Genii Weblog

Five years of labor, one less break

Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:06 PM



by Ben Langhinrichs
<snarkasm>
This isn't kind, but in some ways it is deserved.  In September 2004, IBM released Lotus Notes 6.5.3.  Five years later, IBM is on the verge of introducing 8.5.1.  Let's take a quick peak at what those five years of labor have produced in the way of email fidelity.  Instead of looking at more nasty images, let's look at a bit of HTML, specifically that generated when sending the two tables shown in my post earlier today, All your base are belong to 8.5.1: MIME rendering.  To help you understand the change wrought in five years (encompassing major Version 7, major Version 8, major Version 8.5 and now Version 8.5.1 beta 8), I have highlighted the change with a red arrow:


HTML generated by Lotus Notes Version 8.5.1 Beta 8 (circa Aug. 2009)

Output in 2009



HTML generated by Lotus Notes Version 6.5.3 (circa Sept. 2004) with arrow highlighting the break that was removed

Output in 2004


Yup, a single break was removed.  What will the next three major versions and five years bring?  Only time will tell.
</snarkasm>

Copyright © 2009 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


862.1. Christian (28.08.2009 07:41)

TCO

:o)

:o)


862.2. Karsten Lehmann (28.08.2009 10:34)

Hey, it's almost perfectly backward and even forward compatible. ;-).

If any partner application needs to parse the HTML emails of Domino, it works from 6.5.3-8.5.1 in the same way. :-)


862.3. Ben Langhinrichs (08/28/2009 10:52 AM)

@Karsten - LOL. Good point.


862.4. Erik Brooks (08/28/2009 02:45 PM)

Don't forget that this is virtually the same renderer used by Domino's native "Shimmer" HTTP (i.e. not XPages).

If they fixed the erroneous extra
that was being inserted due to new paragraph styles, I'll take it though.


862.5. Ben Langhinrichs (08/28/2009 03:20 PM)

@Erik - Not quite. I need to emphasize that this is the Notes Client rendering, not the Domino Server rendering, and even if it were, the Domino engine for MIME conversion is different, although related, to the Domino engine for HTML conversion. These are all different engines, which is one of the wild confusing parts of trying to demonstrate what people will see. The engines are quite different, but I think it is likely, although not certain, that the Domino engine has undergone more changes than the Notes engine in the past five years.