I did some research based on a customer case. Here are the findings.
/John
How to avoid some addresses in the Recent Contacts
Basically, these controls are managed by setting variables in the notes.ini of the users' Notes clients. There are three settings that I think need to be considered:
DPABRemoveRule
This setting will hold a comma separated list of phrases of addresses that should
not be added to recent contacts. I have had some experiences with this field and the patterns that you can use:
1. For Notes addresses you will have to use the Canonical format. E.g. shown address as:
User Name/NDom then you will have to specify the domain as:
/o=ndom instead of just
/ndom.
2. You may use blanks in the Notes domain name, e.g.
/o=n dom
3. You cannot use non-english characters although these may be valid in the Notes domain name, e.g.
/o=øgle - won't work
4. Case is neglected. You can write the patterns in upper-/lowercase as you like.
5. Using more general patterns will stop addresses with Notes names as well as internet addresses. E.g.
ndom, will stop
user name/ndom as well as
user_name@ndom.org
I have noticed some peculiar problems with testing this setting although you follow the rules for deleting recent contacts (see below).
DPABRemoveRuleSetting=1
According to the general FAQ in the references below this setting should enable the system to just look for parts of a word in the address before making a match. However, my exteded tests show that the system behaves this way anyway. Either this is the default - or this is due to the fact that I had this setting enabled some time ago.... Therefore, I leave it here for reference, but I think it can be ignored.
DPAB_MAX_DIP_TABLE_SIZE
By default the Notes client will hold approx. 3000 recent contacts - which is a lot. My recent contacts is 6-700 at the moment.... This setting can be used to adjust that number. If you set it to 500 then you will limit the recent contacts to 500. However, the system will not purge the older recent contacts right away - it is done once a week. Therefore, you may at times see more recent contacts than the number you specify. You may want to use this setting to get rid of "old" recent contacts.
How to disable Recent Contacts
You can disable the use of recent contacts in the preferences (under Contact). You can also use this notes.ini setting:
DisableDPABProcessing=1
If you have had recent contacts enabled then you also want to delete all recent contacts when you disable it. To do this you will have to mark all documents in the view Recent Contacts in the personal address book, delete them, and then follow the steps below to delete Recent Contacts.
How to delete one or more recent contacts
If you want to delete one or more recent contacts then you have to follow these additional steps for the deletions to take effect:
1. If you have not already, open your Contacts database; select Recent Contacts in the left-hand navigation pane.
2. Right-click on the contact you would like to delete, and select Delete from the context menu.
3. Select Trash in the navigation pane at left , and click Empty Trash in the action bar above the message list.
4. Send an email to yourself - I am not sure if you have to open that mail, however, I have started doing this since it is when reading an email that the code to maintain recent contacts kick in.
5. Restart Notes.
It is a bit tedious but you
will have to follow the last two steps for the system to reset the internal list of the contacts.
Example settings in notes.ini
This is an example from my notes.ini file:
; 2010.03.31/Jda - Skip certain addresses in "Recent contacts"
; Enable this setting to change the default of approx. 3000 recent contacts.
; DPAB_MAX_DIP_TABLE_SIZE=1000
; Enable this setting to search for remove strings in any part of the address (also part of a word). However, this seems to be the default !?!
;DPABRemoveRuleSetting=1
DPABRemoveRule=/o=D-D,/o=Tribits,/o=xlNotes,/o=majkilde,/o=izone,/o=k e h,/ou=SH/o=Notesnet
You will see that it avoids registering some Notes names in my recent contacts.
References:
General FAQ about Recent Contacts:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/ibm-lotus-notes-8-recent-contacts-and-type-ahead-features-faqs
Clarification of one of the settings:
http://planetlotus.org/profiles/notes-design-blog_50184