How many documents do you see?

September 29 2006 11:43:57 PM Add/Read Comments [2]
How many documents are being shown in this Lotus Notes view?
Image:How many documents do you see?

Now how many documents are being shown in this Lotus Notes view?
Image:How many documents do you see?

The answer to both questions is 2, but I bet many people would have answered 4 for the second one.

So why is what looks like 4 documents in the second screen shot, really only 2?   Because as you can see below, when the document was created it was labelled with three categories: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  
Image:How many documents do you see?

Lotus Notes allows a single document to be displayed within multiple categories, without having to make extra copies of the document.   This can be very powerful in applications, but can also be a little confusing if you are not careful.

Say you no longer want the document to be shown under "Trains".   When you select the document by clicking next to it under that category, you will notice the selection check mark also appears in the two other categories.  That is because they are all the same document.   So if you hit delete, the document would be completely removed from the database, not just from the single "Trains" category.
Image:How many documents do you see?

To change what categories the document is displayed under, you can either edit the document and remove the category
Image:How many documents do you see?

Or you can choose Actions - Categorize
Image:How many documents do you see?

This will bring up the Categorize dialog box where you can de-select categories or even add new ones.  (if you have access to do so)
Image:How many documents do you see?

I hope this helps provide some better understanding of how Lotus Notes uses categories, and what you are really seeing when you look at the documents displayed in a view.