I wrote about using Lotus Notes “basic” as a way to conserve resources when you are not taking advantage of the extra features the Eclipse framework (aka Lotus Expeditor) provides. Well, I recently needed to switch over the full Notes “standard”. I got a shock when I lost my nice, tuned, custom frameset (seen here on the left). I was told “you can’t get framesets from Notes ’standard’ mail.”. Well, like Carl wrote, “I’ve often been told Notes can’t do X or can’t do Y, but typically it can if you think a little differently“. So, I set about to get my highly efficient and productive frameset back into Notes “standard”.

Steps:

1. File -> Applications -> New Composite Application …
2. give it a name – remember path; you’ll need that info later
3. Actions -> Edit Application
4. Tools -> Component Palette -> Open
5. Tools -> Component Palette -> Add Components -> NSF Component
6. give it a name
7. optionally give it a description
8. click “Browse” for the “Notes URL”
9. Select “frameset” from the dropdown for “Kind of object” (alternately, you can select any other NSF object that would would use when opening our mail file)
10. The “User’s mail file” should already be selected for the “Application”
11. Select your frameset from the dropdown list.
12. Click “OK” to finish selecting the NSF object
13. Click “OK” to finish creating the NSF component.
14. Now drag the newly created NSF Component to the empty application area. It should display your frameset (or any other object you defined for the NSF object).
15. File -> Finished Editing
16. Click “Yes” to save your work.
17. Open Domino Designer
18. Open your mail file
19. Expand “Composite Applications” then expand “Applications”
20. Click the “Import XML” button
21. Browse to the directory path from step #2
22. Change the “file types” to “All files”.
23. Locate the file with the name from step #2 (will have a “.ca” extension)
24. Click “OK” to import it – make a note of the name, you will need this later
25. Exit Domino Designer
26. Locate your mail file database “chicklet” on the Notes workspace
27. Right-click on your mail file database -> Application -> Properties
28. Switch to the tab for “When opened in the Notes client”
29. Select “Launch as Composite Application”
30. Select the name from the “import” step #24
31. Close the properties dialog box.

Now, when you open your mail file in Notes “standard” you will get the same display as with Notes “basic”.