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Last Updated: 12/17/2001
Applies to: Lotus Notes 4.5+
Use the following keys to interact efficiently with Lotus Notes, without using the mouse.
| Enter | Open current document (when doc is not open) |
| Enter | Next document in view (when doc is open) |
| Backspace | Previous document in view (when doc is open) |
| Esc | Close current window |
| Ctrl-Break | Abort current operation |
| Tab / Shift-Tab | Next / previous unread document |
| Delete | Toggle delete flag |
| Insert | Toggle unread mark |
| F1 | Help |
| F2 / Shift-F2 | Larger / smaller font |
| F3 / Shift-F3 | Next / previous selected document |
| F4 / Shift-F4 | Next / previous unread document |
| F5 | Logout of Notes |
| F6 / Shift-F6 | Next / previous pane |
| Ctrl-F6 / Ctrl-Shift-F6 | Next / previous window |
| F7 / Shift-F7 | Indent / outdent line (hanging indent) |
| F8 / Shift-F8 | Indent / outdent paragraph |
| F9 / Shift-F9 | Refresh (fetch new mail, resolve addresses, etc.) / Rebuild view |
| F11 | Cycle through bullet/basic/headline styles |
| Ctrl-A | Select All |
| Ctrl-B | Toggle bold |
| Ctrl-C | Copy |
| Ctrl-E | Toggle edit mode |
| Ctrl-F | Find and replace |
| Ctrl-G | Find or replace next |
| Ctrl-I | Toggle italics |
| Ctrl-J | Format paragraphs (margins, tabs, line spacing, etc.) |
| Ctrl-K | Format text (font, size, color, etc.) |
| Ctrl-L | Access a Web page |
| Ctrl-Shift-L | Insert page break |
| Ctrl-M | New mail message |
| Ctrl-N | New database |
| Ctrl-O | Open database |
| Ctrl-P | |
| Ctrl-R | Show ruler (to allow you to set tabs, indentation, etc.) |
| Ctrl-S | Save |
| Ctrl-T | Make text normal (no bold, italics, underline, etc.) |
| Ctrl-U | Toggle underline |
| Ctrl-V | Paste |
| Ctrl-W | Close window |
| Ctrl-X | Cut |
| Ctrl-Z | Undo |
| Keypad Plus | Expand branch of tree by one level |
| Plus | (See Shift-Plus below, since Plus is the shift of Equals.) |
| Keypad Minus | Collapse branch of tree |
| Minus | Collapse branch of tree |
| Keypad Asterisk | Expand branch of tree completely |
| Asterisk | (See Shift-Asterisk below, since Asterisk is the shift of 8.) |
| Shift-Keypad Plus | Expand entire tree completely |
| Shift-Plus | Expand entire tree completely |
| Shift-Keypad Minus | Collapse entire tree completely |
| Shift-Minus | (No such thing. Shift of Minus is Underscore.) |
| Shift-Keypad Asterisk | Expand entire tree completely |
| Shift-Asterisk | Expand entire tree completely |
| Ctrl-Plus / Ctrl-Minus | Next / previous match of current search within a document |
For a complete list of the keyboard shortcuts (in version 5), use the Help menu:
Help | Index | Shortcuts | Keyboard
--Fred
Last Updated: 11/30/2001
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5+
Here's an interesting technique for showing accelerator keys. In many applications, you have to hover the mouse over each toolbar button to see the accelerator key for that button. Lotus Notes R5 takes a different approach. Hold the Alt key down for a few seconds, and a small white box (tooltip) pops up near each toolbar button showing its accelerator key.
In fact, you can use this technique to navigate a whole tree of context-sensitive menu bars. If you hold down Alt, the tooltips for the accelerator keys appear. For some keys, when you hit them a 2nd set of tooltips appears. If you then release Alt and hit one of keys from the 2nd set, a 3rd set may appear, etc.
However, beware of continuing to hold down the Alt key after hitting the
key for the 1st level. The 2nd level is only a 2nd level if you've released Alt. Otherwise, it's a
1st level, but the tooltips for the 1st level aren't shown, so you're running
blind. For example:
--Fred
Last Updated: 7/24/1999
Applies to: Lotus Notes 4.5+
Want an easy way to monitor one or more Lotus Notes databases for new messages?
Add the databases to your "preferred database" list, starting from the Edit menu:
Edit | Unread Marks | Scan Preferred... | Choose Preferred
(or just hit Tab while at your Notes
"workspace" and then click Choose Preferred).
Once you have the list of preferred databases set up, you can just hit Tab
at the Notes workspace to start searching through them. It will skip past databases
with no unread messages, stopping at each one with unread messages. In each
database, you can hit Tab to skip from one unread message to the next.
While reading an unread message, hit Esc to see the view that
contains it, so you can see whether it is a reply to some other message, what category it
is in, etc.
To have Notes kick off the search automatically at startup, use:
File | Tools | User Preferences | Basics | Startup options = "Scan for unread"
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 3.2+
While looking at a Lotus Notes "view" (subject lines of e-mail messages, subject lines of notes in a discussion database, table of contents of a Notes database, etc.), you can search the lines of the view via Ctrl-F or the menu Edit | Find/Replace... or the flashlight toolbar button. This searches the view, but not the entire documents, for the specified string. If you are certain that the Notes document (mail message, note, etc.) is included in the view, and you know a string that is contained in the view, this may be the easiest way to find the document.
Click Options... in the Find dialog box to see the advanced options, where you can specify a case-sensitive/insensitive search, search for whole words only, search forwards/backward/both, etc. There is no support for wildcards, patterns, or regular expressions.
Beware that, if any of the lines of the view wrap to multiple physical lines in the window, the found text may not be scrolled into sight. Due to a bug in Notes (still there in version 5.0.3) you may have to scroll down a couple lines to see the matched text. Unfortunately, to do that, you have to dismiss the modal Find dialog box. Fortunately, you can continue searching for the same string by hitting Ctrl-G, so you don't have to keep popping up and dismissing the Find dialog box.
Thanks to Ed Schindler for his contributions to this tip.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 3.2+
While looking at a Lotus Notes document (e-mail message, note in a discussion database, help page, etc.), you can search the text of the document via Ctrl-F or the menu Edit | Find/Replace... or the flashlight toolbar button. This searches the current document for the specified string.
Click Options... in the Find dialog box to see the advanced options, where you can specify a case-sensitive/insensitive search, search for whole words only, search forwards/backward/both, etc. There is no support for wildcards, patterns, or regular expressions. Also, attached files are not searched.
Unfortunately, the Find dialog box is modal, so you can't find find an occurrence of the string, edit it, find the next, etc. without dismissing the Find dialog. Fortunately, you can continue searching for the same string by hitting Ctrl-G, so you don't have to keep popping up and dismissing the Find dialog box.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
While looking at a Lotus Notes "view" (subject lines of e-mail messages, subject lines of notes in a discussion database, table of contents of a Notes database, etc.), you can search the entire contents of all documents in the view (e-mail messages, notes in a discussion database, help pages, etc.) via the "search bar". To display the search bar, use the magnifying glass or binoculars button in the toolbar, or the menu View | Search Bar.
In older versions of Notes, and in Notes databases that are not "indexed", the capabilities offered by the search bar are similar to those described above. You can only search for exact matches of specified strings.
As of Notes 5.0, a database may be "indexed". This means that the documents have all been searched in advance, and an index has been built of all of the words found in them. Indexed searches have several advantages and disadvantages, discussed in the following tips.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
As of Notes 5.0, a database may be "indexed". This means that the documents have all been searched in advance, and an index has been built of all of the words found in them. Indexed searches have several advantages and disadvantages, discussed in the following tips.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
However, any document with a size greater than 6MB, including all attachments, is omitted from the index. Therefore, no search will find such a document. This is documented in Help | Help Topics | Index | Indexes, full-text | creating | To create a full-text index | Indexing and size.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there is a Multiple words... button that allows you to specify up to 8 words and the choice to search for documents that contain Any or All of the words.
However, I can't imagine why would anyone would use this button. Why subject yourself to this clunky interface with its limited set of choices, when you can just type an expression like the one above directly into the Search for box? Much more powerful, and also easier to use!
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
Such a search
will find only documents that contain the exact phrase, not those that
contain all of the individual words. To override this behavior,
you have to type something like:
the AND quick AND brown AND fox
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there is an
option that controls whether or not "word variants" are
matched during a search. With this option, you can find things
like:
searched
searching
searches
when searching for the word:
search
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there is an option that controls whether or not "fuzzy searches" are done. I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, but this searches for phrases "similar" to the one you specified. Try it if your search is coming up empty.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
The More tab of the search bar offers an Update Index button (or Create Index..., if not yet indexed), but you may not be authorized to update the index on all databases you use. Even if you are authorized, the button may not update the index immediately; it may only schedule an update to occur soon. Get used to the idea that the most recently added documents and most recent changes may not be reflected in the index.
The properties of an indexed database, accessible via the menu File | Database | Properties... | Full Text (magnifying glass icon), show when its index was last updated and how often it is typically updated (probably once per day or so).
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
Having said all that, I can't get it to behave consistently. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it finds only the first match in a document, sometimes all of them. I have no idea what the pattern is yet.
To close the preview pane, use the menu View | Document Preview | Show Preview, or drag the divider to the bottom of the window.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
Having said that, I can't get it to behave consistently. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it finds only the first match in a document, sometimes all of them. I have no idea what the pattern is yet.
You might have better luck, after opening the document, using Ctrl-F to do a search within the document, and Ctrl-G to find each subsequent match, though even that seems to sometime get hung up on the first match. Hmmm...
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there is an option that controls the order in which matched documents are displayed in a view. The options are discussed in the following tips.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
The Keep current order (sortable) option shows the matched documents in the same order they would have if no search were in effect. This mode is useful if you have already sorted the view meaningfully, and don't want to lose that order. There doesn't seem to be a way to re-sort the documents, however, without re-doing the search.
This option automatically turns on the "search results only" mode (see menu View | Show | Search Results Only), which means that only matching documents are represented in the view.
For databases containing hierarchies of documents (for example, a discussion database with top level topic documents that can have associated trees of comment documents), each matched document can be represented in the view by itself, or by an ancestor document. If you click the menu View | Expand All, or the "++" button in the toolbar, each matched document is represented by itself. If you click the menu View | Collapse All, or the "--" button in the toolbar, each matched document is represented by its top level ancestor document. The initial items shown depend on which mode you were in before the search.
In any case, a checkmark is used to indicate whether the document is a match or only the ancestor of a match. If there is a checkmark next to the document, it is a match, but may also be an ancestor of documents containing matches. If no, checkmark, it is only an ancestor. You can click the usual Notes triangles (or the various keyboard shortcuts -- Plus, Minus, Asterisk, Shift-Plus, Shift-Minus, Shift-Asterisk, etc.) to expand and collapse branches of the tree, but only the branches with matches are shown.
One thing I don't like about this mode is that you can't see both a matched document and its ancestors, unless the ancestors also happen to contain matches.
Clicking on the checkmark itself de-selects the document, which causes it to disappear from the view. This can be useful, if you want to work your way through the list of matches, explicitly removing the false hits. However, it is easy to accidentally click a checkmark, intending to click the expand/collapse triangle, and have the document disappear without warning. If you do so, there doesn't seem to be a way to bring it back into the view, without bringing back all others as well by re-searching. Too fragile!
Thanks to Ed Schindler for his contributions to this tip.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
The Show all documents (sortable) option is similar to the Keep current order (sortable) option, except that it shows both matching and non-matching documents. You can flip back and forth between these 2 modes via the menu View | Show | Search Results Only.
In this mode, a selection checkmark is shown next to each matching document, but only if the matching document is not collapsed out of sight. You can use the various expand/collapse techniques to manipulate the hierarchy of documents as usual, to find all of the checkmarks. Hit F3 and Shift-F3 to skip to the next and previous matching documents. If they are collapsed out of sight, these keys take you to their visible ancestor, and you have to expand to find the matching document.
Thanks to Ed Schindler for his contributions to this tip.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
When matched documents are sorted by Relevance, Notes displays the most relevant at the top of the list, and displays a color-coded (actually grey levels only) bar to the left of the list showing relevance levels. This mode also has the following side effects:
Thanks to Ed Schindler for his contributions to this tip.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
You can also sort matched documents by Last modified or First modified.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there are options to specify which fields of a document to search. You can search for documents that contain one combination of words in one field and/or other combinations in other fields.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, there is a Fill out example form... option to do a typical "query by example" search. It shows you a blank form and you type in the words to be matched in each field.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, you can specify the maximum number of matching documents to find. The default is 250, which you may find too low. If you don't find a document you expected to find, you may need to increase the limit.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 5.0+
In the More tab of the search bar, you can name and save the searches you define, and later re-search the database by the same criteria. If you have sufficient access rights in the database, you can save the searches as shared searches, available to all users of the database.
Thanks to Ed Schindler for his contributions to this tip.
--Fred
Last Updated: 1/10/2003
Applies to: Lotus Notes 3.2+
For more information about searching Notes databases, see the Notes on-line help. Click on the option you want to know about and hit F1, or use the menu Help | Help Topics. Useful topics include:
Searching for Information
Search troubleshooting
Search tips
Search options
Fuzzy search
etc.
--Fred
Last Updated: 6/26/1999
Applies to: Lotus Notes 4.5+
Here is a short VB code snippet showing how to send a Lotus Notes e-mail message programmatically.
Dim notesApp As Object '-- NOTESSESSION
Set notesApp = CreateObject("Notes.NotesSession")
Dim notesDB As Object '-- NOTESDATABASE
Set notesDB = notesApp.GETDATABASE("your server name", "your mail.NSF name")
Dim notesDoc As Object '-- NOTESDOCUMENT
Set notesDoc = notesDB.CREATEDOCUMENT
With notesDoc
.SendTo = "address of To: recipient"
.CopyTo = "address of Cc: recipient"
.Subject = "subject line"
.Body = "body text"
Dim notesAttachment As Object '-- NOTESITEM
Set notesAttachment = .CREATERICHTEXTITEM("Attachment")
notesAttachment.EMBEDOBJECT 1454, "", "filename.txt"
.SEND False
End With
Fill in appropriate values for the parts in italics. You can do the same thing in VBA from Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Visio, etc. Also, you can do the same from any other language (Java, C++, VBScript in a Web page, ASP, etc.) that can manipulate the Lotus Notes object model. This will open a Lotus Notes Session on the desktop, but not close it when finished (anyone know how to get it to close?). It will also prompt the interactive user for a password if required for access to the mail database -- the .NSF file (anyone know how to specify the password programmatically?).
--Fred
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