Give Your Workspace A Makeover!

May 26 2005 11:00:00 AM Add/Read Comments [15]
Are you tired of the look of your Lotus Notes Workspace?  Would you like it to look something like one of the images below?

Image:Give Your Workspace A Makeover!

Well IBM Business Partner ICODEX Software AG has made it possible, and is giving away this amazing tool for free!  Surf on over to Florian Vogler's Blog and read about INTEGRATE!People Light Edition.  

I took at look at this today and love it!   Here are the steps I followed:

1.) Click on the "Go get it!" link on Florian's blog (mentioned above) to download the executable file.
2.) Click on the file to install, choosing the location of your notes\data directory.
3.) After the file is installed, open the "I!P Light" database.  You will see a navigator on the left, and at the bottom a section containing documentation.  Click on the document titled "Installation and Rollout".
4.) Click the button that says "Install DLL on this client now".  You should see a message popup saying "DLL extracted to data directory, added ip4free.dll" to notes.ini entry EXTMGR_ADDINS".
5.) On the navigator on the left, click "Desktop Skinning", you should now see documents on the right hand side.  To install the theme you want, select the desired document, and click the "Activate selected Skin" Action button.

Image:Give Your Workspace A Makeover!

6.) Restart Lotus Notes, and you should have a brand new look!

By the way, you can make your own graphic files (ex: your company logo) for use in the skins.  If any artists are out there reading this, I'd love to see some skins made for the following:

- Wimbledon theme: Green grass background with yellow tennis balls for the database icons.
- Poker theme: Green felt background with poker chips for the database icons.
- Beach Volleyball theme: Sand for the background and volleyballs for the database icons.
- Checkerboard theme:  Checkerboard for the background with checker for the database icons.

INTEGRATE!People Light Edition does more than just allow you to "skin" the Workplace.  It also allows you to set a bookmark as your homepage, and remove duplicate bookmarks from folders, but I've not reviewed those features yet.  These features are just a few of the things the full INTEGRATE!People does.  I'd like to thank ICODEX for making this lite version available to us all for free, and I hope many companies will be impressed and take a look at what the full version can do for them.  No I am NOT associated with ICODEX in anyway, I'm just a happy user!