I have been using Notes on the Mac for more than 18 month … and I begin to hate it.
I started with 8.5, got 8.5.1 and now I have 8.5.2 FP1 which is the worst.
I upgraded the memory, that helped a bit but not a lot.
When it starts up I get this absolutely useless window „Lotus Notes is starting“ and it comes all the way to the front. But I don‘t need to see this window, as long as the Notes icon in the dock jumps up and down… which isn‘t needed either. Most other applications just don‘t care.
Boy it‘s slow. Notes in Windows 7 in Fusion is a lot faster.
It has the annoying habit to refresh a view right when you switched to another application and it comes to the front again after a few seconds. Can you imagine when you are typing something in the google search and suddenly you look at Notes again. That just sucks.
FP1 made my CRM (Pavone Enterprise Office 9, the best I know) unusable. I had to get an lss file to fix it. Imagine that problem with a normal user without a Designer?
My menu bars are full of buttons who appear at least twice. I can‘t get them fixed, because in the settings you don‘t see any button at all. It‘s just broken.
There is an issue with big views. You can‘t scroll them normally. It just stops somewhere. The only possibility left is scrolling slowly with the arrow key and then after a moment it stops completely and you have to close and reopen it.
If you want to have Notes up front again, you can‘t just can click at the icon as with any other application and it comes to the front. Not Notes. You have to use Exposé.
I really like Notes (I always like the underdog), but if it wasn‘t for Pavone, I would probably switch to another mail client. I really begin to understand users who get annoyed by little things that just don‘t work or are awkward. For years and years I never had these big problems other users report. Notes just worked but after 18 month of using Notes on a Mac I am just about loosing my patience … and my wife says I have a lot.
Update: Thanks Julian. Deleting the bookmark.nsf helped. Why I use the FP1? I hoped it would fix some of the things I don’t like. Silly me.
But I forgot another thing I don’t like. Often when I switch from Notes to another application like Firefox, the Mac menu bar – the one with the apple – keeps showing the Notes menu. I have to move the cursor over the Menu bar to make appear the Firefox menu.
I’m using 8.5.2 and don’t have such problems. I agree that Notes on Windows is slightly faster, but on my Macs (iMac 24“ and Macbook Pro) it’s very usable.
Notes does come to front when I click on it’s dock icon.
The issue with the iconbar is nothing Mac specific; close Notes, remove your bookmark.nsf, start Notes and the icon bar is fixed (and you need to create your bookmarks again).
And if 8.5.2FP1 is worse than 8.5.2, why do you use FP1?
The only issue I have is when a Sametime chat windows pops up and I’m in another space than the Notes client, then I need to change the space manually, click on the Sametime icon in the menubar and sometimes even have to rightlick the Notes icon in order to finally see the chat window.
Am a newbe when it comes to using LN on Mac , but so far its been great. But am using LN on win7 running via Parelles ( so i can use designer ) on Imac I3 with 8 gb mem – Could not be happier.
I have the same experience than Julian Buss says. I have an 8 GB iMac but I have to say that IMHO Notes on Windows have a better experience than in Mac.
Ok, that is not correct. The faster experience is running a virtual Windows XP 2 Gb RAM inside a VirtualBox on my iMac. So Windows O.S. inside Apple hardware 😉
See a cold and warm start video here -> http://www.vimeo.com/13017272
Kind regards,
Albert Buendia
Good to know that I am not the only one with the same problems on Mac. IOW, it’s not my machine that is the problem.
I have to restart the Notes client at least once daily to ensure that things function properly. Hoping their is a HF soon. It’s better than nothing, but I could probably just create a VM and have a lower performance impact at this point. Also, the Replication page bookmark doesn’t work half the time.
Same experience as Julian. Everything was a bit slower than on Windows7 in a 2 GB VMware on my Macbook Pro 8 GB RAM 2,66 Ghz, then I replaced my harddisk with an SSD (Samsung 470). Notes makes A LOT more fun with an SSD.
I see two main differences between the Windows and Mac client:
On Windows, the client is running with IBM’s own JVM (and probably better class caching for faster startup), on Mac it’s Apple’s JVM. And the integration of the legacy client is different. On Windows, IBM could do „window reparenting“ to embed the legacy client in the Eclipse UI, so there are still two threads that produce the UI which makes the UI more responsive.
On the Mac, there is no such thing as „window reparenting“ and the UI is painted through the same thread. If legacy Notes is busy, you can’t see UI updates in the Eclipse UI on the Mac.
I agree, the Mac Client is more than annoying. For example, starting today, Notes crashes with NSD right after opening a chat window. Do I really have to start Notes in a VM??