Why lotus notes is bad

This is transparent to the end-user. If this happens to be an email database you are referring to, then the setting for which database will be opened is defined in the localtion settings. As one of those 'forced user' of Notes who spent dozens of hours trying in vain to bypassing Notes with other email client, I am truly amazed amused by the passion towards Notes displayed on this thread. I have a couple of questions:.

I love shiny things and cool user interfaces and shiny baubles but not as much as I like tools that work really well.

I would prefer functionality to UI too. If your point is Notes UI truly sucks, but there's NO alternative yet for its strong functionality, then comes my next question:. Why, as some of you mentioned, most Notes complainers which is majority of my colleagues do NOT see the hidden value of Notes?

May I venture to argue that a more intuitive UI may help to reveal those hidden values to the end users? Is the argument that "take some training courses and then you will eventually understand" really valid in ?

I am, as some on this thread, a incredibly frustrated user of this disaster of a product, and there is not 1 day I do not think why IBM still insists developing this cluster of unpresentable code they have named Lotus. I often just type the stuff in my blackberry Anyone that actually likes Lotus Notes is an idiot. Any company that uses Lotus Notes obviously is not aware of the severe productivity penalty for using this worthless piece of shit.

I would think that the daily penalty per user is in the order of 30 minutes to an hour. I am no Microsoft Outlook fan, but it totally blows away Lotus. Most of the defense I've heard for LN has to do with some super-powerful back-end that would offer you all the joys of life if your idiot Notes administrator just had a clue. I don't care about that. Thus most of your praise for the product and your insults for its detractors amount to nothing.

So most Lotus Notes users know it as a slow, ugly, highly unintuitive e-mail program that appears to have traveled through time from around I think the main reason companies continue to purchase LN in the modern age is that the experience of end-users is simply never taken into account.

I evaluate many tools to help me get things done. Most don't make the cut. Here are some of the key tools I currently use and recommend:. Additional information. COM, Inc. It's no secret that my colleagues and I love using Lotus Notes and we think it's one of the most powerful platforms for information and knowledge management, collaboration, and personal productivity.

Of course, not everyone shares our view , including IBM's Technology Strategy consultant, Jon Mulholland, who describes himself as a "Passionate mobile geek and lover of beautiful web design" on his Twitter profile. I found this today in my daily search of all things Lotus Notes I use Lotus Notes to create value - value for myself, my team, and my company.

While I'm always envious of the latest eye candy that I see from Apple, I'm more interested in what the application will DO for me on an ongoing basis. For me, Notes is about being productive and getting things done. While I thoroughly enjoy the latest UI features of Notes 8. In fact, when I demo eProductivity to enterprise clients I will often do just that - I will downgrade my Notes from 8. The Lotus Notes UX team has done an awesome job at enhancing the visual and usability elements of the Notes user experience, but it's the ability of Notes to facilitate how we communicate and collaborate that really shines for me.

Still, we have this differing viewpoint from Jon, which makes me wonder how Jon's experience differs from mine. Is he using a really ancient version e. Notes 4, 5, or 6? Did he get any training in how to maximize his use of Notes? Perhaps he has access to some really cool technology that makes Notes pale in comparison? As an IBMer, I would expect that he has access to some of the finest technology and people that can help him.

If not, I'd be willing to do my part and help. I'd really like to help him convince himself that Lotus Notes doesn't really suck. Productivity expert, David Allen had this to say in an comment thread on Ed Brill's blog: Ed, as Eric wrote in his blog post and as I have said for years, most folks simply don't understand the power of what Notes can do for them. I'm constantly amazed when I'm in companies that use Notes that the average person has no idea of the power of what they have, which is probably why they complain or whine and pine for something bigger and better.

I think there's a large segment of the market that doesn't even know Notes still exists or is thriving. I won't speculate further on the reasons for Jon's comment today. It's clear that he's not happy about having to use Notes at work. I wish I could change that - I love giving people a new outlook on Notes. In any case, Jon has a blog and he appears to focuses on design so perhaps he will write a post to share his Notes experience with us so we can all learn more.

I hope so. I get the impression from his blog that he's good at icon design. Color me overwhelmed. It's an interesting debate: Are you better off with a highly flexible, untra reliable, secure environment that allows code that was written 20 years ago to continue running today with no modification while also allows you to develop new cutting edge solutions which will most likely still be running in another 20 years time?

I'd have to agree with Nathan and Palmi. His latest posts are all focused on a competitor's product. Seems he's more interested in the "toy" side of social networking. Perhaps he will appreciate Notes when he matures. Ye gods! An IBMer? Playing devil's advocate here One or two mistakes in a posting is not enough to hang someone. Even if public at some point. He will probably learn his lesson and next time probably post it as an anonymous coward.

In other words if the code ain't broken they don't need to pay to fix it. The good way to handle it may be : - Invite Jon to some sessions with Mary Beth Raven and her crew to tackle what he dislikes - Jon publishes story about this collaboration with MBR on his blog no doubt he'll be convinced that, at least, Notes is becoming far better than what he is used to. I think Notes Administration plays a part in a user's perception of Lotus Notes.

But please, if you know why in the world it would be doing that, let me know.. Boy, I hate Lotus Notes :. Hi Danny, Notes is designed to provide seamless access to databases and one of the ways it can do this is to automatically switch to a replica if the selected replica is not available. If your point is Notes UI truly sucks, but there's NO alternative yet for its strong functionality, then comes my next question: Why, as some of you mentioned, most Notes complainers which is majority of my colleagues do NOT see the hidden value of Notes?

Once you click on the text, move the mouse pointer down below the hyphen again and click, the cursor disappears, and the text to enter the description doesn't come back either.

Extra steps to read emails: I'm in the mail application, looking at my inbox, with a quick view window at the bottom. I select a mail in the top listing, and after a few seconds the mail is available to read at the bottom. I move the mouse over the reading window and scroll, the mail listing scrolls instead. Very well, I click on the mail body.

Immediately I notice the box around the selected mail in the listing above has thinned - encouraging. Then I scroll. This time nothing scrolls, not the mail, not the listing above, nothing. I need to click again on the mail body before I can scroll it.

These are fairly simple operations, for getting some really simple, basic tasks done. All of these are fairly easily achievable in Outlook or Apple Mail not a big user of Outlook off late, but still have used it. Now Notes may be a far better software compared to either Outlook, or Mail, or even perhaps the two of them put together.

Now I uinderstand that the client was released in September , and my softaware standards it's ancient history, but these tasks were still very posisble long before rolled around.

I remember doing all these activities on Outlook, as far back as , on XP. This has been in Notes since version 4, almost 20 years ago. This is a feature that has been available in Lotus Notes since it's first release in This applies to every document in every Lotus Notes Database.

The effect that you have observed is double-clicking on a word for a document in Read mode, expecting to highlight that word, but Notes puts the document into Edit mode, which is standard for Notes. In versions of Notes before version 8. From 8. The "Hyphen" you describe is there to indicate where the end of the Rich-Text description entry field is within a calendar entry. You are correct, clicking on the 'Enter the Description of this event" help text will remove that tip the first time you click on it as it will for any Help text set as the default for a field in any Notes document.

If you then click below the "Hyphen" you are moving the focus OUT of the description field. However, you can move the focus back into the description field by clicking above the Hyphen again. This has been an issue with Windows for years. Scrolling based on cursor focus is not just a Notes issue, it occurs with other applications as well. I run Linux Ubuntu , and am sitting next to a colleague running a Mac, both of us are able to scroll screen elements based on our cursor location, rather than "Focus" the problem you described by having to click in the content of a message before you can scroll within the details to read it.

Sorry I can't help with this one, it does work on different versions of Windows, but we can't pin down why it only works in some versions of Notes on some versions of Windows. Always happy to help with any Notes requests you may have, please feel free to contact me at any time. I have used outlook all my life. Unfortunately my company is on notes and I'm having a hard time adjusting. I need help with two features:. Seems easy but I can't do it. Would appreciate your help.

Please remember I'm very new to notes 1 week So please be descriptive in your response. Thanks in advance. Every time I launch Contacts, it says "Contacts sync is disabled" Is there a way to use the tool without syncing. In order to open the contextual menu on an attachment I have to click somewhere else in the email body and then right click on the attachment. Just one of many bugs found during my two years of use of that sorry software. I select an email in the list of emails, and the email body appears below the list.

I scroll using any method, and the email text becomes garbled. To solve this I have to click on the email body to refresh the view. Delete email. I deleted an email by mistake, so obviously went to the trash folder to retrieve it. In Inbox, to sort emails by date or by subject click on the column title. Now, search on inbox for a document, get a list of the emails.

Now try to sort by Subject or date by clicking on the respective column. You can't. Expand the search box more , the sort by options include two options to sort by date, but not by subject. The browser won't open. Move Lotus back to the main screen, click on the web link. It will now open the browser as expected. Lotus notes shows me a huge dialog saying that the certificate may be invalid, do you want to accept it this time?

If I don't select accept for ever, it will keep showing the dialog again and again until by clicking really fast with the mouse I can select a different email.

How come almost all of the functionality is not undoable? I am human, I make mistakes. Come on!! Mat, on milind's email, point 3. Why would Lotus require us to do this? Why does Lotus need to be so uncomfortable to use, so user unfriendly? I might misunderstand how great a database engine Lotus is.

But I don't think it crashing on me is a sign of greatness. Mail clients used in the meantime were Outlook for work and mostly Thunderbird for private mail, since I used to be slightly addicted to Linux. It's like: You have a great piece of software sitting in front of you, but you don't understand its greatness. I think this is an misunderstood attitude towards the end user. The GUI should be intuitive and lead the user gently into the appliaction.

This goes especially for applications like email clients. Most people use a program for private email reading, unless they read them in a web browser, and the corporate mail clients should broadly follow the same conventions, I think. I don't say that Lotus Notes is useless. It works, but seems old fashioned and the GUI is outdated my version being 8.

And yes, it might be a great database handler, but most end users don't care about that. Case in point 1. However, should I take LN at face value? Duh, NO! So naively, I go and check the Outbox, which doesn't show any emails listed. By now, I should be satisfied, if not apologetic to the guardian deity guarding LN for doubting its worth that the email is well and truly on its way to the intended recipient.

But experience has taught me better - the Outbox does not refresh by itself. I click F9, and lo and behold! The email I supposedly 'sent', is still sitting pretty. The pain doesn't end there. And no I can't go to "File-preferences" as I have "file-user preferences, toolbar preferences and status bar preferences" None of which give me the option I am looking for!! I'm an IT admin and I can't figure this out.

I also have no idea how to mark all my emails as read. I can't believe how utterly rubbish Notes is. What a steaming pile of garbage--totally unfit for business use. I am not a programmer. I am not a database builder. I don't care how secure or stable it is for IT people to deploy and manage. As a mobile professional, I just want a program that reliably fetches my mail, syncs my calendar with something besides itself and provides access to my contacts in a standard format.

And do it reliably in an offline environment and through a VPN connection that doesn't require Internet Explorer to use. I can only assume that IBM got its hooks into my company far too long and far too many dollars ago for us to invest in a workable business-class alternative.

Our IT people are suckers and our users suffer with this horrible pile of crap day in and day out. Matt, your attempts to put lipstick on a pig are amusing, but not nearly as much so as the comments from people like me know better. I write as a basic user, not technical by any stretch of the imagination.

You are correct to say people can google to find out how to do things like change passwords. The people who have raised issues here that you have responded to, such as when right clicking on a non notes senders address and you cant add to the address book but hey you say if you click on MOREyou can, are very helpful however I don't have to seek help or google solutions to such basic tasks in gmail, outlook etc.

If I have to take time out of my day to google solutions for what most people would consider are basic tasks then I am wasting my time and my companies time. I have worked at several companies whom have used notes.

One was a company that took full advantage of the database capabilities however they employed several highly paid and skilled people to build and manage notes. Notes at that company was great. Another company simply used it for email and in that case it really was crap for basic everyday tasks. It not always viable for companies to employ highly paid notes developers simply to deal with email related issues. There is Help either with things such as f1, google or pages like yours however it quickly becomes a costly and stressful exercise when so much time and energy has to be spent in order to effectively use it.

This is the underlying feeling I get when I read the masses of complaints that a simple google search brings up on Notes. If you are using it for basic everyday email it really is useless unless you have a team of highly paid developers and specialists who can deal with the issues. I have seen notes used to its full ability, I was impressed and it was great but as I said that came with large overheads of employing LN developers or contractors which most companies simply do not do when using it mainly for email.

My current employer uses Notes and I have yet to meet anyone at this company who likes it, in fact they all detest it. It is the number one issue that is raised at every company meeting and the feeling is so strong that there was a special company announcement recently with much fanfare to tell the employees that we would be moving off notes this year. I understand your need to defend the product but as a non technical user who just wants some basic email functionality it is obvious to me that it was designed purely by technical people without much thought to usability.

This is where companies such as apple, google etc excel they understand that ease of use make for happier customers even if that means that additional functionality is lacking.

Having all the functionality in the world is useless if you cant use the product. When notes was first created it was admittedly a product leader in lightweight database solutions.

However the internal browser and email clients have always been substandard. Everybody in this industry has had to become an apologist for crappy software at some point, but Notes elevates this to a whole new level.

The product in its current form tries to masquerade as lightweight database, email, and browser and manages to be significantly substandard in all three. I wouldn't mind except that the email search functionality is a joke, so I spend many wasted cycles filing important email because I know I won't be able to find it again. I'm doing this in the age of search!

I stumbled upon this thread, after a quick search inspired by seeing a "highly educated IT professional" friend of mine post some derogatory comments elsewhere about Lotus Notes. Anyway, for the highly experienced programmer who commented above somewhere about how he couldn't work out how to change his password. Well, I just tried, out of interest I have never done this in 15 years. Hmm, let's see. Menu - File. Oh, look, Security - User Security.

That could be intuitively correct. And so it was. Took 20 seconds. I've been an end user of LN for some 15 years we now are on V7; bit antiquated. Good, so our company now has two separate systems to maintain Does anybody have a solution for the or so databases we have? As always, here too, everyone whinged and whined about LN and looked forward to the introduction of Outlook.

And now they moan and complain about Outlook. But of course when Outlook crashes and dies, that's just accepted and kept quiet; brushed under the rug, as if it's just an accepted feature. When LN crashed, it was the opposite - fire and flames. For me, I am fine with LN; I use it almost every day - never had any major issues. Of course, nothing is perfect and we are on V7, don't forget. Naturally, not a very common thing to do, I must admit, but how about LN databases?

Other likes? Maybe not so relevant now, but the text formatting properties box that remains on the screen, preferable to being modal like other apps. For this whole topic, it's interesting. Oh look, Betamax has a slightly better signal-noise ratio that VHS. Ha, beat that VHS. I read last year about a pro-Android journalist who got death threats—death threats—from die hard Android fans as he had claimed that a small feature of iOS was 'OK'.. C'mon; it's an operating system for a telephone.

Only to succumb to the passing cleaning lady, who suggests you to plug a lamp into the socket, see of there is power available.. I have never yet seen anyone produce an absolutely compelling reason to suggest that IBM Notes is useless, it's all just minor gripes, fuelled by internal rage. For a piece of software. The worst part is it could be greatly improved with a more friendly user interface, like one acknowledging that people want an email client and do not care about database and stuff Yes you can open older version of PPT in Notes.

As an engineer supporting Domino products and the positives already said, yes the Lotus Email Client needs a major overhaul if it is going to stay competitive. Just like previous comments, every user is always asking when we are switching, new employees are suprised to learn we still have Notes. Massive CPU utilization at times, hung nsd. Sometimes requires a reboot for no reason when the Eclipse based files will not load properly. Workspace folder contstantly has to be reset as it tends to corrupt itself frequenly.

Framework folder constantly has to be reset as it tends to corrupt itself frequently. We re-install the client on a regular basis. Lotus-Notes-free for 42 months! Have they finally fixed the "sort" feature in the email?

It would drive me to apoplectic fits when I tried to sort emails by subject line, only to have 1, emails from different threads that started with RE: or FW:. I have been an MS exchange for over ten year and was horrified about the prospect of moving. When we first moved it was a bit of a nightmare but now I know I using a vastly superior product.

Exchange is at best user friendly, Notes 9 if so much more. The backend is solid, upgrades are also solo much easier, the product is lighter no need to cache local unlike exchange, iNotes it great, traveller is getting better. Value for money Notes wins hands down. The only disadvantage of using the notes client over the net is that it is slow; mainly - I imagine - because of the code that is being executed.

I am not a programmer by trade and there may be something better, but I have not seen it. I cannot imagine building the security in notes from scratch in something like exchange. I have not heard of anyone building a document management system like mine. I think Notes is a great platform. The only real deficiency notes has a web development platform is the inability of developers to use its capabilities as well as they might.

I've vastly improved the look and feel of a couple of my websites e. Indeed there has been a move away in recent years from using the notes client and instead writing internal applications for the browser so end users have no idea nor do they even care that its a lotus domino application.

And now there is Domino XPages, which is a great environment to use for Domino web development. No reason to move away, for it can be applied to the existing databases. Minor drawback: it takes quite some time to learn XPages development.

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Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Edwin Buck Edwin Buck Thank you Edwin! You bring up some good points. In this particular case, the client has no distributed databases. I feel confident recommending retirement for Notes. I do like the fact that you mention Lotus Notes history. That is very worthwhile to remember. Really object to comment about database that didn't sell so they used it for email, it was built as an application development platform bound to an underlying messaging infrastructure.