Working with stone weapons. Review on Lotus Notes R5

In this era where gmail is revolutionizing the way email is looked at , my company has a Company Policy to use Lotus Notes r5 ( the latest version is r7). Among the email clients that I have used ( Thunderbird, Evolution, PINE, Outlook) this software is appalingly bad.

Interface

The application uses a tabbed browsing interface. The interface is very cluttered with many icons you will hardly use, and no way to switch them off. For instance, I still have not been able to find a way to remove the text labels on the buttons.

Filters

Another problem is the way filtering happens. The filters - known as rules - are created by going into a 'rules' folder and then specifying it. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing whether new email has been filtered to which folder - so you end up clicking all the folders to just see where the email went when you get the notification.

Preview messages

Another gripe is the preview pane window. If you enable it, and close down the application, it vanishes. Quite irritating to keep clicking the preview pane icon.

Scroll Lock?

There seems to be no way to use the scroll on the mouse to scroll the messages. You have to click on the scroll bar to scroll the messages. Irritating + 1.

Calendar

I am used to using a month view for the calendar. In here, only an icon is shown without a brief on what that is - forcing you to use the week view.

All in all, in today's world this email application is a throwback to prehistoric times. Company Policy says that it needs to be used - so I am having to use it, otherwise I would have switched to Thunderbird.