Happy Valentine’s Day.
While keeping up-to-date on one of my favorite blog sites ( CodeStore.net ), I noticed a posting about an article about how Notes sucks. In the article, the author cites a website where some dude posted 80 things he hates about Notes.
They’re silly things. So, in honor of sharing the love, I present to you the first in (possibly) a series of rebuttals on this topic.
1. The Logon Window
Suck Synopsis:
When entering your password, Notes displays hieroglyphics.
My Rebuttal:
Remembering the last graphic shown on a successful entry of your password helps you know if you have entered the correct password. Since you can’t see the letters you typed (for obvious reasons), this is handy. Its extra-important since Notes prevents password hacking programs by increasing the amount of time between each attempts. So… if you were mistyping your password (or had caps lock on), the graphic would help you instantly know you were wrong before hitting OK.
2. Clicking a Hyperlink
Suck Synopsis:
The error “This browser is not installed” appeared.
My Rebuttal:
It was a bug that was fixed. Actually, Notes is smart about this as it allows you to specify the browser you want to use in your location document. Notice that it’s not a “preference” but a location document. So if you have a location document for a development mode, you can also point to a different browser. Handy, if you ask me!
3. The Mail Message Shortcut Menu
Suck Synopsis:
Right-click option have “useless” options like “Copy as link.”
My Rebuttal:
“Copy as link” is tremendously handy! DocLinks are very handy tools and unique to Notes. It is also suggested that items like “Properties” be changed to “Document Properties” which is just a matter of semantics… if your on a doc ument (which you probably are) then the fact that it’s a “document” properties is implied.
4. Opening an Attachment
Suck Synopsis:
A dialog box appeared when double-clicking an attachment that states “Changes to object will not be saved in a Read-Only Doc ument.”
My Rebuttal:
While I agree that Notes dialog boxes on attachments are just starting to get more helpful (and have been improved in 7.0 again), this one is most likely for an embedded document on a form marked read-only. Part of the blame could possibly be put on the application developer (if they didn’t find a way to communicate what type of doc ument it is to the end-users) but if it is access rights-related, then the little graphic in the lower right portion of your screen tells you.
5. Sending an Email Message
Suck Synopsis:
Hitting “send” in an email with no one in the “to” field returns an error stating “No names found to send mail to” – instead, it should not show the “send” option.
My Rebuttal:
It’s a clear message. Hiding “send” wouldn’t necessarily clue the user into what was wrong. I think its helpful.
6. The Property Sheet
Suck Synopsis:
The properties box should refer to the mail database as just that and not “database;” the “compact” option doesn’t tell the user anything; “user detail” does nothing; the box has useless information on it (such as rep ID and ODS version).
My Rebuttal:
First, what’s an end-user doing here? There’s really no need. Second, the power of Notes is that even the mail component is a database… explaining that value would be the subject of an entire blog entry. Lastly, what’s an end-user doing in there anyway?
7. Poorly Designed Icons
Suck Synopsis:
The icons in the properties box are not intuitive.
My Rebuttal:
(A) What’s an end-user doing here?
(B) They make enough sense…except for the beanie. That is silly, but we all know what it means by now, so changing it would be even silly-er.
8. Unnecessary Clicking
Suck Synopsis:
The drag-n-drop functionality for files should show an icon instead of having to right-click and select “display as.”
My Rebuttal:
While the site acknowledges that this was fixed in R5, it fails to acknowledge that the support for drag-n-drop between applications was still somewhat new at the time. And the idea of Notes being able to accept d-n-d’s from Windows was a big deal and has improved with each version.
9. Attaching a file to a Mail Message
Suck Synopsis:
Attempting to attach a file while the cursor is in the “To” field returns an error stating that Notes cannot execute the specified command.
My Rebuttal:
I’m… I’m not even going to dignify that one with a response…. Why should it… No, seriously, I’m not even going to go there.
… Why in the world would you think it would allow you to do…
No. No! I’m not going to explain that one…
10. The Attachment Window
Suck Synopsis:
The attachment window dialog sucks.
My Rebuttal:
Yes, it does. It got better with 6.0. And is MUCH improved with 7.0. But it probably could use some work.
What people here are saying…