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Lotus Notes General Tips

LAST UPDATED: Thursday, 18 May 2006 06:00:20 +0200

SECTION PREVIEWS SPACE SAVER SWITCHING PAGES CLEAR THE PAGE GO TO IT

QUICK HIT THE ENTIRE SELECTION QUICK COPY FIND IT THE DOCUMENT EDITOR

EDITING RESTRICTIONS GETTING PERSONAL SHARED EXPERIENCE NO COMMAND

MOVING ON ONLY UNREAD COMBINATION PLATTER TITLE BOUT PROPERTY VALUES

NO OPENINGS ARRANGE THE PANE SIZE MATTERS PARENTAL PREVIEW

SHOULD I CLOSE NOTES EVERY TIME I WALK AWAY FROM MY DESK WHERE ARE MY ICONS

ORGANIZER GS AND NOTES--THE PERFECT DUO CAN I RESET THE DEFAULT FONT

BRINGING BACK THE WORKSPACE TOGGLE QUICKLY THROUGH OPEN DOCUMENTS

CLICK A URL, OPEN A BROWSER CHANGE THE LOCKS LOCK IT UP SMARTICON UP

PERPETUAL LOCK ICONOGRAPHY NO ICONS A MATTER OF CHOICE GET SETS

DO YOUR OWN THING PERMANENT PEN RECORD CHANGING PERMANENCE

THE AMAZING COLLAPSING SECTION BEHIND THE SCENES INDEX PLAY THE FIELD

HIDDEN VALLEY GIMME A BREAK CHANGING FORM ORGANIZE BY CATEGORY

TEMPORARY CATEGORIES CATEGORIES ONLY, PLEASE SELECTED EXPANSION

A NEW NAME SUBCATEGORIZER MOVING AROUND MINIMAL EFFORT SHOW THEM ALL

QUICK SELECTION SEEING ALL THE COLUMNS QUICK VIEW SEARCH OUT OF SORTS

THE EXPANDING COLUMN SELECTIVE VIEW NO DOCUMENTS FOLDER BOLDER

FOLDER DESIGN REMOVAL SERVICE

SECTION PREVIEWS

If you want to save space in a preview, you can create sections that display only when you preview the document they're in. To do this, create the section (in a rich-text field), then choose Section, Section Properties. Click the Expand/Collapse tab, and choose the Preview Only option. Close the Properties box and save your settings.

When previewing the document, the user has the option to expand the section to see its contents. The full contents display if the document is in any other mode, however (when you open it in read or edit mode, for example).

SPACE SAVER

The workspace pages can begin to add bloat to your desktop.dsk file. However, if you want to control this, you can compact the workspace page, which gets rid of much of the extra space that takes up room in the file. To see if you need to compact the workspace page, select and double-click the workspace tab to open the Workspace Properties dialog box. Click the Information tab (I), then click % used. If the percentage used is under 85 percent, click Compact.

SWITCHING PAGES

When you want to scroll through the various tabbed workspace pages, press Ctrl, then press the right or left arrow. You've selected a workspace page when its tab name is highlighted.

CLEAR THE PAGE

You can always get rid of workspace pages you don't need anymore. Just select the workspace page tab, then choose Edit, Clear or press Delete. If the page you delete contains any database icons, those get removed as well.

GO TO IT

You can easily switch between different Notes views or folders. This is useful if you want to move documents around the various views. To switch views, select View, Go To from the main Notes menu, then select the view you want from the Go To dialog box. Finally, click OK. If you want to move documents between views, highlight them, then press and hold Ctrl.

QUICK HIT

Here's a way to find a document in a view quickly. Open the database, select the view, and begin typing words from the document. As soon as you start typing, a search dialog box appears. Enter as much of the word as you need, then click OK. For example, if you just want to see all the documents in the view that begin with V, type just the letter "V". Notes looks for the column titles or document titles (not the document contents) that match the search criteria.

THE ENTIRE SELECTION

If you want to select all documents in a view, open the view and press Ctrl-A. You might have to wait a few seconds before the documents are selected if the view contains many documents.

QUICK COPY

To copy documents quickly in a view, select the documents, then press Ctrl-C. This copies the selected documents to your computer's clipboard.

FIND IT

Here's another quick way to find documents in a view. Open the view, then press Ctrl-F. The Find dialog box appears. Enter the word(s) you want to find and press OK. Notes searches the document titles (not the contents) for any words that match.

THE DOCUMENT EDITOR

Before you make changes to a document, make sure you have the proper access. You need to have at least Author access to edit any documents you've created. You need to have at least Editor access to edit documents others have created. To see your access level, select the database and choose File, Database, Access Control.

EDITING RESTRICTIONS

Of course you can edit documents to which you have proper access (Author level for your own documents, Editor level for other users' documents). However, there are times when you can't open certain fields or sections in some documents even if you have proper access. Not to worry--this probably means the fields are encrypted or the section you want to edit is access controlled. Ask the database manager if you have any questions about documents that have editing restrictions.

GETTING PERSONAL

Personal folders are a great way to organize information that's important to you in a database. Before you create a personal folder, however, you must have at least Reader-level access to the database. Personal folders are primarily for use on your local computer. If you want to create a personal folder on a server, the database manager must give you the option Create Personal Folders/Views in the Access list.

SHARED EXPERIENCE

The last tip mentioned personal folders, which you can use to organize data that's important to you. If you want to let others in on the act, you can create shared folders in server-based databases. Before you can do this, however, you must have at least Editor access to the database, and the database manager must grant you the option Create Shared Folders/Views in the Access list.

NO COMMAND

Your access level also determines the Notes menu commands you can use. A command that's grayed out is unavailable to you. For example, you must have at least Designer or Manager access to use any commands that involve creating views, forms, fields, and shared agents.

MOVING ON

You can move to Notes documents while you're still in another document without going to the view. All you have to do is click the Next icon in the SmartIcon bar or press Enter when you have the first document in read mode. You immediately go to the next document in the view.

ONLY UNREAD

The last tip reminded you how to move to the next document in a view without going to the view. You can also do this to get to the next unread document in the view. With the document in read mode, just click the Next Unread icon from the SmartIcons bar. The first document closes and the next unread document in the view opens.

COMBINATION PLATTER

You can combine simple actions with @function formulas to automate all kinds of Notes processes from forms. To do this, select the database, choose View, Design, and put the form in Design mode. Create a new action, then select Simple Action(s) and Add Action from the Design pane. Select Action, @Function Formula. Write the @function formula in the editing window and click OK; then click Add Action and select the simple actions you want to add to the formula. Click OK, then close the form and save your changes.

TITLE BOUT

When you create a collapsible section, it automatically uses the first line of the text as the title. You can change this if you want. Select the section and choose Section, Section Properties, then enter your new title in the Title field. The section title appears in the memo or document, and users click on it to expand the section.

PROPERTY VALUES

In addition to the section title, Notes has a few other properties you can control for a section. For example, you can have the user click the section to open it, or you can have it open automatically when the document is opened. To set the section properties, highlight the section and choose Edit, Properties, which opens the Section Properties dialog box. The first tab allows you to set the section title; the second tab allows you to set the display characteristics; the third allows you to set the font style of the section title; and the fourth allows you to hide or display the section, based on conditions or a formula. Play around with the section properties to see what works best for what you want.

NO OPENINGS

You don't need to open a document you're interested in--Notes allows you to preview it without actually opening it. To do this, open the database to the view that contains the document. Select the document, then choose View, Document Preview. The contents of the document display in the preview pane, but the document itself doesn't open. This can be a nice little time-saver.

ARRANGE THE PANE

Notes lets you select the arrangement for the preview pane (where you can preview documents before opening them). To do this, open the database, then select View, Arrange Preview, which opens the Preview Pane dialog box. Select one of the three arrangements, then click OK. The arrangement is specific to the database, so you can use different arrangements for different databases.

SIZE MATTERS

The last couple tips told you about the Notes preview pane. Remember that you can control the size of the preview pane's display window. Just grab the pane's top border (or left border, depending on the arrangement) and drag it to the size you want.

PARENTAL PREVIEW

If you have a response document open, you can see the parent without going to the view and opening it. To do this, choose View, Parent Preview (with the response document open). The parent document appears in the preview pane.

SHOULD I CLOSE NOTES EVERY TIME I WALK AWAY FROM MY DESK?

The simple answer to this question is "It depends." If you're only concerned that someone will open a document while you're away, press the F5 key. Notes now prompts for a password before allowing anyone to open another document. However, this will not hide views of currently open databases. If your mail file is open and you don't want prying eyes to see subject lines, e-mail authors, and so forth, you should either close your mail file or exit Notes completely before walking away. Experimentation with the F5 key will yield quick answers as to how much security it provides.

WHERE ARE MY ICONS

You just upgraded to the Notes 5 client and now your icons are gone. Another maddening upgrade bug? No--the new Notes client turns icons off by default. User interface changes like this are typically a reaction to user feedback. To turn your icons on again, select File, Preferences, Smart Icon Settings and click the Icon Bar box under Show.

ORGANIZER GS AND NOTES--THE PERFECT DUO?

You might expect the answer to this question to be yes, but unfortunately the opposite is true. No version of Organizer GS is compatible with Notes version 5, and Lotus does not plan to remedy this. Organizer's focus is returning to individuals and small business organizations.

It is possible to use Notes 4.5X and 4.6X with Organizer 97 GS, but they have never worked together as intended. Notes and GS calculate their unread marks independently, and if both are open at the same time, the "last out wins" rule is in effect. In other words, whichever program you close last is the one writing the unread marks. If you later reverse the order in which you open the two programs, you'll get different unread marks than you expected.

THE FONTS ARE SO SMALL!

Several factors affect the font sizes you're viewing. As a user accessing a database, though, about the only option available to you is your computer's screen resolution. Higher display resolutions make otherwise normal fonts look very small, so try correcting the problem by changing to a lower resolution. If you don't find the result satisfactory, you need to call whoever is responsible for the database and ask if you can enlarge the fonts. If your company uses Macintosh computers, programmers should avoid fonts smaller than 9 points.

CAN I RESET THE DEFAULT FONT?

Yes and no. Generally the operating system's desktop font and the programmed font for the database area you're viewing determine this. But in Notes 4.5X you can experiment with the following settings:

Select File, Tools, User Preferences. Under Advanced Options, choose Typewriter Fonts Only, Large Fonts, or both. Restart Notes and see if you prefer the changes.

Making these changes in version 5 is quite a different process--we'll address this in a future tip.

BRINGING BACK THE WORKSPACE

Did you know you can still use your old Notes 4.x Workspace in Notes 5? Depending on your working habits, you may find this more flexible than the default bookmark method.

To find the Workspace again, click the Databases bookmark folder on the Bookmark bar, then select the Workspace bookmark. This will be available by default on a Notes 5 installation and will even show all your old database icons if you upgraded from a previous version of Notes. Each time you open a new database from within the Workspace, Notes leaves an icon behind.

RE: CYCLE

Here's how to cycle quickly through workspace pages on the Notes desktop. Just press the Control key and then press either the right or left arrow keys. You move to the workspace tab in the chosen direction

TOGGLE QUICKLY THROUGH OPEN DOCUMENTS

Suppose you have several memos and database documents open and you want to get back to one of them quickly without closing the others. Try the Ctrl-Tab combination: Hold down the Ctrl key and press Tab repeatedly. Each time you press Tab, you'll bring to the foreground one of the Notes documents or views you already have open.

CLICK A URL, OPEN A BROWSER

If you get an error message when you click a URL sent to you in a memo, that probably means you haven't configured Notes to open a browser. You can do so by selecting File, Mobile, Edit Current Location. In the Internet Browser section, select the browser you want to use. Save and close the document, then try clicking a URL again.

CHANGE THE LOCKS

The password works like a lock on your Notes databases. As with the locks in your house, you may find it necessary to change the password every now and again. Actually, if you are particularly safety conscious, you might want to consider changing the password on a more or less regular basis. Here's how to "change the locks" in Notes (the following steps also apply when you first set the password). Open Notes and select File, Tools, User ID. You will be prompted for your current password. Type it in, click OK, and Notes will open the User ID dialog box. Under the Basics icon, click the Set Password button, then again enter your existing password in the box that appears. Enter a new password in the Set Password dialog box, and click OK. A confirmation box appears where you enter the new password again to confirm it. Click OK, then click Done to close the User ID dialog box. The change takes place immediately, so make sure you remember your new password.

LOCK IT UP

There are probably many times when you must step out and leave your computer running. If you do this when you have Notes running, you run the risk of giving people access to your Notes data under your user ID. One solution is to shut down Notes every time you leave, but that's not very practical. Fortunately, Notes has an easy way to lock out uninvited guests if you want to leave without shutting down. Press F5 (or select File, Tools, Lock ID) to activate the lock-out feature. Once you do this, you clear the workstation of all user ID information. When you (or anyone else) tries to do anything in Notes, a password prompt comes up.

SMARTICON UP

Notes SmartIcons help you cut down on the time and effort it takes to perform routine actions in Notes. These are the little graphic buttons that appear in a bar just below the Notes workspace menu. When you click on one of these, it performs a Notes action you normally do by pulling down a menu command or typing a keyboard shortcut. Examples are actions such as bolding text or creating a mail memo. Notes has over 150 predefined SmartIcons and also includes more than a dozen custom SmartIcons to which you can assign your own macro. There are also several predefined SmartIcon sets, used for certain specific tasks like editing documents. SmartIcons work with all the databases in the workspace.

PERPETUAL LOCK

Don't want to have to press F5 every time you leave the workstation (see the last tip)? You can set the lock-out feature to run automatically after a specified amount of time has elapsed. To do this, open Notes and select File, Tools, User Preferences. In the User Preferences dialog box, enter a number of minutes in the Lock ID After box. For example, if you enter 5 here, the lock user ID feature kicks in after five minutes.

ICONOGRAPHY

There are several ways you can display the SmartIcon set on your desktop. To set the display, select File, Tools, SmartIcons, which opens the SmartIcons dialog box. If you want to change the position of the SmartIcon set, check the drop-down arrow under Position and select one of the options on the list (Top, Bottom, Left, Right, or Floating). Floating puts the SmartIcon set in a box you can drag anywhere you want in the workspace. To change the size of the icons, click Icon Size, then select either Small or Large. Finally, if you want to hide the icon descriptions (little help balloons), deselect the Descriptions option. When you have the settings you want, click OK to close the box and save your settings.

NO ICONS

SmartIcons are useful, of course, but not everyone needs them. If you don't think you do, you don't have to display any. To hide the SmartIcon bar, select File, Tools, SmartIcons, which opens the SmartIcons dialog box. Deselect the Icon Bar option under Show. Click OK to close the box and save the setting, and the SmartIcon set disappears from your workspace. If you want them back, select File, Tools, SmartIcons and select Icon Bar.

A MATTER OF CHOICE

Notes uses over 150 predefined SmartIcons, and you can pick and choose which ones you want in the sets you display. To add an icon to a set, select File, Tools, SmartIcons, which opens the SmartIcons dialog box. The current SmartIcon set is the box on the right, while the available icons are in the left-hand box. Simply grab the icon you want to add from the Available icons box, and drag and drop it into the current set. To remove one, just do the reverse.

GET SETS

In addition to the existing sets, Notes also allows you to create new SmartIcon sets. Actually, "create" is a slightly misleading term, because you really just modify an existing set. To do this, open Notes and select File, Tools, SmartIcons, which opens the SmartIcons dialog box. Select the set you want to modify from the list that appears above the right-side icon set box. It's usually a good idea to select a set that's similar to the new one you want to create. With the set selected, add and/or remove SmartIcons until you have what you want in the set. When you're done, click the Save Set button, which opens the Save Set Of SmartIcons dialog box. Enter a name for the new set (up to 15 characters), then enter a file name with the file extension .smi. The file name is not actually required, and if you don't enter one, Notes uses the first eight characters of the set name. Click OK to close the box, then click OK to close the SmartIcons dialog box. The new set appears in the SmartIcons list.

DO YOUR OWN THING

As we said a couple tips back, Notes has over 150 predefined SmartIcons available for SmartIcon sets. These should cover most of the common tasks for which you need SmartIcons, but there might be some things you need to do that don't have SmartIcons. Therefore, Notes allows you to create your own SmartIcons. To do this, open Notes and select File, Tools, SmartIcons, which opens the SmartIcons dialog box. Click the Edit Icon button, then select an icon. Enter a description for the icon, then click the Formula button. Enter a formula and click OK. Remember that SmartIcons are there to save steps in relatively simple actions, so you'll want to keep the formula simple. When you're done, click OK to close the Formula box, then click Done to close the Edit SmartIcons box. Finally, click OK to close the SmartIcons box.

PERMANENT PEN RECORD

Notes is primarily a collaborative environment, and one aspect of this is that you often need to comment on documents. Notes has a feature called Permanent Pen that makes this task a lot easier. Permanent Pen allows you to enter comments in a document that have a different font and color from the regular text. To comment with Permanent Pen, first put the document or memo in Edit mode, then place the cursor where you want to enter the comment. (You must do this in a rich- ext field.) Select Text, Permanent Pen from the database menu, then enter your text. When you're done, select Text and Permanent Pen again to turn the feature off.

CHANGING PERMANENCE

The Permanent Pen text is set by default to red and bold (and whatever font and size you've already selected in the text block), but you can change the text format if you want. To do this, select Text, Text Properties, which opens the Text Properties box. Click the text tab (AZ), then select a font, size, style, and color. Click Set Permanent Pen Font, and Permanent Pen adopts the attributes you selected.

THE AMAZING COLLAPSING SECTION

Here's a great way to save space in your Notes form or memo--create a collapsible section. This feature allows you to put bunches of text into sections users can expand if they want to read the whole paragraph. To do this, put the document or memo in Edit mode (you can only put sections into rich-text fields). Highlight the text you want to collapse, then select Create, Section. That's it--the text automatically collapses into a section.

BEHIND THE SCENES INDEX

It usually takes a lot of time for Notes to create a full-text index. However, you can set Notes to do the indexing in the background, leaving you free to do more important Notes tasks. To do this, open Notes and choose File, Tools, User Preferences, which opens the User Preferences dialog box. Select the option Enable Local Background Indexing, then click OK. Click OK again when Notes tells you some preferences won't take effect until you restart Notes. Now the next time you create a full-text index, it happens in the background.

PLAY THE FIELD

Notes usually includes field help in a bar at the bottom of the document window. These are brief descriptions of what the field does. For example, if you are in the To field of a mail memo, the field help displays the message "List of primary people to send memo." This does not display by default, however. Here's how to get the field help if you don't see it. Put the document in Edit mode and select View, Show, Field Help. However, you still may not see any field help if the database designer has not included any help for the current field.

HIDDEN VALLEY

Sometimes Notes documents have hidden characters that can help you format the document. These are items like spaces, tabs, or paragraph ends, indicated by special characters that normally remain hidden. If you want to see these characters, put the document in Edit mode, then choose View, Show, Hidden Characters.

GIMME A BREAK

Notes also keeps page breaks hidden in documents. If you want to see the breaks, put the document in Edit mode and select View, Show, Page Breaks.

CHANGING FORM

You don't necessarily need to display Notes documents in the form in which they were created. In fact, as long as you have two or more forms available in a view, you can switch the form that displays the contents of the document. To do this, open the view, then open the document. From the View menu, select View, Switch Form, then choose the form in which you want to display the contents. The forms must share the fields that contain the contents you want to display, however.

ORGANIZE BY CATEGORY

Categories are the quickest and easiest way to organize documents in a view, because they let you put similar documents together. You can also alphabetize the category names and collapse them for easy viewing. To create a new category in a view, open the database and view to which you want to add the new category. Select the document(s) you want to categorize (for instance, all the documents about a certain topic or created by a certain author), then choose Actions, Categorize from the main database menu. Enter a category name in the New Categories dialog box that appears. You can create multiple categories at the same time by separating the names with a comma (for example, "High Priority Stuff, Low Priority Stuff"). Click OK, and the category appears, with the document(s) placed in it. If the view already has existing categories, the names appear in a keyword list. Select one or more of these, then click OK, and the documents are categorized.

There's one big caveat before you do this, however. In order for the categories to be available in the view, the view must have a column set to sort on a field called Categories. If this is not the case, you'll get an error message saying the view isn't designed for them. See the database manager or designer if you have any questions about categorizing views.

TEMPORARY CATEGORIES

In our last tip, we talked a bit about categories. Here are a couple more bits of info about categories. Categories show up in your view only when they have documents in them. However, you can also place documents in more than one category, which brings up the following problem: Can you remove a document from a category without deleting it from the database? Sure--here's how. Expand the category from which you want to remove the documents, then select the document. Choose Actions, Categorize from the main database menu, which brings up the Categories list. Any categories to which the document belongs are highlighted. To remove the document, remove the highlight. Click OK and the document won't appear in the category.

CATEGORIES ONLY, PLEASE

Sometimes all you need to see in a view are the category names. If so, select the view and choose View, Show, Categories Only. The categories appear in the view, but you won't see any documents.

SELECTED EXPANSION

You now have even more control over the documents you choose to view in a Notes view. When you find a document you want in a view, you can see all the items at all levels below it, or just the items on the indented level just below it. If you want to see all documents, open the view pane and select the documents you want to expand. Choose View, Expand/Collapse-Expand Selected And Children. If you only want to expand to the selected level, open the view pane and select the documents you want to expand. Choose View, Expand/Collapse-Expand Level.

A NEW NAME

Categories come and go in Notes views, and sometimes they just change names. For example, you may have all documents about the Parker account categorized under Parker, but the Parker account is changed to the Harrison account. To keep things consistent in the view, you need to change the Parker category to Harrison. No problem--just open the view and select all the documents in the view category you want to change. Select Actions, Categorize, which opens the Categorize dialog box. Enter the new category name in the New Categories field, then click OK. The documents immediately assume the new category name.

SUBCATEGORIZER

Subcategories allow you to add another level of organization to your Notes views. These are indented under the main category, and you can add up 32 levels of subcategories. Subcategories allow you to group similar documents within a main category. For example, you have a category that contains documents related to the Harrison account. Some of these documents are related to sales, some to manufacturing, some to distribution, and so on. In order to create subcategories for these, access the view and select the documents you want to subcategorize. Select Actions, Categorize, which opens the Categorize dialog box. Enter the new category name in the New Categories field, with the subcategory name following the main name, separated by a backslash--for example, Harrison\Sales, Harrison\Manufacturing, Harrison\Distribution. Click OK to close the box. The subcategories appear indented under the main categories.

MOVING AROUND

Notes allows you to work in more than one database at the same time. When you have several databases open simultaneously, you can move between them by pressing Ctrl-Tab.

MINIMAL EFFORT

When you have several Notes databases open, press Ctrl-F9 to minimize the active database window in the Notes workspace. This also cascades all other active windows. Press Ctrl-F10 if you want to maximize all open windows.

SHOW THEM ALL

Some views--especially in discussion databases--contain several levels of response and response-to-response documents. You may not always be aware of all these response levels, so it makes sense to expand them all. To do this, choose View, Expand All, or click the plus (+) icon from the smart icon bar.

QUICK SELECTION

If you want to select a database from the Notes workspace page, press the first letter of the database title (for example, if the database is entitled Expense Reports, press E). If there is more than one database with titles that begin with the same letter, Notes selects the first one on the workspace page (Notes works left-to-right and top-to-bottom). Once the database is selected, you can press Enter to open it.

SEEING ALL THE COLUMNS

A Notes view may not always display all of its available columns. To see more, just scroll the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the view pane. Don't see the horizontal scroll bar? Go to the menu and select View, Show, Horizontal Scroll Bar.

QUICK VIEW SEARCH

Most Notes views have more information than you see displayed when they first open. If you don't see what you want, begin typing the letters of the item you're looking for. Notes begins a quick search for the categories that match what you entered. If the view doesn't have categories, Notes looks at document titles. When searching, Notes looks only at the category names or document titles, not at document contents.

OUT OF SORTS

Some view columns allow you to sort their contents. Sortable columns have arrow icons in the column header, and you can click the icon to sort on the fly. The sort can be either in alphabetical order if it's a text-based column (like a name) or numeric order if it's a number column (like a date). Also, you can sort documents by ascending or descending order.

THE EXPANDING COLUMN

Columns may contain more information than you see displayed. If you want to see more, point your mouse in the column header on one of the column edges. A black bar with left and right arrows appears. Drag this in the direction in which you want to expand the column and you'll see more column information. (The ability to do this depends on the database design--you can't do it to every column.)

SELECTIVE SERVICE

There's no reason why you must always look at every document in a view. In fact, you can select any number of documents and have only those appear. To do this, open the view and select the documents you want to see (click to the left of each title to put a check mark next to it). Now go to the menu and choose View, Show, Selected Only. This is particularly helpful when you want to categorize, copy, or delete the selected documents

NO DOCUMENTS

If you don't need to see the document titles in a view, you can show only the categories and subcategories (if there are any). To do this, open the view, then choose View, Categories Only. You will notice, however, that you can't access any documents when you have this option selected.

FOLDER BOLDER

Folders are similar to views in that they allow you to manage and store related documents. However, they are a little more user friendly because they don't require categories to store documents, so you can simply drag and drop documents into them. (Views require selection formulas to store documents.) You can make folders personal (only you can read or delete the contents), or you can share them with others who have access to the database. You must have at least Reader level access to the database to create a personal folder. To create shared folders, you must have at least Editor access, and you need to enable the option Create Shared Folders/Views.

Creating folders is really easy. Open or select the database, then choose Create, Folder from the Notes menu to open the Create Folder box. Enter a name for the folder, then select if you want to make it personal or shared. If it's personal, leave the option Shared unchecked, which puts the folder in the Private Folders location. If you want it shared, checked the Shared option. That's it--just click OK and you'll see the new folder in the Navigation pane. The gray folder icon indicates personal folders and the yellow icon tells you it's shared.

FOLDER DESIGN

When you create a folder, you'll see that its design is the same as the default view for the database in which you created it. However, you can choose another folder or view on which to base the design, or develop an entirely new design. To do this, choose Create, Folder to open the Create Folder box. Enter a name and select Shared if you want others to access the folder (or leave this box unchecked if the folder is for your eyes only.) Then click Options. To base the design on another folder or view, select it from the Inherit Design From list. To create your own design, choose Blank. This makes the folder available in the Design menu, and you can design it or make changes as you would any other view.

REMOVAL SERVICE

Documents are just as easy to remove from folders as they are to add to them. Removing them from the folder does just that and nothing else--it doesn't remove them from other views or delete them from the database. To do this, open the database and select the folder from which you want to remove the documents (expand the parent folder if you need to). Select the documents you want to remove, then choose Actions, Remove From Folder. Remember, however, that you shouldn't select Edit, Clear, as this marks the documents for deletion from the database.

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