Having finally moved off ancient v5r2 os400 and win 2000 servers was looking forward to stepping up from the old notes domino 6.5.4 to version 8. Having used 8 server and client for a week I can honestly say the $20k we spent on license renewals in the last two years is looking like quite a waste. How do the designers get off gold release editions with basic toolbar faults in the client? Try resizing the toolbar icons in the standard edition client - whoops sorry, no, cant be done. Ditto the old bookmark bar. One size fits all and if you dont like it well tough luck. Gee that eclipse platform is something to be proud of huh, lucky you can go backwards with the basic setup - the UseBasicNotes=1 in the notes ini is a life saver. In basic at least you can resize the toolbar icons, but uh-oh, I added the editing toolbar and in doing so the default toolbar has disappeared - and you cant get it back. Try searching for restore or default toolbar and there’s no help to be found. Then the toolbars are supposed to be drag and drop - yet it seems some drag areas are inexplicably off limits - like you cant move the toolbar to occupy the hard left edge of the toolbar area. I’ve spent hours on one dicky little problem, what a pathetic excuse for enterprise software, whats worse these things worked fine in 6.5.4 how is it possible to go backwards in three years of development ?
Subject: Notes 8.5.1 is really the way to go
I had more problems with 8.0.2 than 8.0.1 but the other respondents are correct. 8.0.x was the first batch of eclipse releases and the functionality left a bit to be desired. You should seriously be using 8.5.1. On the clients, even if not on the server.
Also; are you using the new mail templates? widgets?
Subject: question
So, in October of 09 you decided to install and upgrade to 8.0.2, a version that is roughly a year old. Why? With just a little research, you could have found out that 8.5.1 was being released and most likely resolved most if not all of your issues. So again, the question is why did you go with a point release that is almost a year old? Doesn’t make sense to me.
Subject: Re
We looked at 8.5, and would rather have gone that way, however we looked in detail at the phenomenonally massive fix list pending in release with 8.5.1 and decided we would be better to wait for it rather than go with 8.5 Now 8.5.1 released to web download only approx a week ago so going to 8.0.2 with FP2 was, as far as we could tell from the various documentation, probably the safer option. Considering this is a production environment rather than a mucking about sandbox setup the conservative decision, rather than the brave one, was preferred. After 15 years of product development Lotus Notes/Domino should, at least superficially, be as shiny as polished gold and as solid as diamonds, and I fail to see any defensible reason why it isn’t. If doesn’t work at the GUI level it is surely no surprise that people give up and go elsewhere. Domino is a brilliant product but it’s user base has been in decline for years - hasn’t anyone ever wondered why ?
Subject: re
I can only assume by your response that you have never had any issues with any other product with a major release. Maybe it’s me but everytime I’ve rolled out anything, be it Notes, windows, linux … there have been issues. That’s why they have support forums… but I guess you’re one of the lucky ones.
Subject: re
Sorry Peter, I guess you just dont understand. I dont mind problems and issues - but I dont think it’s ok for the client app to fail at the basic gui functionality level - to me that is a failure at step one and it’s just not ok. I have no doubt it’s ok in the freeware world or the various linux worlds, or even the open office world - but I dont think it’s ok for software that has a significant annual license fee, but I very much understand I’m welcome to go to a different platform any time I like.
Subject: I see your point …
I see your point. When 8 came out, I built an 8 cluster and upgraded a very limited audience to the 8 client with the caveat that “it is what it is” and if you have problems, let me know and I’ll see what I can do (it was god-awful slow, preformance-wise). Then I did the point releases as they came out … never really running into the issues you’re describing. However, I had no intentions of rolling it out to the general population well into the 8.5.x release. At this point, I think 8.5.1 is the one to go with but I’m still in a holding pattern. I guess my point is, no matter what the product, software, electronics, cars … I would never go with the first year model regardless of the hype and promises. I’ll probably look at Windows 7 sometime in late 2010 or 2011.As far as other products go, did you upgrade your Domino server? If so, how long did that take. Now, compare that time to upgrading an Exchange server.