Entourage Suggestions

[floon]

I'm a longtime Mail.app user, but in order to use my laptop at work, and get my work calendar onto my iPhone, I've begun to use Entourage 2008. And I thought I would post a list of my most desired requests.

1. My Day does not play with Spaces well. Meeting notices should show up on whatever the current space is. Ctrl-M should summon My Day to your current Space, if it's visible on another desktop. Right now it takes two clicks, to despawn and then resummon it. Meeting alerts sit on one screen only.

2. Default folder list views. By default, every folder has a bunch of columns showing up, and group organization is on as well. The process for switching the views is arduous. My suggestion would be to add column layout to the Custom Arrangements setting, and have a preference to use a particular custom layout for all folders, unless otherwise specified.

Custom Arrangements would also need to be modified so that you can choose a custom arrangement that does not require organizing things by group.

3. Allow me to remove the On My Computer folders, if I don't use POP3. I don't use these folders, I would like them to go away.

4. Better ability to take an account offline for the time being. Currently, this has to be done via Account settings, which is a pain.

5. Import and keep synced iCal calendars. Entourage does a great job of exporting its calendar to iCal, doing the reverse would be great.

6. Lose a lot of the thick window borders. They waste a lot of space. Especially the borders around the previewed message.

7. Allow me to move Mail Views to the top of the sidebar. I don't like it at the bottom, where it scrolls off easily. This also means that I don't use it: I might, if I could position it more prominently.

8. I prefer my preview window with oldest at top, and every time I start a new session, each folder starts off at the top. When I left Entourage, the folder was scrolled to the bottom. I want it to remember that, session to session.

Anyway, Entourage is a lot more tolerable now than it used to be, so I'm not wincing every time I try to use it. But these little things are real irritants.

Harry

 

[William Smith]

I'm a longtime Mail.app user, but in order to use my laptop at work, and
get my work calendar onto my iPhone, I've begun to use Entourage 2008.
And I thought I would post a list of my most desired requests.

Hi Harry!

You're suggestions are very good but you're posting them to peer-to-peer
forums where Entourage users help each other. You're preaching to the
choir. ;-)

Use the Help --> Send Feedback mechanism in any Office application to
submit your suggestions directly to Microsoft where they can be added to
other folks' feedback, tallied and prioritized. You can probably just
copy/paste what you have posted here.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

And I thought I would post a list of my most desired requests.

To make sure MS gets them, you shoudl send them through the Send
Feedback command in the Help menu of Entourage,


Corentin

 

[floon]

Yeah, I've already sent it in. I just feel like it's important to post suggestions to users as well, to see if a) there's any sort of consensus on the validity of the requests; and b) if there's something to the app that I've missed, such that the request isn't neccessary.

And if the Mac Office devs are anything like me, they lurk their products' user forums.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Yeah, I've already sent it in. I just feel like it's important to post
suggestions to users as well, to see if a) there's any sort of consensus

3. Allow me to remove the On My Computer folders, if I don't use POP3. I
don't use these folders, I would like them to go away.

These folders are still useful for IMAP and Exchange accounts to perform
local archives of the messages.
I sure don't want to see them go away in my case, but I understand that
you might like a way to make it "disappear).
You could "fold" the corresponding hierarchy though. In this case, it's
merely a line in the list of mailboxes.

Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

2. Default folder list views. By default, every folder has a bunch of columns
showing up, and group organization is on as well. The process for switching
the views is arduous. My suggestion would be to add column layout to the
Custom Arrangements setting, and have a preference to use a particular custom
layout for all folders, unless otherwise specified.

Any subfolders you make will have the same column set-up as its parent. For
example, set up your Inbox how you want it, then when you create new
folders, it will inherit the settings.

 

[Mr. Harry Teasley]

Any subfolders you make will have the same column set-up as its parent. For
example, set up your Inbox how you want it, then when you create new
folders, it will inherit the settings.

Yes, but I have a slew of IMAP folders already created. And we have many,
many public folders on the network that are obviously already set up. While
I appreciate the suggestion, it's not really a solution.

Harry

 

[William Smith]

Yes, but I have a slew of IMAP folders already created. And we have many,
many public folders on the network that are obviously already set up. While
I appreciate the suggestion, it's not really a solution.

Unfortunately, column headings are not even scriptable, so no solution
other than a manual solution will fix this issue for you. System Events
scripting may work but I'd think it would be arduous. Not sure.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Vivian Scarborough]

We are in the same situation and it will be quite a task to have to manually
change each of these folders that are not "new".