Notes client installation directory to find the right jvm.properties file. It will go somewhat quickly and once it’s found the right files, it will make the modifications and let you know the results.

As usual, after this change, you need to close and re-open your Lotus Notes client to see the difference.

Addendum

Another tip to speed up your Lotus Notes client is to disable the setting “Launch Lotus Symphony in the Backround when the Operating System Starts” in your preferences.  This setting can be found by clicking on File -> Preferences and then by clicking on the “Lotus Symphony” category (if you have installed Lotus Symphony).

Have fun!

PS: Yes, I enjoyed the first Matrix movie and the “blue” pill is a reference to that movie … not to the “other” blue pill made by a certain pharmaceutical company.