Resolving the Lotus Notes 8.5.1 (and Higher) Attachment Issue

A long while ago, November 2009 actually, I posted about an Attachment Problem which was introduced in Lotus Notes 8.5.1. At the time, I pushed IBM for a solution and they eventually produced a half-solution (slightly better but no cigar).

Since then we've been living in pain.

Recently a commenter named "CIS" left a note on my original post to try putting AttachmentsUseCaption=0 in the notes.ini. It worked **THANKS** - you're my hero of the hour!

I decided to describe the problem and solution here in case others were in the same boat.

Here's how our attachments used to look prior to using the Lotus Notes 8.5.1 (and higher) clients.

At 8.5.1, the text under the attachments disappeared completely. This left me with a screen with two PDF files and no description. Not a good look for our extranet service.

We halted our Notes 8.5.1 rollout until IBM provided a fix but when they did, it wasn't a particularly elegant one.

Here's how it looked;

The attachment text (file names) stopped being under the icon and started being to the right of the icon. It might have been ok, if IBM didn't still keep invisible spacing under the icon.

It probably would have looked great if I could just left align the icons but it was not to be.

When the problem was still present in Lotus Notes 8.5.2, I decided to start upgrading our clients. I wasn't happy with the fix but at least we had descriptions for our attachments again.

A couple of days ago, following Cis' advice, I edited my NOTES.INI file;

C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Notes.ini

The location may vary for you - especially if you're using the Multi-user install.

I opened the file in Notepad and added the line somewhere near the top.

AttachmentsUseCaption=0

Then I restarted the Notes client and detached and reattached a file.

The result looked like this. (File No 1.)

Yay!! We've since added the line to our policies, so all our clients will get it when they reboot.

Now all we have to do is detach and reattach everything we've done since November 2009 - Thanks IBM, at least now nobody can say they've got nothing to do.

How to Change Your Notification Options for New Lotus Notes Mail in version 8.x

Don't worry, I'm not patronizing you (my readers), I just decided to re-document this for one of our internal users and thought you might want to be able to use it in your own user documentation. WHAT IS THIS DOCUMENT ABOUT? Some people who don't get a lot of mail, like to be notified when such an event occurs. Notification can be; via a sound via a pop-up box via the system tray (where the computer clock is) The pop up box looks like this; Other people, who like myself, get too much mail would rather not be notified. The aim of this document is to tell you how (and where) to turn these options on and off. CHANGING YOUR SETTINGS To change your settings from the Notes 8.x client; On the Menu, click File , then Preferences... On the left hand side , click on the little plus sign to the left of Mail to expand the options. Click on the option marked Sending and Receiving . In the middle section, under receiving, you can control your notifications. If you untick the box mark...

How to Create a Bootable DVD Using Nero Burning ROM 9

I often need to create bootable CDs and DVDs but it's weird because I frequently end up buring myself a new coaster instead. It's not that the process is difficult, just that nero has a few too many options and I forget which ones to choose and end up picking the wrong one. I figured that the best way to avoid this mistake in future would be to write the steps down. Procedure Insert CD or DVD into your DVD Burner. Start Nero Burning ROM 9 Choose DVD-ROM (Boot) or CD-ROM (Boot) depending on what you're creating You'll be prompted for a disk image source. Choose a Nero Source - you'll usually find them somewhere like this... C:\Program Files\Nero\Nero9\Nero Burning Rom\DOSBootImage.ima Leave the Boot Locale as English - unless you really need a different keyboard layout Tick the box marked [X] Enable Expert Settings Choose Hard Drive Emulation and leave any other settings as they are. Click the button marked New Add any files you want but don't try to add operati...

How to Create an Auto-Response Mail Message in Lotus Notes 8.5.3+

Why would you do this? Suppose that you have an externally accessible generic email address for your company; support@mycompany.com or info@mycompany.com. You might expose this to the web and allow people to send messages to you. Setting up an auto-response email will tell the senders that their message reached its destination and that it will be dealt with accordingly. It's also good practice to include links to FAQs or other useful information. Why 8.5.3 The techniques we'll be using here work in older versions of Notes but some of the options seem to have moved around in 8.5.3. I figured it was a good time to show you where they've moved to. The Procedure Start Domino Designer and open the Mail file to be modified. A really quick way to do this is to right-click on the application tab and choose "Open in Designer". In the Left hand panel of designer, expand Code and then double-click Agents. A new window should appear. Click the action ...

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