Conference 7.286::digital

Why should we replace Notes?  I can think of some features it's missing, but
there's no product that's a direct replacement for, or even an improvement on,
DEC Notes.

Paul

    
    	Change "should" to "must", since the migration away from VMS will
    	force the change [as far as I know].
    

    At the botton of the page you can register yourself, pick your own
    username and password
    

    AltaVista supports its own products using AltaVista Forum.
    
    Register at:
    
    http://support.altavista.software.digital.com/ISBUTECHSUP/intro.htm
    
    Note: these tech support "notesfiles" are OUTSIDE the firewall.
    
    AltaVista is also building a "1000 floor" Virtual Office tower at:
    
    http://altavista.forum.digital.com/index_lobby.htm
    
    I notice that OpenVMS seems to taking up residence, as has Digital
    Semiconductor.
    
    The search function doesn't do much in the directory however...
    

re .3,

> Change "should" to "must", since the migration away from VMS will force the
> change [as far as I know].

It will be a sad day when there aren't even enough OpenVMS systems at Digital to
host Notes conferences.  That said, I don't believe it will ever happen.

When another product comes along that's better than Notes, that's when Notes
will go away, and not before.

Paul

    NOTES will use a lot of its utility when there are not enough people
    with ACCESS to servers to keep them useful.
    
    Unfortunately, AVF seems like a much higher maintenance/ initial setup
    cost to make the arbitrary server as common as NOTES

RE: .7

	That's only if they use DECnet.

	NOTES supports TCP/IP access. There is a NOTES server available
	for NT via OStech. (www.ostech.com) I believe we have a corporate
	license for it.

	I've argued this point in INTERNET_TOOLS ad nauseum. AVF is in
	no way a replacement for NOTES. The UI is not very good and
	the ability to retain context of a thread is terrible. With
	character cell NOTES, I can zip thru a bunch of files in no
	time at all. All these Windows apps and browser-based apps
	require you to mouse everywhere. They've completely ignored
	the very useful keypad. (granted, the Windows interface to
	NOTES does use the keypad, but the interface in general 
	isn't that great)

						mike

    I know there is a PC client to NOTES, and that NOTES can be directly
    accessed by IP.  These components can be prohibited from being
    installed on Digital owned PC's.  Of course, I hope it doesn't come to
    that!
    
    

> I've argued this point in INTERNET_TOOLS ad nauseum.

	You and I and several others.

	For Xref see the following topics in the Internet_Tools conf:

	    4062
	    4314

    What most of this discussion lacks is the importance of critical mass. 
    I just visited the SBU AVF .... great so I get to talk to about a dozen
    other folks.  I don't care how good the tool is without a wider
    audience it's like talking to yourself.
    
    

    The usefulness of the "forum" depends as much on the players as the
    tool.
    
    For example, notes conference KACIE::SBU was a fine idea promoted by
    Harry Copperman himself. An unfiltered bid-directional route between
    SBU HQ and the field. Err, go look at it now. There's no visible sign
    of significant participation from the big boys. Who knows why... 
    
    IF and only IF I thought I might achieve more using AVF then I'll learn
    AVF. Till then, Notes is just fine, thank you.
    
    regards
    john

    Absolutely, the game is no fun without any players!
    
    I was surprised to stumble on these "conferences".  They are
    particularly weak in not having any information on what the goal of the
    conferences might be, or who "on the other side of the fence" might be
    listening.
    
    There certainly has not been any publicity on the existence of these
    conferences.  This is a major failing.
    
    There has not been any real sign of participation by anyone, much less
    "the big boys".
    
    However, as the industry evaluates the "thin client" technology, the
    notion of doing everything with the equivalent of a Web Browser is
    something to look at.
    
    FJP

    And yes, I am aware of the Web to Notes Gateway.
    
    (There is also a Web to ALL-IN-1 out there, but that is another story
    altogether!)
    
    FJP

    WebNotes by OS Technologies was used to support SWB95 Beta Program
    
    http://opernt.ogo.dec.com:82/
    

Amazing...

I have played with AVF and have lukewarm feelings about it.  Perhaps it's just 
the lack of participation in the forums I've looked at.  However, I believe if
more people started using it, there would be a LOT of feedback requesting 
improvements and new features - I sure remember the earliest days of NOTES
(before it was even called notes) and it was the richness of the feedback that
made it what it is today.

SO, if everyone continues to say we should stay on notes, we'll lose all that
energy people could be putting into improving something that's much more
contemporary. Had the NOTES community (or more realistically DIGITAL) embrased
the PC 10 years ago, it would have no doubt been put on a PC way back when and
Lotus never even given the opportunity to get a foot in the door. 

As I see it, here we are again with an opportunity to do something Internet 
based and people just don't want to help it succeed.  sheesh...

Then again, the flip side of all this is if we DID all move to AVF, provided
rich feedback and management (or whoever) decided not to invest in those
improvements, we'd be better off staying with NOTES, VMS, VT100's, TECO, etc...

-mark

RE: .16

	Yes, it was rough in the early days of NOTE-ing. But did the
	AVF people learn enough from it? I'd say not. Jeff Michaud,
	myself and many others have provided the needed feedback to
	bring AVF up to the level of NOTES. There's no need to get
	10,000 people on it telling them the same thing.


							mike

>	Yes, it was rough in the early days of NOTE-ing. But did the
>	AVF people learn enough from it? I'd say not. Jeff Michaud,
>	myself and many others have provided the needed feedback to
>	bring AVF up to the level of NOTES. There's no need to get
>	10,000 people on it telling them the same thing.

yes & no...

sometimes you have to hit someone over the head with a 2X4 to get their 
attention.  I don't know anything about the level of input/comments the AVF
developers received.  Were what you though were valid requests ignored for no
good reason?  Were your requests even acknowledged?  Was there much public
discussion about what was requested, how others felt about those requests and
why the AVF people made the decisions they did? 

I remember in the early NOTES days someone would list a feature as a 'got to
have' and the rest of the community might give good reasons for not doing it.

To my earlier point, it was the PUBLIC discussions and rapid changes that helped
both the developers and users understand all the various dynamics that helps to
design the better tool.

-mark

There are many features which are different between Notes and AVF.  The GUI 
is the most obvious, but by far not the only or even the most important one.  
I think threading of topics is at least as important.

But there is one feature of Notes that sets it apart from every other 
product/project/hack like it in the industry: history.

With Notes you get a complete history of every word written on that topic
from the very minute the Notes file was created.  You may not always find
it under the topic you think it is under, and rat-holes have been known
to occur from time to time :^), but if someone wrote it, it is in there.

Just in the last month I have done searches on Notesfiles which yielded
notes which were written prior to 1992, and which contained *exactly* the
information I needed.  They were old, but they were still valuable.

Contrast this with every other technology that I am aware of, where the
half-life of a note is measured in (best case) weeks, most likely days,
and in some of the more interesting newsgroups, hours.

What this means in practical terms is not that the same questions get 
asked repeatedly (newbies are like that, and every one of us was a newbie
at one point or other), but that people can say "look at note xx.xx",
rather than having to re-enter the entire string.  And as such, the
question gets answered definitively, promptly (as in, before it was asked),
and takes up minimum space and very little of the experts time.

I just looked over the AVF.  It has history.  As such, it has value.  But
what it doesn't have is a decent search feature.  Sure, I can do a dir/title,
but I cannot do a search of all of the text.  And what is this thing about
searching in the last 'n' hours?  Huh?  With all the time zones that Digital
people are in, with the busy schedules we have, the probability that something
was entered in the last 24 hours is incredibly small.  Why waste time on a
feature of such little value?  

Add a full text search feature, and then it will be useful.  Of course, as
has been stated before, there has to be a critical mass of people entering
data for it to search for this to be of true value.

-- Ken Moreau

	I went through the topics in the Internet_Tools conf mentioned
	in .10 and will try to give a summary here:

	- (my biggest problem with AVF) AVF really requires a workstation
	  as using Character-cell web browser (such as lynx) to access an
	  AVF is not very easy.  Especially compared to NOTES character-
	  cell interfaces which I personally find works better than
	  Windowed NOTES clients (too many mouse clicks causes wrist and
	  finger joint pain, at least for me).

	- AV Forum requires alot more mouse strokes/clicks than NOTES
	  (especially when you compare it to Character-Cell NOTES clients
	  when you can navigate quite a bit with just the ENTER key on
	  the keypad).

	  Of course part of this problem is that the current browser
	  technology has no support for keyboard accelerators.

	- You have to "login" to each and every AVF with a username and
	  password (even if you use the same username/password for each
	  forum).  With NOTES all access is via proxies, so once you
	  are logged into a system, no further logins are required
	  (even for restricted conferences).

	- While AVF V2 now supports "seen map"/"next unseen" type
	  functionality, and even a "Set seen", the "set seen" can
	  only set all postings seen, there is no /before=date:time
	  functionality.

	- AVF lacks features for forum moderators that are present in
	  NOTES.  Pete Wolfe gave a nice long list (and indicated he
	  even posted it to some AVF), that I just included his whole
	  note at the end of this one.

Notefile: Gyro::Internet_Tools
Note: 4314.9
Author: GERUND::WOLFE "I'm going to huff, and puff, and blow your house down"
Topic: pointer to good usage of AV Forum in Digital?
Date: 10-DEC-1996 17:37
Lines: 36

re. .4,.5

Mike, it's even more general than that. The current Forum is missing many key
features that do not allow it to be a general purpose conferencing system  and
not even close to a Notes replacement. I've summarized the key ones in the AVF
forum, note 23. (http://insight.ibg.ljo.dec.com/avf/general/dispatch.cgi)  The
worst offenders are the moderator features (there are none really).  

- You can't reset a note's title without flipping the entire conference 
  into "modify mode".  
- You can't move notes or replies.   
- you can't change keywords 
- you can't have multiple keywords 
- replies can't have keywords 
- the topic/reply hierarchy is pretty unusable in it's current form.  
  Replies to replies are a good feature, it's just that  better navigation 
  features are needed (a tree layout) to make it useful.  This is possible
  if you are willing to program it with the AVF SDK (but it's
  not guaranteed to work across product upgrades). 
- batch access features are non-exisitant or buggy. Specifically,  
      - you can't post notes in batch (i.e. via mail) 
      - you are supposed to be able to read notes via a mail notification  
        method but it's pretty broken in V2.1.  
- even simple things like renaming a forum are not doable 
- the separate access control is a real pain in the neck (needs 
  yet another password database). 

Despite all of this, I still use the product extensively. It beats
News style interaction hands-down IMO. Mainly however, I am in a UNIX
group and VMS is an evil word. Only the old-time DECcies use Notes here. 
I can at least get the UNIX types to use the forum. 

			Pete

	I also mentioned this in topic 4314 in the Internet_Tools conference.
	If you really want to "migrate" users from NOTES to AVF, then what
	would be ideal would be to have the AV Forum servers be dual-headed.
	Ie. also look like NOTESfiles so that the *same* AV forum can be
	accessed via both the Web AVF interface, and also via standard
	NOTES clients.

	Dual-headed servers are not a new concept when it comes to migration.

It's worth repeating that Notes is available on non-OpenVMS platforms 
(specifically Windows NT) in both client and server, and it can also use TCP/IP. 
Saying that getting rid of VAXen is being done purely to get rid of Notes is 
silly on someone's part, whether it's our fault for believing it or someone 
higher up's fault for thinking that DEC Notes is VAX-centric. (Well, it did used 
to be called VAXNotes...)

And while we're at it, Exchange has forum type capability in it, so given the 
growth of Exchange servers, and the soon to be available Java client for 
Exchange...

It is also worth repeating that Lotus Notes and DEC Notes bear no relationship 
to each other apart from the name. You might as well compare Apple the 
publishing company with Apple the computer company.

PJDM

    Will the Windows Notes Client run against the Windows NT NOTES server?
    
    Is the Windows NT NOTES server you are talking about the WebNotes
    product?
    
    Also, I have seen AVF sites where the search function does allow
    searching for words in the text of the "notes".
    
    One of the problems I see, in fact, is that no two AVF sites seem to be
    "the same".
    
    FJP

Have any of you tried to delete a note you wrote through a browser?

    
    	RE: Skip
    
    	SET MOD works for me.
    
    	Oh, you mean in a conference you DON'T moderate.
    
    	8^)
    

> Have any of you tried to delete a note you wrote through a browser?

	Do you mean through Matt's WWW=>NOTES Gateway?

	There is a reason for not allowing you to delete notes, and
	that is that the gateway is not going any authentication.
	It's bad enough it allows you to do impersonation when writing
	notes... allowing you to delete anyones notes would be even worse.

> Will the Windows Notes Client run against the Windows NT NOTES server?

	Just like Web browsers (clients) can run against any Web server,
	the same is true for NOTES (as long as both support a common
	transport, ie. DECnet and/or TCP/IP).

re Note 5113.22 by vaxcpu.zko.dec.com::michaud:

> 	If you really want to "migrate" users from NOTES to AVF, then what
> 	would be ideal would be to have the AV Forum servers be dual-headed.
> 	Ie. also look like NOTESfiles so that the *same* AV forum can be
> 	accessed via both the Web AVF interface, and also via standard
> 	NOTES clients.
  
        This is one of the features of WebNotes -- a DEC
        Notes-compatible server that also is a special-purpose Web
        server giving access to the same conferences.

        Bob

        P.S. AltaVista Forum has performance/scalability problems as
        well.  There is growing sentiment in SI to look for another
        groupware and conferencing platform for most customer needs.

> It's worth repeating that Notes is available on non-OpenVMS platforms 
> (specifically Windows NT) in both client and server, ....

	And clients are available for Digital UNIX and ULTRIX

    re: .29
    
    One major advantage to AVF is the ability to program or customize it to
    be whatever you need it to be.  I've been doing this for quite a while
    for some major customers who now are completly hooked on it.  The SDK
    is simple to use and ease with which new forums types can be developed
    is amazing.  Some companies are even using customized forums for
    everything from surveys and FAQ's to data gathering from intranet
    users.  So before complaints are made about it not having a certain
    feature, it might be worthwhile to ask what it would take to get that
    feature.  The developers are certainly busy, but we have people in SI
    who do this all the time for customers, and who know this product quite
    well.
    
    So why not say what you need in it to use instead of notes, and maybe
    some of us SI folks can customize it to be exactly what you need?  
    
    (By the way, it does have a search function for searching the text, and
     Peter, the hierarchical display will work with the latest version).
         

    Re: -1
    
    > (By the way, it does have a search function for searching the text,
    > and Peter, the hierarchical display will work with the latest
    > version).
    
    Does it allow Boolean searches on keywords?  I have a NOTES customer 
    who may be interested if such is the case.
    
    Thanks!
    Dan

So you enter a note, decide you don't like the language and want to delete 
and re-submit it and you're sol

or you enter a for sale ad and the item sells but you cannot delete the ad 
to stop the calls.  

    On the "SBU" Forum, I was able to delete the second of a "double-post"
    (caused by the unfortunate UI problem mentioned in the base note
    here). Not sure how this would be handled on something in the middle of a
    thread.
    
    It was in the options under the "Tools" icon.  I don't know if this is
    in the COTS product or a customization.
    

    re .33
    
    It sounds like a setup problem.  If the forum was set up correctly,
    the creator of the note (or entry) should have full access to delete or
    modify that entry. (Modification was part of version 2, so perhaps the
    site you are using is not at the latest version).  Ask the forum owner
    or admin person to set up the access controls properly so that the
    entry creator can delete or modify their own entries.
    
    re .32
    
    if it doesn't search the way your customer wants it to, adding a new
    index with a new search is pretty straight forward using the SDK, even
    one connected to a keyword.  (If someone can handle writting Visual Basic, 
    they can handle the SDK and creating new classes - although I don't for
    the life of me understand why AltaVista doesn't market this aspect of
    the product better.)

  The idea of being dependent on a Web browser to access the notesfiles of the
future scares me. I have already encountered several aggravating "features"
of Netscape while using non-forum applications. Such as accidentally double-
entering an item (mentioned earlier) because the browser is very subtle about
telling you the write successfully initiated. I don't like being dependent on
a third-party product (Netscape) that we (Digital) don't have any control
over. 
  In general Netscape Navigator is a good product. It's just that I would like
to use a browser for browsing but not for "everything".
  Giving up VMS and its associated products is going to be a wrenching
experience. VAXnotes has one of the best user interfaces I have ever seen.
I don't think ANY other conferencing product can come close to matching this
ease of use. VAX Notes has this functionality BY DEFAULT. That AVF forums 
apparently do NOT have this level of functionality unless someone spends hours 
manually setting up these features is bad news.

>>  In general Netscape Navigator is a good product. It's just that I would like
>>  to use a browser for browsing but not for "everything".
    
    Get used to it.  Bend over. Etc.
    
    If a "Web Notes" concept is going to be useful, it needs a UI that does
    not require anything but a browser. Of course, it should not need to be
    a browser by Netscape.
    
    FJP

    It's an ideal thin client app if you've got low expectations about
    the client capabilities. Until a browser comes along that enables
    you to associate different page functions with different keys (so
    you don't have to muscle a pointer around the page zeroing in on
    different buttons or links), it'll be a substantially inferior UI to
    what's there now. Remember that the first word of least common
    denominator is "least".
    
    It may be that the extension that's needed is to HTML. Come up with
    an extension to HTML that defines meta-keys, and they provide your
    browser with a way to map these meta-keys to specific keys on your
    input device.

RE: .31 -< Don't give up on AVF so quick >-

>    One major advantage to AVF is the ability to program or customize it to
>    be whatever you need it to be.  

It seems to me that this is the same argument that people always advance
when they are advocating the use of emacs: you can customize it to be exactly
what you want.  But I think this position misses a key point: most people
are not engineers, do not enjoy tinkering with tools for the sheer joy of
tinkering with tools, and do not have time to learn yet another SDK simply 
to do something that they have been able to do for years: read notes.

The analogy I always use is that calling emacs an editor is equivalent to a
calling a mountain of iron ore a car: yes, you can use emacs to build exactly
the editor you want, and you can mine the raw ore and build smelting plants 
and develop tools and create technology to build exactly the car you want 
from the mountain of iron ore.  In both cases you have *exactly* the product
you want, which is slightly different than any other product on the market,
but this tends to be a bit more work than most people are willing to invest.
(sarcasm intended)
    
>    So why not say what you need in it to use instead of notes, and maybe
>    some of us SI folks can customize it to be exactly what you need?  

Ok, I want it to be accessible from a terminal emulator window, using the
notes keypad.  To be complete, can you also make it accessible from the
Windows Notes GUI?  Can that be done?  If so, I suggest that a lot more people
would use it immediately, because it would have the look and feel that they
are used to, and they don't have to learn an SDK to use it...

In case you are wondering, I am completely serious.  If you recall, the first
version of TPU did exactly what I am suggesting.  They built a brand new
editor engine, and in a stroke of genius (IMHO) put the EDT keypad on top of
it.  All of a sudden they had hundreds of people who switched over to it
immediately, because it was comfortable and easy for those people to do so.

I know that if you put the Notes CCT front-end on it, I would immediately add
those forums to my notebook, which would give you feedback and help build the
critical mass of readers/writers that such a forum needs to survive and grow.
I believe the same is true for the Windows Notes GUI for other people.

-- Ken Moreau

>I don't like being dependent on
>a third-party product (Netscape) that we (Digital) don't have any control
>over. 

sorru but that argument went away years ago...  if we can't learn to live with
an interoperate with stuff we don't write/own, we're doomed!

-mark

    
Re: .36
    
> VAXnotes has one of the best user interfaces I have ever seen.
    
    It got even better when ALL-IN-1 gave it a face-lift :^) with GPC!
    
    dan

If the use of a Browser scares anyone, you may be putting yourself in a corner for 
the forseable future.

If we accept (and yes, anyone is free not to go with the current) that Microsoft 
is and will be dictating the shape and form of how if not what is used on the 
desktop, the next version of Windows 95 (aka Windows 97) will be browser 
"centric". e.g., no more Windows Explorer, it will be repalced by a browser.

A small sample of their direction is the new version of their online service, MSN. 
Instead of using a custom UI, like AOL, it is primarily a modified version of its 
browser (Internet Explorer) that connects into the MSN Web site. Anyone has access 
to it with any browser, just check www.msn.com, but you need to be a member to 
access some pages.

/OLD

FWIW, (if I ever get the free time) I'm going to write a Java applet which 
speaks the Notes protocol directly over TCP/IP.  Then you won't be dependent
on a www-notes gateway to read notes.

> I don't like being dependent on a third-party product (Netscape) that
> we (Digital) don't have any control over.

I presume you are then also resisting use of Windows NT, Windows 95,
Windows 3.1 etc.

>> I don't like being dependent on a third-party product (Netscape) that
>> we (Digital) don't have any control over.

>I presume you are then also resisting use of Windows NT, Windows 95,
>Windows 3.1 etc.

  I am assuming that our alliance with Microsoft gives us some leverage if
we were to find a really serious deficiency in Windows NT or 95. I sense that
we are such a small part of Netscape's customer base that we have very little
control over things like the lack of accelerator keys.
  If another browser (from another supplier) comes out that is superior to
Netscape, being dependent on a browser for "everything" becomes a little more
acceptable.

>  I am assuming that our alliance with Microsoft gives us some leverage if
> we were to find a really serious deficiency in Windows NT or 95.

Ha, ha, ha, good joke that one...

	Vincent

PS: that *was* a joke, wasn't it ? ;-)

>>  I am assuming that our alliance with Microsoft gives us some leverage if
>> we were to find a really serious deficiency in Windows NT or 95.

>Ha, ha, ha, good joke that one...

>	Vincent

>PS: that *was* a joke, wasn't it ? ;-)

  I do hope that was a joke.  Anyone that knows anyone that deals with
  Microsoft, Intel, or any monolith knows better.

  	mikeP

    RE: .39
    
    >> "...and do not have time to learn yet another SDK simply to do
    >> something that they have been able to do for years: read notes."
    
    Huh?  I guess I must not have communicated clearly, no ones needs to
    use the SDK to read "notes" in AVF.  If someone wanted a specific
    feature that was not there, then with great ease a programmer type
    could set up their installation to have that feature.  That's all -
    users do not need to know anything about the SDK.  Also, it doesn't
    take "hours" to set up, it's really pretty simple.  
    
    All this reminds me of when I had to sell a very special car when I
    first came to DIGITAL to get on plan B.  No matter which car I looked
    at or drove, it was no good.  I could always find *something* wrong with
    it, and pointed it out with great passion.  Truth was, I didn't want to
    let my car go.  Change is tough, but resistance to it is futile.  
    
    Back to "read only" mode....

>          . . . .  Change is tough, but resistance to it is futile.  
    
    You will be assimilated!  :^)

    Change is futile unless directed.

This is old and therefore good.  This is new and therefore better.