Back in February I blogged about the Lotus Connections Files and Status Updates Plugins for Lotus Notes. These are excellent plugins that I use every day, and I would recommend them to anyone running both Lotus Notes and IBM Connections.
If you are running Notes 8.5.2 with Fix Pack 2, apparently a fix to the Connections code in Fix Pack 2, broke the Files and Status plugins, from the technote:
I recently installed the Lotus Connections plugins for Files, and Status Updates in my Lotus Notes 8.5.2 client. If you use Lotus Connections and Lotus Notes you need to look at these plugins. I put together a couple of slides that show the installation process, which is really easy, and highlights some of the functionality. Go ahead and try them yourself.
Take a look at the IBM Business Solutions Catalog for additional plugins and widgets that might be useful in your environment.
I have been using Document Viewer from OpenNTF for a while now, today John Head posted about a new sidebar plug-in for Notes 8 which automatically displays the document properties, in a format that is much easier to read then natively in Notes. John also provides excellent detailed instructions for installing the plug-in. Here is a screen shot from my sidebar. 