February 14th, 2009 | Chris Sparshott | 16 Comments#comments">16 Comments
A quick guide for changing the colour of your unread email messages in LN 8.5 from black to red.
- Stop Lotus Notes client
- Navigate to /notes/framework/shared/plugins in the file system
- Find the file com.ibm.notes.branding_8.5.0.20081211-1925.jar
- Open the file in winzip or winrar
- You are then presented with the following file structure:
..
com
Icons
META-INF
src
themes
about.html
about.ini
about.properties
notes_plugin_customization.ini
plugin.properties
plugin.xml
splash.bmp
- Click on Themes directory
- Open notes.css in your favorite editing tool e.g. notepad
/* this sets the style for messages that have been marked as “unread” */
mailtable>row>unread {
color: black;
font-family: Tahoma, Times, Helvetica;
font-size: x-small;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
}
- Modify the colour to say Red as shown below;
/* this sets the style for messages that have been marked as “unread” */
mailtable>row>unread {
color: red;
font-family: Tahoma, Times, Helvetica;
font-size: x-small;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
}
- You will be prompted with “File “notes.css” was modified. Do you wish to update it in the archive?
- Click on YES
- The archive is updated.
- Restart notes and the text colour for unread email is still black!
- Within the Lotus Notes v8.5 client do File – Preferences – Windows and Themes
- Change the theme to a theme you are not using
- Click on Apply and OK.
- Then change the theme back to the original theme which in my case is Notes 8 Theme and all the unread email text is now red.
February 14th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
The saver way to make this changes is to create your own theme to include that CSS. It a) could be shared b) will survives an upgrade. Of course it is a little more work. MBR has a slide deck on this:
http://www.slideshare.net/dominion/customizing-the-look-of-lotus-notes-8-presentation
and developer works some more stuff:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ledoc/v6r11/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.rcp.tools.doc.appdev/rcpapps_usingthemes.html
February 15th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Hi, thnaks a lot for this tip. Any idea if and how you could have the red color also for mails which have color coding enabled? All these mails are still in black if they are unread …
Thanks,
Michael
February 15th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Thanks for the explanation, but you can also just run this tool http://www.domino-weblog.nl/weblogs/domblog.nsf/d6plinks/SHAD-7MZAJ9
March 4th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Thanks for the tip. I tried, and it works but a small problem. Every time the Notes is restarted, the “unread” mails change back to “black”, so need to operate the “preferences” again. Is there any method to make the changes permanent please ? thanks again.
March 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
did this happen when you changed the theme (click ok in preferences) and then go back into the preferences and change the theme back again?
March 25th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Unfortunately, same problem over here. Followed the exact instructions but after restarting Notes, Black is back again….
April 19th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
same problem here!!
April 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Try @Almars suggestion above if you are not getting any joy with this method
May 31st, 2009 at 3:15 am
Thanks a lot I tried it but the problem I faced is that after I unziped the file of “com.ibm.notes.branding_8.5.0.20081211-1925.jar ” using the Winrar application and I changed the code in the notes.css file I didnt get the following steps :
Do you wish to update it in the archive?
Click on YES
The archive is updated.
and what happed later is that the change of the incoming messages didnt change and my Lotus Notes client stopped working and the only solution was to reinstall it .
Could you please update me about what I can do to change the colour of the incoming messages .
Could you please
June 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
You may need to delete or rename the file platform.xml found in the following directory: <Notes data>workspace.configorg.eclipse.update To have make the changes permanent.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Matt's – solution fixed my problem in Notes 8.5. Red fix is now unchanging at restart.
BYW… the fix lets you put RED in place of BLACK. Does anyone know if it will take other colors?
December 11th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Hello,
I would like to use the red letters with the themes of “Operating system theme” but int his case the letters are black
If I select the “Notes 8 Theme” then it's red. What is the solution to use the Operating system theme with red lettes?
Thanks
December 28th, 2009 at 1:22 am
With FP1 you can now go to preferences -> fonts and colors and select “Plain red text” for the unread mail.
January 8th, 2010 at 2:38 am
Thanks for your idea. I tried, and it works. thanks again.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:59 am
Спасибо!
Отлично. помогло
January 26th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Спасибо!
Отлично. помогло