Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell

Chapter 4. Outlook’s Navigation Tools

Once upon a time, menus were simple devices. They provided the user with an easy way to display a list of program commands. Then along came toolbars that contained a fixed selection of button-images to quickly access frequently used commands. These days, the situation is very different. In Outlook 2000 we now have menus that are customizable and adaptive; toolbars that are customizable, selectable, and adaptive; and a dizzying array of context menus. Some of these features are fully automatic, while others display a complex mix of automatic and manually configured behavior. This chapter attempts to bring some order to using and customizing Outlook’s navigational tools.

Normally, menus and toolbars don’t get a lot of attention—that is, until you either cannot find a command, the command you eventually find is not where you expected it, or something does not work as advertised. For these frustrating scenarios, help is at hand. By the time you’ve finished with this chapter, you should be able to find those missing or vanishing commands, build custom menus and toolbars, or simply rearrange an existing menu or toolbar to better suit your work habits.

In addition to menus and toolbars, Outlook also provides two tools that can be utilized as navigational aids, but also function as indispensable file management tools: the Outlook Bar and the Folder List. Both of these tools are discussed later in this chapter.

We begin this chapter with a look at the concept of adaptive menus and toolbars. As you read the following section, keep in mind the difference between the terms adaptive and context. Adaptive refers to the ability of a menu or toolbar to learn and remember the commands you use most often; this is a feature in Outlook that can be turned on or off. Context defines what commands are available when working in a given component or in a specific region (pane) of a component. For example, the commands displayed on a menu or toolbar under Outlook’s Journal component will be different than the commands available when viewing a Note.

Note

Adaptive menus and Personalized menus are one and the same. We have chosen to use the term Adaptive for consistency throughout this chapter.

Adaptive Menus and Toolbars

All Office 2000 programs default to what Microsoft has termed “adaptive” menus and toolbars. When you first begin using Outlook, each of these navigational aids display only a subset of their items. The thinking behind this “feature” is to narrow the array of commands displayed to the basics to prevent confusion and make finding the commands you need easier. As you work with the program, it learns the commands you use most often and those that you do not use. The program will then display the most frequently used commands and toolbar buttons at first glance, and hide the less frequently applied tools. As your usage habits change over time, your menus will follow suit. A menu or button command that gets promoted can disappear if it is not used for a specified period.

Note

Outlook uses a complex formula for determining what commands are shown on adaptive menus and toolbars. The computation involves the number of times the application is launched and for how many successive launches a given feature goes unused. As you use commands, the ones you use more frequently appear on the menu, and the ones you don’t are suppressed.

While this feature is built on good intentions, three immediate problems arise with adaptive menus and toolbars (the latter, perhaps, to a lesser extent):

• What is a basic command for one user may not be a basic command for another. For example, a developer would consider Publish As, Run Form, and Script Debugger commands as basic; someone using Outlook to simply send and receive mail would not.

• Some users rely entirely on quickly scanning through all the menus when uncertain about which command to use—with adaptive menus active they will see only a (small) subset of what is available.

• It can be enormously confusing, even for a moderately advanced user, to reach for a command that was on menu or toolbar “A” yesterday, but is gone today. (Now where did that command go ... I was sure it was right here somewhere.)

To access the hidden commands, Microsoft added a small double-caret (>>) graphic in both toolbars and menus indicating the presence of hidden commands. Clicking this graphic expands a menu to show all the items it contains. Alternatively, if you activate a menu and wait about five seconds before selecting a command, Outlook will assume you have not found what you are looking for and will fully expand the menu selections.

Adaptive menus are guaranteed to provoke love or hate, but never indifference. Thankfully, this controversial feature can be turned off from the menu and toolbar Customize dialog, which we cover in the next section.