The next release of Lotus Notes, codenamed “Hannover”, will be based on Eclipse RCP. By building on top of Eclipse RCP, Notes will move towards a new open and extensible programming model. Hannover also builds on top of the IBM Workplace Managed Client platform to take advantage of centralized administration and provisioning.

Hannover will provide new user interface features such as “grouped tabs” and vertical inbox views. Hannover will also have features not possible in previous releases of Notes such as opening documents in new windows and a more responsive user interface via the Eclipse Jobs framework. The look and feel of the Hannover client will be brand-able/themeable using Eclipse Themes and Products extension points.

Hannover must support all Notes applications including legacy applications. To make this possible the user interface will be a hybrid of SWT and native Notes windows. Some of the primary Notes applications will be updated to leverage JFace and SWT components but to support legacy applications, native Notes windows will be embedded in Eclipse view parts.

In this session we will demo a real working prototype of the Hannover client. The prototype is based on Eclipse RCP 3.1. We will demo features such as messaging, contacts, calendar, legacy notes applications and composite applications.