I’ve just got my first look of 8.5.1. But I’m looking through the Domino Designer and through the Designer Help and I can’t find any real enhancements to the native development structures, such as forms.
I recently installed an 8.5.1 64-bit server, which seems to be running well. It’s playing nice with our 6.5.2 cluster, and we’ll eventually migrate all the servers to 8.5.1.
But for the life of me I can’t find any reason to move our 6.5.1 users beyond 7.
I have a brand new install of Win7, nothing but MS Office 2007 installed, and Notes 8.5.1, and in the first day it’s already crashed a couple of times. This isn’t going to fly well with the users.
App development using XPages and components is out of the question and not open to discussion. But I still need to make enhancements to the system, which includes interface enhancements, accessing HTTP services, etc. Are there any updates to forms, views, agents, or other traditional elements that makes updating to 8.5.1 worthwhile? 'Cause if I can’t find any, then I’ll recommend to the higher ups that we move to 7.0.4.
In addition to the things Bruce stated:If you have any client-side code that works with DXL, I believe almost every client release has improved that, especially if you do DXL “round tripping” - i.e. exporting documents or design to DXL, changing it then re-importing.
I don’t work with DXL. I did create a simple version of TeamStudio Analyzer where I take the DXL and create a Notes database documenting the design of the target db…but that’s about the only use I’d ever have for DXL.
At the moment, even though all development is done on 6.5.1, I do keep a version 7 client just to build those Analyzer type dbs. If 8.5.1 is better then I’ll upgrade my spare for this reason. But other than this one case, DXL isn’t used in my apps.
As a matter of reflex I cancelled the NSDs, and I haven’t had a problem since I followed a suggestion to turn off the Eclipse LotusScript editor. I tried turning it back on so I could generate a log but now I can’t find the option (had a hard time finding it the first time too.)
If I can turn on the Eclipse editor and get another crash I’ll post the log.
The server performance and DAOS are worth the server upgrade, ID Vault requires client upgrade.For the normal Notes stuff, the changes were Java Views in the pim, Composite apps, widgets, sidbar and XPages.
The side bar with Live Text is a main reason one of my customers is upgrading. To be able to right click on Company name , contact name, address or selected text and select an action form the menu. That action may be to open your CRM to the contacts info, lookup an order # in a sales database, get directions to the address from Google and more. It’s easy to use and expand on.
Email has improved for web, notes client and mobile use (MS Mobile, Nokia and iPhone). You can federate other calendars with the Notes calendar, so you can see your personal Google calendar with your company appointments. Great to prevent saying you’ll work late on the evening you kids have an event.
You will need hardware to support it 1-2 gb ram and decent processor.