Microsoft Outlook (and Express)

Paul Riley

Why the hell doesn't Outlook minimize into a notify icon? I have this damn program running day and night and it eats up a quarter of the taskbar, is that entirely necessary? I only want to know if an email has turned up, if the server connect is failing or if I've forgotten something in my calendar, the rest of the time it should just get the hell out of my face. Am I the only one irritated by this? Better still, am I missing some well-hidden but really simple checkbox that'll do the job for me? Or have they "fixed" it in Office XP? That would be a reason to go through the hassle of upgrading. Say what you like about them, MS are usually pretty good at doing really obvious things like this; why not in Outlook? Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

David Wulff

Outlook 2002 allows you to minimise it to the system tray, though you need to set a registry entry directly: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Preferences\MinToTray (DWORD) = 1 I agree though, this should be in the options. And please for Outlook 11 - when I tell the status dialog "not to show during send/receive", I mean not to show it during send /receive regardless of whether Outlook is minimised or not.

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

Paul Riley

David Wulff wrote: Outlook 2002 allows you to minimise it to the system tray, though you need to set a registry entry directly Why oh why oh why oh why oh WHY would they do such a thing??? I understand why they hide some of the optional bits in Windows to stop Jack Idiotuser from finding them, but why something so innocent and incredibly useful as this? :rolleyes: Okay, I suppose I'm going to have to consider upgrading cause that doesn't work on Outlook 2000 (not entirely surprising but it had to be worth a try; the 10.0 key was there, I just had to add Outlook\Preferences :-D). Are there any other good reasons to upgrade or more importantly good reasons not to? Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

Andreas Saurwein

Paul Riley wrote: and it eats up a quarter of the taskbar, You should try the vertical taskbar instead of the default bottom crap. I at last always have too few space vertically but horizontal enought to spare some. Most people stay with the vertical one, once they tried it.

... you keep forgetting that sheep shagging is not a crime in Australia ...Paul Watson, The Lounge

David Wulff

Paul Riley wrote: Why oh why oh why oh why oh WHY would they do such a thing??? I don't know how Microsoft work, but maybe one of the devs added that feature because they were fed up with it taking up the task bar when inactive too? Or maybe it was just a late addition and they didn't have time to update the user interface in how ever many languages Outlook is available in nowadays. Paul Riley wrote: the 10.0 key was there, I just had to add Outlook\Preferences Try this instead: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Preferences\MinToTray (DWORD) = 1 Paul Riley wrote: Are there any other good reasons to upgrade or more importantly good reasons not to? There are hundreds of little reasons to upgrade, and a few major ones. Stability being the number one compelling reason - crashes? What crashes? The start-up-from-cold time has halved is my number two. And number three... I don't run any kind of e-mail filters, and I preview/read *all* my messags in the preview pane, and I have never caught a single virus, worm or other parasitic creature from doing so. As to the little reasons, if you'd asked about a year ago I could have listed but now I am so used to using Outlook 2002 that I can't tell Jack from Harry.

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

Paul Riley

Andreas Saurwein wrote: You should try the vertical taskbar instead of the default bottom crap Can you even do that in Windows XP? I've never seen a way to do it. I did it before with an earlier version and in all honesty didn't like it, but I'd try it again. I will say this though... it wouldn't stop me being pissed off about Outlook wasting space where it shouldn't need to :-D Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

Rickard Andersson20

Paul Riley wrote: Why the hell doesn't Outlook minimize into a notify icon? Microsoft in a nutshell Rickard Andersson@Suza Computing C# and C++ programmer from SWEDEN! UIN: 50302279 E-Mail: nikado@pc.nu Speciality: I love C#, ASP.NET and C++!

Andreas Saurwein

right click, uncheck "Lock Toolbar", then you can drag it around as you like (btw: the registry setting for lock toolbar works also on W2k)

... you keep forgetting that sheep shagging is not a crime in Australia ...Paul Watson, The Lounge

Paul Riley

David Wulff wrote: Try this instead Tried it... didn't work. David Wulff wrote: There are hundreds of little reasons to upgrade, and a few major ones. Stability being the number one compelling reason - crashes? What crashes? Really? I haven't had a crash from Office 2000 SP2 that I remember. That's why I was so reticent to upgrade. If it ain't broke and all that. David Wulff wrote: The start-up-from-cold time has halved is my number two That's a good reason. David Wulff wrote: And number three... I don't run any kind of e-mail filters, and I preview/read *all* my messags in the preview pane, and I have never caught a single virus, worm or other parasitic creature from doing so. I wouldn't know if that's a problem for 2000; Norton AV catches viruses long before they reach my inbox. Worms are a different matter, you don't get those fom emails. I honestly would have said with all confidence six months ago that I'd never had a problem with worms (take that however you please). But now I know a bit more about them after, among other things, spending hours cleaning my laptop of OpaServ - nasty little bar steward, that was. Now I have Norton Personal Firewall running and get to see how many worm attacks I get every day, not to mention IIS attacks, etc. Frightening when you see it. I got IIS attacked every 45 minutes for 2 days from one computer in Egypt early this week, I get at least one SubSeven attack per day, any number of other worms. Do not underestimate what might be on your PC, virus protection is not enough. David Wulff wrote: As to the little reasons, if you'd asked about a year ago I could have listed but now I am so used to using Outlook 2002 that I can't tell Jack from Harry. But you've not had any problems worth thinking about before I upgrade? Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

Paul Riley

Andreas Saurwein wrote: right click, uncheck "Lock Toolbar", then you can drag it around as you like No, I can't. I can swap the bits of toolbar around, but I can't physically move the whole toolbar (at least not that I can see). Is this because I never bothered to switch to classic view, maybe? [edit]Toolbars, taskbars, you know what I mean ;P[/edit] Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

David Wulff

Paul Riley wrote: But you've not had any problems worth thinking about before I upgrade? The only problems I can think of ottomh are ones that were also present in Outlook 2000.

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

David Wulff

Andreas Saurwein wrote: btw: the registry setting for lock toolbar works also on W2k That would be very useful - any idea what it is to save trawling through Google? I keep resizing mine by accident and messing up the carefully aranged icons on my desktop. :mad:

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

Andreas Saurwein

should be that one http://is-it-true.org/nt/registry/rtips325.shtml[^]

... you keep forgetting that sheep shagging is not a crime in Australia ...Paul Watson, The Lounge

David Wulff

Thanks. :)

David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk

KaRl

It could be a good idea for a small app, which could change any button of the taskbar in icon in the systray, and vice-versa.

Angels banished from heaven have no choice but to become demons Cowboy Bebop

Paul Riley

KaЯl wrote: It could be a good idea for a small app, which could change any button of the taskbar in icon in the systray, and vice-versa. Interesting idea, I think it would be impossible though. Don't you have to create the notify icon and then remove your app from the taskbar? (two completely unrelated actions - I did this once but a long time ago, I may be talking out of my ear) You could create a notify icon, no problem. But how would you tell an unknown app to remove itself from the taskbar (or worse, remove the notify icon and put it back into the taskbar)? Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time

benjymous

Something I've always wondered is why it can't just be a windows standard thing. I.e. have a 4th button in the top right of the window frame that'd iconify the app to the systray. Could such a thing be hooked into the system? -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!

Andreas Saurwein

Its already done. Iconizer, I have the source somewhere (maybe its even from CP?) Works nicely.

... you keep forgetting that sheep shagging is not a crime in Australia ...Paul Watson, The Lounge

Andreas Saurwein

Yeah, like I said in another answer - Iconizer does it. (where is that damned thing when you need it?)

... you keep forgetting that sheep shagging is not a crime in Australia ...Paul Watson, The Lounge

Paul Riley

benjymous wrote: Could such a thing be hooked into the system? I don't see why not; rather than minimizing, it could hide the window completely and create a notify icon. The problem would be that programs that really have notify icons probably couldn't be auto-expanded and users would get confused. Maybe a seperate toolbar, much like the shortcuts bar, that you could drop taskbar items into. Or (possibly more simply), how about resizable taskbar items? I've never quite decided whether I like XPs stacking system (if you have too many taskbar items, stack those of the same type). Sometimes it can be really annoying but then some taskbar items do need to be fullsize and too many items prevents that. If you could make your five or six Windows Explorer items (AND OUTLOOK) really small and keep your development environments at normal size, that would be great. Paul And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, one day closer to death - Pink Floyd, Time