• New Outlook developers site
• Office 11 beta
• More Outlook 11 preview
• OWA goodies
• Outlook Express and Outlook Contact sharing

New Outlook developers site

It's with great pleasure that I announce the official launch of OutlookCode.com, a new community site for Outlook developers. You can discuss Outlook programming issues, post code samples, and comment on other people's samples. No matter whether you're a beginner or an expert, you're welcome to participate. No registration is required to enjoy the forums and code samples at http://www.outlookcode.com.

If you have my new book, Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers, you can also download the sample code that goes with the book. We do ask that you register to get that download; that will allow us to notify you if we post a major update to the samples.

Office 11 beta

If you follow computer industry news at all, then you already know that the Office 11 beta has begun. We have yet another screenshot from Outlook 11 for you to enjoy at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol11.htm -- this time the new calendar view that shows multiple calendars side-by-side. Notice the checkboxes on the left. That's how you turn different calendars on and off in this view.

As with most betas, participants are under a non-disclosure agreement. But it's not too hard to find out if any of your friends are testing Outlook 11. Use View | Options to look at the Internet headers of incoming messages. Messages sent using an Internet account will usually show the name and version number of the sender's mail program. (HINT: Outlook 2002 is version 10.x.)

More Outlook 11 preview

If you missed our extensive preview of Outlook 11 in the last issue of EMO, you can read it online at http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2002/up021016.htm. From the demos at MEC a few weeks ago, we also gleaned information about a few other improvements:

The Address Book dialog is resizable, hopefully eliminating the difficulty people have had in distinguishing among multiple addresses for a single person.

WordMail is still the default editor, but the toolbar that you see when composing a message has been greatly simplified.

Another place where Microsoft hopes simpler is better is in the Rules Wizard. It has been replaced with a Rules and Alerts dialog with actions available to quickly create a simple rule that moves an item to a folder or shows an alert.

Alerts pop up then disappear automatically when new mail arrives -- similar to alerts from Windows Messenger -- showing each message's subject, sender, and 1st 255 characters. Right in the alert popup, you can delete or flag a message for later attention.

"Live attachments" is another new feature building on SharePoint Team Services. As I understand it, you'll be able to attach files from an STS document library, making it easier to collaborate on a single copy of a document, rather than merging changes from multiple reviewers.

You'll have an option to automatically compress pictures attached to mail messages.

Many of the new features in Outlook 11, especially the new interface, will also appear in Outlook Web Access on Exchange Titanium.

OWA goodies

The New Utilities section below lists a bunch of new utilities for Outlook Web Access. I saw HiPerExchange (http://www.seasidesw.com) at MEC and was intrigued that they've developed a way to cache OWA data on the client. It synchronizes in the background with an Exchange 2000 (SP2 or higher) server, so when you're in OWA, you're always working against the local cache. Since it requires a software install on the client, this isn't the solution for road warriors who depend on airport Internet kiosks. But it might be a solution for people who need to access Exchange over low bandwidth or unreliable connections from the same machine all the time.

Several other new products, all from http://www.planetsoftware.com.au in Australia, add capabilities to OWA that only the desktop Outlook client currently has -- assigning delegates, working with tasks, and setting permissions on public folders.

Outlook Express and Outlook Contact sharing

Outlook MVP Diane Poremsky of CDOLive (http://www.cdolive.com) let us know this week that the registry tweak that allows Outlook Express to share Outlook 2002's address book also works in Outlook 2000 Corporate/Workgroup mode. You'll find details at http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/oeshare.htm .

Speaking of OE, if it's your favorite tool for reading newsgroups (especially the Outlook newsgroups where Diane and I and the other MVPs hang out), you might want to get the latest version -- OE 6.0 SP1 Cumulative Update. This version adds a Ctrl+H toggle between your regular newsgroup view and a view that shows only the threads that you're participating in. It also allows you to delete a newsgroup message from your local cache store, fixes the problem with long URLs breaking across lines in plain text messages, and ends the crashes that sometimes occur when you manually insert a signature. The Microsoft Knowledgebase article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q331923 has more details and the download link. Note that OE 6.0 SP-1 turns on attachment blocking by default. You can turn it off in the Tools | Options | Security dialog.