Outlook reading Domino message causes server copy to be mutated?

[Nathaniel Mishkin]

Folks,

I've been using the new Outlook/Domino connector and having pretty good
luck, but I now think I've confirmed some pretty strange/undesirable
behavior: the mere act of opening and reading a message with "fancy" Notes
RTF formatting from Outlook apparently results in the server-stored copy of
the message to "lose" all that formatting. I.e., I read it in Outlook and
then read it from the Notes client and what I know to have been the original
formatting (e.g., use of a Notes RTF "tabbed table") has gotten entirely
messed up.

My Domino address book entry says to keep incoming mail in the sender's
format. From the research I've done, my impression is that the Domino
server can change the format on the fly to the format requested by the
client, but that the stored copy is supposed to stay in the original format.
In this case, it looks like the format is being changed permanently as a
side effect of reading the message. Somewhat undesirable.

Does anyone have any insights into what's going on here and what, if
anything, can be done to change the behavior?

Thanks.

 

[Bill Bailey]

Nat,

The Outlook Connector readme file and the Outlook
Connector help file (msochelp.chm) contain information
that appear to speak to your problem. For example, the
readme file says, "Inline pictures, text boxes, and tables
in the message body are lost if the e-mail message is
created in Microsoft RTF using Outlook Connector for
Domino. These inline items are preserved if the message is
created in HTML format and the e-mail preference on the
Lotus Notes client is set to MIME or No Preference."
(Note: both the readme and the msochelp.chm file are in
the Program Files\Outlook Connector folder.)

From everything I've read in the above documents, it
appears that the best results with the Connector are
obtained by using HTML to create messages and by setting
your incoming mail preference to MIME in your Domino
Address Book. This is the way I'm setup and I have had no
problems with the Connector and no problems reading things
in the Notes client.

I hope this helps.

 

[Nathaniel Mishkin]

Bill,

Thanks for the comments.

My issue isn't so much that information is lost when downloaded and
displayed by Outlook (which I expected). What surprised me is that
apparently the simple act of downloading and displaying the message with
Outlook causes the message's format to be changed in the Notes mail DB.
I.e., in at least some cases, if I go back and read the message using the
Notes client (after reading it in Outlook), the format is whacked there too.
I would have guessed that the conversion was done by Outlook as it
downloaded and stored the message in the Outlook message store (outlook.nst
file) and that the original message in the Notes mail DB would have been
left untouched.

An additional oddity is that the behavior doesn't seem to be consistent.
Some messages as seen via the Notes client remain fine, but others show up
mangled via the Notes client.

The reason I'm reluctant to change my incoming mail preference to MIME is
that sometimes I really need to see the original Notes RTF format message,
even if that means temporarily switching back from Outlook to the Notes
client to read it. Of course, given that messages seem to sometimes get
whacked in the Notes mail DB itself anyway, this strategy isn't entirely
winning

-- Nat