I’m curious as to hard this would be to build or, if by some chance someone has already built it.
I would like a “replicateable” My Documents type of folder which I would see listed in My Computer or Windows Explorer (if I have my Lotus Notes client up and running) as a separate drive and/or folder.
For example, let’s suppose that I have a home computer and an office computer. Both have Lotus Notes R5 or R6 installed, and both have Microsoft Office 2000 or XP installed.
When I create a new Word Document or Excel spreadsheet at work, I’d very much like to be able to save it to a “simulated” folder which is actually a Lotus Notes database, rather than a real folder on my office computer hard drive or network drive.
At the end of the day, I replicate this database with the Domino server. Then, when I go home, I launch Lotus Notes on my home PC, replicate this database, and instantly, I have access to all of the files, documents, and spreadsheets that I worked on during the day while at work.
Any chance that someone knows how to go about setting something like this up?
Thanks in advance,
Bill
Subject: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
Bill, Search on Domino Network File Store, it almost does what you want. Last I knew it was Netbios only which was a showstopper for me:-jmw
Subject: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
This big boost in 6 is the ability to edit files attached to Notes documents and save the changes directly back to the Notes doc attachment. This has made using Notes DBs for file storage and usage much much more real world than before.
As such, even using the basic Doc Library, you can store Office files (for example) in a much more secure and collaborative manner than using a file server. Take them home on laptop via replication of the DB. Search, categorise and find your docs much more richly than using a file structure and now easily edit the files too!
Before ND6 out of the box file management in Notes was clunky. You either had to use embedded objects which could be edited directly in the Notes doc but presented their own problems, OR use file attachements but edits had to be performed by saving a copy of the file to the HD, then replacing the original file with the new version.
Finally document management at a simple level seems to be really good out of the box with now need to use Domino.Doc unless you have more substantial versioning, archiving and workflow needs.
HTH
Greg
Subject: RE: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
I am trying to locate more information about inline editing that you describe here. Is this feature available from web clients?
Thnak you,
Bill
Subject: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
There’s a My Briefcase concept in Windows that allows for this kind of idea. Doesn’t use Notes, but it kind of works the same as you describe.
Stephen Lister
Subject: Thanks everyone for the input!
I’ll be trying each of your suggestions and let you know later which worked the best.
Subject: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
How about using the Microsoft Office Library template supplied with Notes ? It allows you to create word/excel documents as OLE objects directly in a Notes database, and you are therefore able to replicate the database to your home system.
The Domino Network File Store as John suggested doesn’t work with R6 (afaik) - and never will.
Someone once wrote about a new feature like the DNFS, that would use Webdav, but I have no idea when/how/if it will be implemented.
/Brian
Subject: RE: Can a Notes DB simulate a drive partition or folder?
WebDav is already implemented in ND6. But this wouldn’t help him because a HTTP connection to the Domino server is needed AFAIK.I think using the MS Office Template would be the best choice, or any other DB with the ND6 edit attachment feature.
Subject: WebDav works only for design elements (eom)
Subject: RE: WebDav works only for design elements (eom)
That’s AFAIK not really true. The documents are saved as design elements in the NSF, but you can save any file (e.g. doc, xls…) in it via the WebDAV interface…
Subject: Simulate a drive partition or folder - Domino Doc
Hi Bill !
Have you looked at Domino Doc, it gives you the functionality you are looking for and allows you to save directly into a Domino DB from Word etc.
Carsten