Its what inside that counts

In my last tip, I provided a high level overview of the relationship between domains, servers, and databases.  Today I'd like to go into more detail about databases, documents, and views.

So what is a Lotus Notes database anyway?  Simply put, a Notes database is a container for documents ¹.  Each icon on your Lotus Notes Workspace or Bookmarks represents a database...
     

When you open a database, you access the documents contained within.  The documents are organized into views and/or folders.  Each "row" you see in a view is a document.  For example in your mail file each email is a document.  The exception being a in your calendar, where the documents are show in a "grid" for each time slot.

 

There is a difference between views and folders.   A view contains documents defined by a specific set of rules, where as a folder is not constrained by a specific definition.  For example, your Personal Address Book contains documents for both People and Groups, and there are specific views to display each.   You do not view Contacts in the Group view, nor vice versa.  This is in contrast to the "My Favorites" folder found in Document Libraries and Discussion Databases, where you can store a random assortment of documents of your choosing.



An important thing to learn here is that views and folders are just "pointers" to documents.  When a document is in multiple views or folders, the database still only contains a single instance of that document.   If you delete the document it will be gone from all the views and folders.

There are two types of documents: Forms and Pages.  A form has fields (shown below) that allow you to input data when the document is in "Edit mode".   Where as a page is just used for displaying information, not gathering any input such as Help-About and Help-Using documents.




So in summary, a Lotus Notes database is container for documents.  Those documents can either be forms or pages, and they are organized into views and folders.

Notes:
¹ For those techies out there, they also contain design elements, and security settings.