Remove or Delete? Folder or View?

In this posting, I am going to explain a few important concepts of Lotus Notes: How/where is a document stored in a database, and what is the difference between removing a document and deleting one?

To understand these questions, you must first understand the difference between a Folder and a View.  On the surface they look the same.  Both display documents vertically in rows, and for each row there are columns which show information about the document.  For example, your Inbox shows emails, and the columns for each row display values such as the name of the Sender, the date, the size, and the subject.



Where a Folder and View differ, is in how they determine which documents to display.

Each view in a database is configured (by a developer) to show documents based on something called a "Selection Formula".  That formula can range from something as simple as "All", so that every document in a database is shown, to a very granular formula such as "Show me all documents by a specific author, and are older than a specific date, and over a specific size".

Folders on the other hand are more of an "open container" for documents.   Instead of displaying documents based on any specific criteria, they display just those documents that you drag and drop into them.   Folders tend to be more personal, and allow you to define your own way to store documents, organized in a manner which has meaning specific to you.

So assuming you now understand the difference between Folders and Views, the important thing to understand next is that each document is only stored a single time per database, no matter how many Folders or Views that document is displayed in.    For example, when you move an email from your Inbox into several folders, your mail file only contains a single instance of the document.   Each folder just contains a pointer to that one document.


Why is this important to know?   Because if you DELETE a document from a folder, it will be gone from all the folders and views that it was displayed in.   If you no longer want a document to be displayed in specific folder, you REMOVE it from that folder, not delete it.



To help reduce the amount of mistakenly deleted emails, Lotus Notes warns you when you try and delete a document from the Sent view of your mail file.



Does that explain things?  If not, please ask questions and I'll keep updating this document until it is very clear.