I was recently browsing my sent items in Lotus Notes at a client and my mouse happened to hover over the yellow unopened envelope icon when Lotus Notes offered the helpful "yellow unopened envelope icon" tooltip. Thanks!

(yes, I forgot to crop)

That's probably Lotus' way of implementing accessibility for the vision impaired.

 That, you know, screen readers might be able to read.

Mousing over the star on the very left of my inbox (The star being an unread message indicator) I get "Unread Message". Mousing over the attachment indicator I get "Paperclip Icon". Mousing over the arrows at the right of each message that indicate whether I've replied to a mail or forwarded one shows "Message replied to Icon" and "Message forwarded Icon".

TRWTF is how inconsistent the icons act with their alt-text.

In previous designs for Lotus Notes icons, they were all self descriptive icons, but didn't indicate their action (Ie, "Paperclip Icon" for attachments). That still doesn't have any use (Yes, paperclip is commonly linked to attachments for the people who can see, but many visually impaired people won't know that!), but atleast it was consistent.

Using 8.5.2. BJolling seems to be using Lotus Notes 7, or atleast 8.5 with an old design :/.

Adanine:

TRWTF is how inconsistent the icons act with their alt-text

 

Using 8.5.2.

Version 8 with bugs/inconsistencies you would expect in a 1.0 release.

Lotus Notes -- one of the industry pioneers of crappy inconsistent design.

 

 Well, IBM's UE Guidelines for Lotus Notes (‽) gives the rule for how tooltips should be capitalised (a rule which this example breaks, natch), and says that all visual elements that don't already have labels must have tooltips - but they say nothing about what the tooltip should say.

It could then also have said "Thank you for using Lotus Notes. Have a nice day." Much friendlier.

Watson:

‽

 

A questionbang?

dhromed:

Watson:

‽

 

A questionbang?

Close; Interrobang.

Sometimes Lotus Notes legitimately surprises me though... I just had a case where a client cancelled a copy of their mail file by removing the drive early (Without safely removing the drive, ofcourse), took it to site, uploaded the mail file, and despite it only being three quarters the size of what it should be, it opened.

Ofcourse mail was missing, and the design (The graphics and looks of the mail file) went to all hell, but he could easily see his most recent email and work with it, while we fix the design and replicate the rest of the mail file over via link.

I'd never say Lotus Notes is robust, but it has it's moments...

Dorus:

 That, you know, screen readers might be able to read.

Which is surely any more useful than nothing at all. How about "unread message" or something even remotely useful.

I'd propose "I don't give a fuck and I bet 100$ QA won't either. See you in release". That would at least give us all a good laugh.

 

topspin:

I'd propose "I don't give a fuck and I bet 100$ QA won't either. See you in release". That would at least give us all a good laugh.

Lotus Notes... QA... that's quite a concept. Kind of like dry water. Or, to borrow a phrase from Roadside Picnic, a full empty.

blakeyrat:

topspin:

I'd propose "I don't give a fuck and I bet 100$ QA won't either. See you in release". That would at least give us all a good laugh.

...Or, to borrow a phrase from Roadside Picnic, a full empty.

I never really grasped what that phrase was trying to convey. I mean, obviously it's some mysterious alien artifact so maybe it shouldn't entirely make sense, but I didn't understand what it was supposed to be. I assume it loses something in the translation. Also: wow, someone else besides the STALKER developers has actually read that book.

blakeyrat:

otus Notes... QA... that's quite a concept. Kind of like dry water.

So, really useful and totally real?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water

Someone You Know:

I never really grasped what that phrase was trying to convey. I mean, obviously it's some mysterious alien artifact so maybe it shouldn't entirely make sense, but I didn't understand what it was supposed to be. I assume it loses something in the translation. Also: wow, someone else besides the STALKER developers has actually read that book.

It's only the greatest Russian science fiction novel. Everybody's read it. That and Solaris. (I liked Solaris better though.) Metro 2033 is gaining a lot of traction, too. I've played the video game but I haven't read the book. (But I do think writing a video game based on a novel is basically the best idea ever and should be done a lot more often.)

The "empty" artifact is called that because it's two copper-ish plates joined to each other in such a way that they move in sync with each other, looking like two ends of a cylindrical container without any walls between them. You can pass your hand through the two plates, there's nothing there, but you can't separate them from each other-- when one moves, the other moves. The book talks about how even industrial hydraulic presses can't separate the two plates from each other.

The huge deal in the novel with the "full empty" is that they found an empty that still had some liquid inside it. It worked the same as a normal empty, but there was a pool of liquid that was held-in by the forcefields that held the two plates in sync with each other. I don't think the book ever talks about what the liquid turned out to be.

I always assumed the empties were like discarded batteries, since they vaguely fir that description, and the full empty was a battery with some charge still left in it (in the form of the liquid.) But of course the entire point of the novel is that things in the Zone are unknowable.

HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!

serguey123:

blakeyrat:

otus Notes... QA... that's quite a concept. Kind of like dry water.

So, really useful and totally real?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_water

Hey look! A pedantic dickweed! Fancy seeing one of those on this site.

blakeyrat:

Hey look! A pedantic dickweed! Fancy seeing one of those on this site.

Not sure what your point is but...

serguey123:

 

Alt-text: "Blue figure in black shadow talking"

blakeyrat:

Solaris. (I liked Solaris better though.)

Glad you liked - sad that you think Stanisław Lem was Russian (because he was Polish).

The fun thing is my work proxy blocks the domain, so I get to experience the frustration of nondescript alt text firsthand.

joe.edwards:

The fun thing is my work proxy blocks the domain, so I get to experience the frustration of nondescript alt text firsthand.

Its a panel of a Batman comic from around the Cold War era

blakeyrat:

Someone You Know:

I never really grasped what that phrase was trying to convey. I mean, obviously it's some mysterious alien artifact so maybe it shouldn't entirely make sense, but I didn't understand what it was supposed to be. I assume it loses something in the translation. Also: wow, someone else besides the STALKER developers has actually read that book.

It's only the greatest Russian science fiction novel.

I think I'd give that honor to "Tale of the Troika" by the same authors. It's often found in the same book as "Roadside Picnic" and it's one of the most bizarrely awesome things I've ever read. Like a weird Soviet acid trip.

bannedfromcoding:

blakeyrat:

Solaris. (I liked Solaris better though.)

Glad you liked - sad that you think Stanisław Lem was Russian (because he was Polish).

... well at the time he was in the USSR SO IT STILL COUNTS DAMNIT!!!! *sobs*

blakeyrat:

*sobs*

 

there there

hug your spacedog plank.