Remove or Delete? Folder or View?
September 25 2006 01:27:33 PM
Add/Read Comments [78]
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.
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.
Sounds good to me, but the PHB generally doesn't "get" the difference between a view and a folder. I've been questioned about the "Delete/Remove" box being ambiguous. And, of course, the PHB will have chosedn to not be asked again and choose Delete as the default. It's good to point out that the mail template's navigation frame has all of the "Views" at the top and then a section of "Folders" at the bottom. While this may seem a little goofy when compared to the way most other email programs function, it really does have a useful purpose. But most people don't seem to get that purpose - they think everything should be a folder. It really doesn't matter as long as they choose the right option for moving documents.
I leave mine to prompt me every time. If I'm cleaning up my Sent folder, I will generally drag the documents to a folder then remove them from the Sent folder. What I would like to see is the ability to set a preference to actually "MOVE to folder". When using this option it only copies the document to the folder. "Move" should mean that it leaves the current folder. This would save me a lot of time!
Alan, what happens if you select Remove and there is only one instance? Does it leave an unreferenced document, or is Notes smart enough to go ahead and delete it?
Hi Chris, "but the PHB generally doesn't "get" the difference between a view and a folder." Well, that is why I wrote this! Is there something I can describe differently that would help them?
Alan, I doubt you could be much plainer than what you've written. People just think that the Inbox is a folder and that all mail storage locations are also folders. I'm just saying that generally non-technical people (not just PHBs...) are really confused when they first see the Delete/Remove confirmation dialog box. It makes sense to me because sometimes you want to keep multiple "copies" of the document in different folders.
By the way, the Discover Folders option in Notes 7 is great!
@2 If you Remove a document from the only folder containing it, it will still be available in the All Documents view.
Chris, "People just think that the Inbox is a folder"... It is a folder! Sent is a view, and All Documents is a view, but Inbox is a folder, so is Trash. No wonder this is confusing! :-)
Hi Alan,
Nice article. I appreciate what you're trying to do. I think the fact that you need an article on folders means the original concept of folders/views in Notes is not working/still confusing.
ie. I don't need an article to explain to me how folders work in Windows Explorer or my iPod. The simple designs allow me to start using them and learn while I work.
The general user (office staff etc.) have a different view of folders...maybe Notes needs to change?
Why not hide All Documents and make it only visible under a search option?
Pete
Hi Peter, I actually wish for the opposite. I'd like to see Window's Explorer allow me to work more like the way I do in Notes! For now the closest I can think of is to create a folder, and then drag shortcuts of the files I want into it from their various locations. Apple Mac OSX allow you to have "Search Folders" which are similar to Notes views. They allow you to define which files they show based on a set of rules, as opposed to actual harddrive location. For example, on my Mac desktop I have a folder than shows songs (mp3s) that are newer than 60 days. I am pretty sure Outlook has something similar, as does the upcoming MS Vista OS. So yes, I agree some education is needed (hence this post) to understand folders vs. views, but once you understand, I think it makes for a powerful use of Notes. I know I like using the "My Favourites" folder in most discussion DBs. When you say people have a different view of folders, what do you mean? How would "they" like to see them behave in Notes?
Folders are used by people to categorize their documents and group them in some meaningful context.
The simplistic model used by the Windows file system and other applications has the virtue of being easy to understand, but the Notes model provides some advantages as well.
Notes Allows the same document to appear in multiple folders simultaneously, providing multiple pathways to the same record. This is similar to "Virtual Folders", used in some Document Management systems.
In the Windows model you have to create multiple copies of the same document to achieve a similar effect, which can create change management issues.
However, the problem comes when you delete a document. Perhaps Lotus should consider altering the Delete function if a document appears in multiple folders. The default should be to remove the document from the current folder rather than delete the document from the database.
The same issue exists when a multi-value field is used for categorization in a view, when you delete a document from one category it disappears from all other categories.
I don't agree that we should dumb down Notes to remove a useful feature, but Lotus should make the system more forgiving by considering altering the Delete feature in folders & views.
"In the Windows model you have to create multiple copies of the same document to achieve a similar effect", well you could use Shortcuts. Maybe that should be the way we think of Notes documents. The "original version" is in the "All Documents" view, and what we see in the Inbox and other folders is a "shortcut" to the original. However, in Windows when you delete a shortcut, you do not also delete the original, so it is similar to Notes "Remove from Folder" function, not Notes delete function. Oh well.
I have thought many times about how Lotus developers should clearly separate what are Folders from what are Views to avoid confusion to the users. I remember when folders were introduced on v4 how many people got confused. The roots of confusion are still there on v7 as the article demonstrates. Do you listen Mary Beth ({ Link }
I agree, a good article, as clear and clean as you can go. But contrary to others, I don't think that the problem here is people not grasping the concept of Notes folders: It's still people not grasping the concept of Notes views.
I can't blame them for that, nor do I have a revolutionary idea how to improve things. I just always thought, that "remove" means to much the same as "delete" for most users.
MAN! See, you even confused me (or was I already confused?!?) I knew the Inbox was a folder - I've modified it's design before! Silly me....
Nice discussion...but I think we're missing the point. Users use the folders to file their mail. They don't want the fancy mix of views and folders. They just want a folders !
Just my 2cents :-)
Pete
I agree with Pete above.
An issue I have is the delete key only removes the email from the current folder (the Inbox, for example) and puts in the Trash folder. We have limited mailbox sizes (200MB) so I'm having to look through All Documents view to actually delete the emails a couple of times a week.
Is there a way to set Notes up (on the user side, on the developer/admin side) that when I press delete, it actually deletes the email to the Trash and when I empty the trash, it deletes those emails from All Documents as well?
Thanks for another great article, Alan!
Hi LP. Thank you for the compliment on the article. It sounds like something is very wrong with your mail file. Pressing the delete key should not just remove the document from the inbox folder, it should be performing and actual delete of the document, i.e. moving it to the trash folder. The documents in your trash folder should not also be seen in the All Documents view. That would be very bad! You certainly should not have to take any extra steps to actually delete the email a couple of times a week. What do you have the soft delete time set to in your database properties? Is anyone else out there seeing this type of behavior in their mail?
It sounds like LP is doing a Remove from Folder rather than clicking Delete or pressing Delete on the keyboard. Maybe his/her mail template is messed up and the code behind the Delete button has been changed to just remove, or that could be a modification made by an administrator.
The behaviour I would like to see is when you press Delete it removes the document from the current view or folder. When all copies have been deleted, it is removed from the database, eliminating the need to check the All Documents view. For a categorized view, Notes should check to see if the document is visible from multiple categories and if so it removes the category from the document, otherwise it deletes the document. I can see a problem with trying to manage this for views with multiple levels of categorization, though. One of problems with managing categorized views is people get really, really confused when they see the same document appear in 8 places because they put in 8 categories. They think it's 8 copies and trying to get them to fully comprehend that it's all the same record is difficult. Techies get it, non-techies think it's weird.
Oh, and while I'm on the subject, it would be really nice if Lotus could give us a QueryDocumentDelete event for views so we can program how it gets handled at the view level versus having to traverse all the way up to the Database Script.
Alan / Charles...
It's very possible the delete function has been modified by administrators to prevent people from accidentally deleting emails. I just hate that even after emptying my Trash folder, I still have to go through the All Docs view and delete them again, then empty the Trash folder again to actually get rid of them. I might have to check into this.
Thanks guys!
@18, yes something is very wrong. "even after emptying my Trash folder, I still have to go through the All Docs view and delete them again". That is certainly not how Notes is designed to work. When you send something to trash it is gone from all other folders and views... and when you empty the trash, it is gone completely.
Dear all,
It seems to me that the Out-of-office (OOO) message is sent only once every day to the senders of incoming mails. So, if s.o. sends me an e-mail at 14:00 he will only get my OOO message the next day at, say, 12:00.
Is it possible to set the Notes so that the sender gets my OOO message IMMEDIATELY after having sent his e-mail?
THX and best regards,
Bostjan, Slovenia
Hello Bostjan. For Lotus Notes/Domino questions, I would prefer you used the Notes/Domino forum as opposed to this blog.
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/ However, this time I'll try and answer your question here.
Yes, you can enable the Out Of Office agent (OOO) to send responses more frequently, but there can be side effects on server performance depending on how many users you have, how many are away at the same time, etc.
For general information about Domino agents, the best resource on the planet is Julie's Lotus Notes/Domino Agent FAQ
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/46dom.nsf/bc218894c8b6c287852568560055be79/574c99ccb345839185256976004e811e?OpenDocument
She has also written articles specifically about OOO
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ooo-pt1/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ooo-pt2/
and at Lotusphere 2006 Julie provided a sneak preview of the new features coming with OOO in Notes/Domino 8 in her presentation "Demystifying the IBM Lotus Notes Out of Office Agent"
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/sandbox.nsf/ByDate/a7e515f35897095685257114006731ef?OpenDocument
Hello Alan,
I don't succeed in moving mail documents from my inbox in multiple folders as mentioned in your first image. If I move them by mouse to a folder, it disappears from my Inbox.
How to do this??
Greetings from germany
Christoph
Hello Christoph. When you drag and drop an email from your inbox to a folder, you are "moving" it, so it will no longer also be seen in the inbox. If you want it in the inbox and in folders, you have two choices. First, drag and drop like you are doing now, but also hold down the CTRL key and you will see a "+" sign next to the message. This lets you know you are "Adding" not "Moving". Or, use the "Folder" action button, click Move to Folder, and then click "Add" instead of move. Adding places a document in a folder, but does not remove it from the current location. I'll blog about this in more detail so others can see this as well.
Thanks Alan,
A great article for newbies like me...
I loved it a lot.. I must say your article has saved me a lot of trouble.
warm regards,
Pankaj
As follow up to Chris Whisonant's post on 9/25/2006:
"If I'm cleaning up my Sent folder, I will generally drag the documents to a folder then remove them from the Sent folder. What I would like to see is the ability to set a preference to actually "MOVE to folder". When using this option it only copies the document to the folder. "Move" should mean that it leaves the current folder. This would save me a lot of time!"
I have the same complaint as Chris did, I really want to use "drag and drop" to move documents from Drafts and Sent to other folders, without having to "remove" tham again.
Anyone knows how to make that happen? Your input is highly appreciated.
I fully understand the distinction between deleting and removing records from folders and have no complaints there. However I have a question on discovering which folder a record may be filed in. I was looking for a recent, unread message a collegue said I received, but was not in my inbox. A careful inspection of the "All Documents" view revealed to indeed exist. (It was marked "read"- very strange). But in trying to find out which folder it got filed to (perhaps by an auto file to folder rule, which I use), it appears to be an orphan. I stumbled on the right-click command "Folder/Discover Folder" from the All-Doc's view, but get a pop-up message back titled-
"!Document does not exist in any of the Folders".
The subject line of the email may be the culprit- it was titled "Fw: ??? What Happened?" not sure if the ?marks are relevant. None of my auto-file rules are set to act upon this subject line or author. The email is not in the trash or junk folders. My Trash has not been emptied yet.
I'm on Notes release 7.0 HF277.
What gives?
Hi Bill. All emails are shown in the All Documents view, as the name suggests. However, not all documents in the All Documents view are also in a folder somewhere. I for example have very few folders in my mail, but thousands of email messages. A majority of those are only availale from the All Documents view. (as I'd expect)
hi alan,
great discussion of this subject.
what else can happen is: user removes folder and expects that docs in folder are deleted from db. this does not happen, so user has to look for the docs in all documents and delete it there.
Good point. I wonder if we should prompt the user with a warning that the documents contained within the folder are not being removed, just the folder itself.
Hi,
I am not able to move mails from inbox to specified folder. When I drag and drop the folder it doesn't move. The mail is still in the inbox. Suggest me some troubleshooting steps.
I even tried to open the mail and then moved to folder. But still unable to do that.
Hi, sorry to hear that... something is certainly wrong. Are you sure you are trying to move them from your Inbox, not from your All Documents view? Also, since you mention drag and drop is not working, what about using the menu choices? (Actions - Folder - Move To Folder)
Thanks Alan for the great article.
I am using Notes c++ api to go through all the documents of a user. I get all the viewfolders and then enumerate through all the documents. I also need to know where its stored (view / foldername).
I initialy just got the ($All) view and got the whole list of documents. But I don't know how to find the actual folder that the document is stored in (a.k.a Discover Folder functionality), Is there a way?
As a work around, I am going through all the folders and views and all the douments therein - but my GetDocument crashed on some folder/views like ($FolderAllInfo). I am not able to figure out, why? Any insight would be great help.
Thanks
Swati, you should be able to get assistance for developement questions on the Notes forum: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/
The tick box Dont ask me again ( i can change it later)
can you please tell me where I can untick the tick box
thanks
Very Frustrating
Open your mail
Actions > Tools > Preferences (Notes 6/7) or
Actions > More > Preferences (Notes 8)
In Notes 8 the settings are on the Mail / Basics tab. I'm not sure where they are other versions since I only have Notes 8 installed on this computer.
If a user accidentally removed one folder and now needs it back with all the e-mails that used to be there, then how can I do it? She can see the e-mails in All Documents view but that's it... Is there a way to filter out the e-mails by the folder name in All Documents view? Or is it impossible after removing the original folder?
I can restore it from back-up and copy the entire folder back to her mailbox but then she will have two copies of these e-mails in the All documents view, right?
Please help me if possible...
Hi Heleri. I am sorry, but once the folder is gone, there is not longer a way to know what was in it. I know you mention "accidentally removed", that is not very easy to do. If you try and remove a folder, you are promted with "This action may not be undone. Are you sure you want to remove the folder '' from this database?". That message is there to help prevent unwanted deletes.
Well... she wanted to copy-paste the folder under another folder and thought that remove is like copy and that after remove command she will be asked where to put (paste) the folder.
But I already figured out the way to solve this problem - I will archive all the e-mails that she has recieved/sent after the back-up was made and then replace the mailfile with the back-up and copy back the archived e-mails.
I would copy the folder from the back-up straight to the mailfile but I'm pretty sure that then there would be duplicate e-mails in All Documents view and that would be pretty annoying.
But thanks for answering :) And thanks to your site I finally found a normal Notes forum where people actually participate and one can get help if needed. So far I hadn't found it... and it was pretty damn difficult to administre Notes without a good source of help. (We don't have any proffessional Notes users in our company... or probably even in our country, Notes isn't very popular here.) Thanks again :)
great subject. I am just trying to figure something out. If I delete something from the sent view will it delete from the all documents view. But if I removed from sent view then it will still be in all documents. Also since these are both views does it double space when you something in sent and all documents or does it still just see it as 1 e-mail.
Thanx in advance
@39 - If you re-read Alan's original post it says:
"... 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."
So, to review, there is only ever one copy of a document in a database. Documents can only be removed from folders, so you can't remove a document from the Sent or All Documents views. Delete will delete the document from all views and folders.
One more question - if a user has removed e-mails from sent view and now wants to delete them completely, then is it possible to create a filter to find those messages from All Documents view that were once in Sent view. Or is it the same as with folders and it can't be done?
Oops, looks like I confused myself. :-P You can (obviously) remove e-mails from the Sent view. Mea magna culpa.
@41 - Looking at the ($Sent) view from the mail8.ntf template, you can use @IsMember("S"; ExcludeFromView) to determine whether the message was removed from the Sent view.
Hi Heleri. There are some good places for you to ask questions and find information
http://www.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/
http://www.lotus.com/ldd/nd8forum.nsf/
http://www.ibm.com/software/lotus/support/notes/support.html
also look at some of the blogs I've listed on the left side of my site. There you will find many of the gurus in the Lotus community.
We have had the same problem several times that we have not been able to find a good way to recover from.
Scenario: A person goes to move a group of documents from the Inbox to the appropriate folder, but instead accidentally selects “Remove from Folder” instead of “Move to Folder”. Now these emails are lost in space (or the All Documents View).
The only way I know to recover from this is to go to the “All Documents” View and “Discover Folders” for each email, one by one, and look for ones that are not in a folder (all our documents should be in a folder).
This problem is exasperated by the fact that it happens in a “Group Email” account that six people access. It seems that people have done this without realizing it, or without acknowledging it, so we don’t even know of a date range to check. This email account can have 200 or more emails a day.
Is there a way to either display each email’s folder in the “All Documents” View or do a search for all emails that do not exist in any folders?
Thanks!
Someone here thought up a solution to my problem.
Go to the "All Documents" view. Mark all as "Unread".
Next go to each folder, "Select All", then "Mark Selected Read".
Then just go back to the "All Documents" view and select "View Unread" button. Move the Unread emails to the appropriate folder(s).
This email account is very large (466MB) and has quite a few folders, but this only took me about 10 minutes.
Hi Brad, intersting solution around the problem. To answer your question, I don't know of a built in way to find all documents "not in a folder". What I'd like to address more directly is why your users are choosing
“Remove from Folder” instead of “Move to Folder”, and what we can do to help remove that mistake.
Hi All,
I would like to get the folder name of the each document if it is pointed. If anybody know, please let me know.
For example: I received a email and I copied the email into 2 different folders, Now I would like to get those folder name through coding.
Thanks,
Ganesh.
Currently the only programmatic access that I know of to this is @Command( [DiscoverFolders] )
My question is i need instructions on how to set a folder to share so that in the event a user delete a folder from the folder list i can have the server restore it.
Torey, I don't think that is possible. You may get a better answer from some gurus in the forums.
IBM developerWorks Lotus Notes/Domino 6 and 7 Forum
IBM developerWorks Lotus Notes/Domino 8 Forum
I am a Notes Admin. I have a user who cannot drag and drop an e-mail from their Inbox to a folder. What causes that ?
Hi Jon, sorry I have no idea based on that description. I suggest calling support, and letting them know what version of the client, what mail template, local or on server, etc.
Hi thanks for the good information.
What I want to do is try use notes like Ive used outlook for the last ... forever. I have all my folders set up, and ive dragged both incoming and sent mail into those folders per subject etc. But now I want to clear out unwanted mail for mailbox size reasons. So everything thats in one of my folders by that fact alone is 'wanted'. The unwanted stuff is the general in and out emails that I havent dragged to a folder. So the stuff in the inbox is obvious. Its the stuff in the sent items that im struggling with. First of all, up to now ive only been dragging them, but even if i try the menu options, the 'move to folder' is greyed out. So I can only 'add to folder' which to my mind is the same as dragging. Ie there will always be a copy in the sent and the other folder. So my problem is I have probably over 1000 emails in the sent folder. Maybe half of them I want, these are also in the other folders. The other half they are unwanted, but the only way i can see of weeding them out, is by going through the 'discover folders' option for each message, which is painfully tedious. And its not just a case of doing it once to catch up. I would have to do the same thing at the end of every week or month, however often I choose to tidy up. Is there any other method im not seeing?
Just on what people are saying about the parallel with how windows could replicate this behaviour, using shortcuts. At least windows shortcuts have a little arrow symbol, and a size of 1kb, so you can identify that it is shortcut you are looking at, not the original. Maybe this could be food for thought.
thanks for the help.
Hi, further to what I wrote above, Ive read this:
{ Link }
which has explained things a bit more. Basically, 'sent' is a view not a folder. So Inbox is a folder, the folders I have created are folders, everything else is just a view. So every email not in a folder, is just in the root database (is that correct?).
So the real question I have now, is how can I get notes to just show me all emails not in a folder?
Is it possible to have all sent items saved in a folder other than the root database?
As to the design of notes. Surely the thing to do would have been to create a folder called Sent beside the inbox, and have all sent emails saved there. Then under views, have a view called 'view all sent documents'. Would that not keep everyone happy?
"how can I get notes to just show me all emails not in a folder?", I don't think you can. I suggest adding it as a request on IdeaJam, and mentioning it on the Notes Design Blog. { Link }
I have got a main folder icon showing up in orange color instead of the normal yellow. This happened after I found a couple of sub-folders within it had just disappeared without any reason. Has anyone seen a orange color folder?
You are a lifesaver....I see that this was blogged about years ago but today it taught me a lot.
Thank you so much!
Just for reference on this discussion. Formula for getting the name of the folder in a view column: @WhichFolders. Link here: { Link }
I want to know if I am cleaning out my Sent items, and when prompted to 'remove' or 'delete' the item, I always select remove, as I am not 100% sure if I have a saved copy of that document in another folder. If I always choose the remove option, and if it was the only instance of that document, I believe that it is still be shown in the 'All Documents' view. So by removing all these documents from the Sent view, am I actually reducing my mail size on the server at all? I mean, the whole purpose of cleaning out your Sent view is to do some housekeeping, but I can't distinguish which of those emails have a copy in another folder, and which ones I can delete entirely, as I am removing in mass by selecting many documents at a time. Would this method 'catch up' to me one day? What would you recommend for cleaning up those type of emails.
I forgot to mention that we are on Version 8.5
Hi Christina. No, removing from the sent view does not reduce the size of your mail file.
At one time I accidentally selected 'don't ask me again' tick box. I now can't return the settings to how they were. I know to go to tools, preferences and under mail there is a drop down box under delete/remove preference for sent view. The problem is that the drop down box is greyed out meaning I cannot change it - I have asked the system administrator and he has no idea why. Is there any way I can change the settings back to always ask because I accidentally put it on remove which is driving me crazy having to delete things twice.
Thanks.
Alan - what did you do to deserve this? Writing a handy wee blog on folders and views in Notes in 2006.....and still getting asked questions 4 years down the line..
Good man!
Hello Alan,
I have a technical question... Am draging some documents from a view to the folder , copy of the document is moving to the folder but original document still remains in the view. How can I drag the document from the view to the folder with out keeping the copy in the view? Where is the setting for it?
Thanks In advance
Jomy: Views are subsets of all documents (e.g. all over 1 week old / all emails that you have sent) regardless of whether you have put them in folders or not. The nearest Windows equivalent is 'Search' where you put a criterion and Windows files all files that match that criterion, except that in Notes, a developer has already predefined the criterion and given it a name for you.
Folders are like personal indexes. When you drag a document into a folder, you are saying 'this document has a specific characteristic relevant to me that is shared with other documents even though their isn't necessarily an automated way of defining that characteristic'. E.g. you could have a folder of documents with things that you are leaving for another day. Being in one or more folders does not stop the criteria for any views still being valid.
You can think of folders as being an extra index. E.g. you could have a folder of things to do tomorrow, and a folder for a specific project. If you have a document for a specific project that has to be done tomorrow, it could be indexed (put in) in both folders.
So, when you are 'dragging some documents from a view to the folder', you are adding an index for the document in the folder.
You ask 'How can I drag the document from the view to the folder without keeping the copy in the view?' - you can't: folders are your personal way of organising documents; views show a subset of documents by their characteristics (e.g. if it is a "sent" document, it will still be a "sent" document as long as it exists so will be shown in the 'Sent' view; if it is over 1Mb in size, it will always be over 1Mb in size so will always be in a custom view to show documents over 1Mb in size).
I think that the reason so many people struggle with these concepts is that Microsoft now use Folders as an alternative name for Directories and use it in an analogous manner to paper folders in physical filing cabinets. The use of the term Folders in Notes predates Microsoft's use of the term and Microsoft did not use the same definition.
Personally, I don't use Folders - I use Categories; but I won't muddy the waters by discussing them here ;-).
OOPS! In the message above, 'Windows files all files' should be 'Windows show all files'
Hi
@63, yes 2010, nearly 2011...and we still have this View /Folder issue.
Not for us IT guys, because we know lotus, but for our users. in 2010 I'm fed up to spend my time going in users 'All Docs to delete mails they think they already have deleted when deleting a folder.
That is crazy, how can you imagine a normal user to make a difference between a folder and a view ! Lotus is definitevely a software made by IT guys for IT guys only, but they often forget that this is first a tool for normal users.
As jsc42 mentioned, folders just contain pointers to the original page, not a copy of the page itself. That way there is only one version in the database, not multiple. If you use a Mac, think of it like smartfolders, where the same file is viewed in multiple places, but there is just one file.
LOL. Hey Donald. It's ok, I don't mind. Maybe 2011 will change things. ;-)
Hi,
Thanks for the article. I have a question though:
In my Inbox view, I see all read mails and calendar entry acceptances. Once I click on a mail in the Inbox and hit the 'Delete' key, it still shows the mail with a cross next to it. How do I make the 'deleted' mail disappear from the Inbox view and just show in the Trash view?
Thanks!
Hello,
I use Lotus Notes 7 at a company. When I open a message in my "SENT" folder and try to select "Remove from Folder" I get an error message simply saying "Cannot execute command". Any chance you can offer suggestions. Haven't bugged our IT dept. yet.
thanks.
Ml
I've not seen Notes 7 in a loooong time, so I don't recall exactly how it works but... are you reading the actual memo (it's open on screen) or do you just have it selected in the view.
Hi MI,
The Sent box is a view, not a folder so you can't remove a document from it as it will always display any email that has been sent. You are receiving the error message because "Remove from folder" is not applicable in a view.
Hope this helps.
Hello,
I got the mail in the Inbox instead of deleting accidently I pressed remove button. I would like to know how to get back the removed mail. is this possible?
Thanks in advance.
It will be in the All Documents folder.
Please explain how to delete multiple folders at a time in Lotus Notes, instead of deleting folders one after another.
Q2 : How to rearrange folders in Lotus notes ? Can we put the created folders in the order of our choice ?
For anybody who is looking for it, there is a way to restore sent mail back to the sent mail view if a user accidently selects all their email and does "remove"
Create a temp view where selection formula is "SELECT @All & @IsMember("S";ExcludeFromView)"
Create a simple agent and update the field "ExcludeFromView" from "S" to ""
Update all docs in the temp view.
Emails will appear under the Sent view again.