Page thumbnail slider in Symphony 1.0 -- helps to manage your slides easily

Helen Yue, Helen Yue, Development Manager of Lotus Symphony User Experience and Applications  |  May 29, 2008 11:06 PM
Profile image for Helen Yue First I would like to thank all of you for your effort to help Lotus Symphony. We have had a lot of feedback from you, and these feedback helped us a lot on Symphony development from Beta 1 to Beta 4. Please keep these feedback coming.

One of the usability requests we got is to add thumbnail slider in Presentation Editor. This feature request can be traced back to last Sep. and was mentioned by some requests later. Before Symphony Beta 4, we were using page tabs to navigate among slides. Our study shows that it becomes harder to use page tabs to navigate when the number of slides grows to more than 15. One reason is that, the name of the slides takes much space in the slide bar, and it is easy for most users to remember thumbnail instead of names.

So in Symphony 1.0 you will see a new thumbnail slider to help you manage your slides easily. The thumbnail slides is located on the left by default. The thumbnail slider provides easy navigation of slides. In the slider, you can change the sequence of slides by drag and drop, or access page context menu by right click on selected single or multiple thumbnails -- for example, you can select multiple pages in the slider and apply different page layout or page design. You can also copy and paste slides between the sliders of different presentations. I personally like it very much, and I am eager to get your feedback on this new feature It is available in Symphony 1.0.

For users who are used to page tabs, you also have your choice. Thumbnail slider and page tabs are actually two view modes for the same thing, so we also provide one icon besides the sliders to switch between these two modes.

18 Comments

  • Ravonn said on May 31, 2008 2:52 PM:

    Thanks for adding this now it will be much easier for me.

    Symphony Rulez !

  • Meindert said on Jun 6, 2008 8:19 AM:

    I find this a big step forward in usability! Thanx

  • Janusz said on Jun 17, 2008 3:51 PM:

    Good initiative.

  • Skip said on Jul 6, 2008 12:11 PM:

    Lotus Approach is the perfect database for non-programmers. When will it be included in Sympony suite?

  • Larry Scott said on Jul 12, 2008 2:29 PM:

    The speadsheet program does not remember the page layout when you print your document. It always defaults to Portrait.

    Also is there a way to change the default file locations? Mine always defaults to administrator when I fist open Symphony.

    I am also a Lotus approach user like Skip and I would like to see it included as part of the symphony progams.

  • Larry Scott said on Jul 12, 2008 2:36 PM:

    I use Lotus SmartSuite Version 9.8. I like the "Lotus Smart Center" Tool Bar that installs at the top of the screen. The "Lotus Smart Center" tool bar includes a reference tab which has a "dictionary" and a "thesaurus". I find this very useful in my daily work.

    Is there any chance you will be adding a tool bar for symphony with the dictionary and thesaurus?

  • Ulrich Daase said on Jul 17, 2008 8:20 AM:

    When will the Scripting absolutely, for example for Radio buttoms, be supported by Symhony.

  • Ulrich Daase said on Jul 17, 2008 8:21 AM:

    When will the Scripting absolutely, for example for Radio buttoms, be supported by Symhony?

  • Dr Arun Trivedi said on Jul 29, 2008 12:44 PM:

    COST OF THE PRODUCT.WHEREFROM TO GET IT AT LONDON?PL ADVISE ARUNT1950@YAHOO.CO.IN

  • Dr Arun Trivedi said on Jul 29, 2008 12:45 PM:

    A BIG STEP LEAPING TO USABILITY.THNX PL

  • Ralph Ditchie said on Aug 8, 2008 5:41 PM:

    I would also like to lend my voice to including Lotus Approach to your updated product line. It would be a great addition if it could be run on linux and updated for 2009. Thanks.

  • Betaboy said on Aug 24, 2008 10:11 PM:

    I like the idea, it's more powerful for me to show and interact slides, thanks your team work, insanely great!

  • Richard J. said on Sep 12, 2008 10:56 AM:

    We have used Lotus Approach as our sole database software for years in our real estate appraisal business and consider it significantly superior to Access for reasons of ease of use. Including Approach in the new Symphony package would be a win/win for IBM and those of us in the Approach end-user community.

  • Mahtab Qaiser said on Oct 9, 2008 12:35 PM:

    I agreed with Richard. And also integrate it with Lotus Notes and Domino so that our client can access the views and forms through notes contacts, schedule, and workspace.

  • Imiss Approach said on Oct 15, 2009 12:37 AM:

    I tried this product thinking it could read and convert my Lotus Approach data. I was wrong!..

    Add this feature and I would pay for the product. Has anyone out there found a good replacement product for Lotus Approach??? Clearly this is not it.

  • Rick said on Feb 11, 2010 12:15 PM:

    I don't see the need to switch to Lotus Symphony. If it offered Approach, that would be different, but as it is, it's just another version of free software that's already out there. Approach was awesome. Too bad IBM didn't keep it updated.

  • Roy said on Nov 23, 2010 8:40 AM:

    Yes, Approach was (is) a great product. So simple to use and very powerful.

    I would love it see it return in Symphony.

  • JK said on Dec 3, 2010 3:57 AM:

    Right now we are solving extension of licenses for more PC for Approach. No chance to buy, we are very disappointed by termination of this software by IBM.
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