OL2003 - Nicknames for addressing totally gone now?

[Mark Tangard]

Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when apparently it's
no longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party fix that restores
this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's eyes...) feature? Or
is there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will lose 10 to 30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of people's names
from my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003 convenience of
being able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely this
feature wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they leave
the field there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in becoming
100% apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname feature without
ever describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the nickname field
for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same as every
previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is invoked after
typing in only one letter of a name.

 

[Mark Tangard]

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior versions, so
it must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same way: If
I had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type simply
"jx" in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait)
and the TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having
recognized his email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be a
string not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames
couldn't be used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay
of choosing from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname
strings that wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such
Outlook nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature well, the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could record
a nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it surely is a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers forget it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the nickname field
for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same as every
previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is invoked after
typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when apparently it's no
longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party fix that restores
this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's eyes...) feature? Or is
there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will lose 10 to 30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of people's names from
my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003 convenience of being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely this feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they leave the field
there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in becoming 100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname feature without ever
describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually using
the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never used it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior versions, so it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same way: If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type simply "jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait) and the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be a string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames couldn't be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname strings that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature well, the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it surely is a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers forget it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when apparently it's no
longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party fix that restores
this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's eyes...) feature? Or is
there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will lose 10 to 30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of people's names from
my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003 convenience of being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely this feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they leave the field
there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in becoming 100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname feature without ever
describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Mark Tangard]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any unique string in
a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and have it recognized as
corresponding to that contact's email address. Then, when I type that string
into the TO field while composing and then hit CTRL+K, the characters I typed
become replaced by said email address, saving several keystrokes and/or an
episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade to OL2003. I'm
sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times per day, as did several
others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not senile or hallucinating (yet).
Are you saying that the fact that it worked was unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually using
the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never used it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior versions, so it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same way: If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type simply "jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait) and the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be a string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames couldn't be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname strings that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature well, the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it surely is a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers forget it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

it's no

Or is

names from

without ever

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same functionality as
you had before.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address. Then, when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address, saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times per day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not senile or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait) and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when apparently

it's no

longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party fix that

this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's eyes...)
feature?

Or is

there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of people's

names from

my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003 convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they leave the

there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname feature

without ever

describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Mark Tangard]

could you clarify that? How I can have the same functionality, which was not
"completion" of any sort, but rather instantaenous conversion? Maybe I don't
understand what you mean by "populating" the autocompletion cache? Can I
populate the cache with unique abbreviations (so as to produce a single
autocomplete choice after just a few letters), abbreviations that are *not*
necessarily the first letters of the person's name or email? I'd love it if I
could.

The root annoyance here for me is that, since it DID work, it must have been
*intended* to work, at least at one time. (It can't have been a mindblowing
coincidence that it worked, consistently, for years, eh??) Maybe MS forgot
about it; but they left it available until now. And while I'm used to seeing
keyboard users' needs flippantly dismissed in today's mouse-slimed world, this
was an essential capability for me and I'd like to have it, or some facsmile, back.

MT

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same functionality as
you had before.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address. Then, when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address, saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times per day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not senile or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait) and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:
To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]


Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when apparently
it's no
longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party fix that

restores

this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's eyes...)
feature?
Or is
there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of people's
names from
my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003 convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they leave the

field

there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname feature
without ever
describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

[/QUOTE]

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I'm telling you there has never been any such feature with the Outlook
Address Book. It was only a feature in the Windows Address Book, never in
the full version of Outlook. You apparently have never used the full version
of Outlook before.
You can manually create autoresolution entries if you want.
Autocompletion will work after you type in a single letter in the To: field.
You can even populate the autocompletion cache with every entry in your
Contacts Folder if you're in a hurry to get it working.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

could you clarify that? How I can have the same functionality, which was
not "completion" of any sort, but rather instantaenous conversion? Maybe
I don't understand what you mean by "populating" the autocompletion cache?
Can I populate the cache with unique abbreviations (so as to produce a
single autocomplete choice after just a few letters), abbreviations that
are *not* necessarily the first letters of the person's name or email?
I'd love it if I could.

The root annoyance here for me is that, since it DID work, it must have
been *intended* to work, at least at one time. (It can't have been a
mindblowing coincidence that it worked, consistently, for years, eh??)
Maybe MS forgot about it; but they left it available until now. And while
I'm used to seeing keyboard users' needs flippantly dismissed in today's
mouse-slimed world, this was an essential capability for me and I'd like
to have it, or some facsmile, back.

MT

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same functionality as
you had before.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address. Then,
when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address, saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times per
day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not senile
or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the
long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never
used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"

Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted
with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior
versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even
just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same
way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type
simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait)
and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized
his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be
a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames
couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of
choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname
strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature
well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or
email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person
when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it
surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been
built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers
forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:



To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the
same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that
is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]




message




Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when
apparently



it's no



longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from
today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party
fix that



restores



this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's
eyes...)
feature?



Or is



there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it
now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will
lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of
people's



names from



my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003
convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely
this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they
leave the



field



there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in
becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname
feature



without ever



describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Mark Tangard]

OK, thanks. I guess we need to create new autoresolution entries manually, to
recreate the arrangement we had. But how? The Outlook help doesn't seem to
have any info on this, and Googling it only brings up a few of your posts
suggesting to do it.

Many thanks for any further direction.

Minor item: I can't imagine we'd been using a different version of Outlook
previously, since everything looks essentially the same in our new OL 2003 as
compared to the previous installation (2000). The Contacts window has always
said 'Contacts' with no hint that it's the Outlook Address Book or the windows
Address Book. Is there some place that tells you which is being used?

Mark Tangard

I'm telling you there has never been any such feature with the Outlook
Address Book. It was only a feature in the Windows Address Book, never in
the full version of Outlook. You apparently have never used the full version
of Outlook before.
You can manually create autoresolution entries if you want.
Autocompletion will work after you type in a single letter in the To: field.
You can even populate the autocompletion cache with every entry in your
Contacts Folder if you're in a hurry to get it working.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

could you clarify that? How I can have the same functionality, which was
not "completion" of any sort, but rather instantaenous conversion? Maybe
I don't understand what you mean by "populating" the autocompletion cache?
Can I populate the cache with unique abbreviations (so as to produce a
single autocomplete choice after just a few letters), abbreviations that
are *not* necessarily the first letters of the person's name or email?
I'd love it if I could.

The root annoyance here for me is that, since it DID work, it must have
been *intended* to work, at least at one time. (It can't have been a
mindblowing coincidence that it worked, consistently, for years, eh??)
Maybe MS forgot about it; but they left it available until now. And while
I'm used to seeing keyboard users' needs flippantly dismissed in today's
mouse-slimed world, this was an essential capability for me and I'd like
to have it, or some facsmile, back.

MT

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same functionality as
you had before.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address. Then,
when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address, saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times per
day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not senile
or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:
The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was the
long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has never
used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution and
autocompletion don't provide.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"


Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm greeted
with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior
versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length (even
just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost the same
way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could type
simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K (or wait)
and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having recognized
his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname had to be
a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter nicknames
couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the delay of
choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise nickname
strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this feature
well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work. (I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual name or
email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct person
when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but it
surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have been
built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS programmers
forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:







To what feature are you referring? Outlook has never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the
same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that
is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]








message








Hard to believe the nickname field is still there when
apparently







it's no







longer usable for anything, but that's what I gather from
today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know a third-party
fix that







restores







this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's
eyes...)
feature?







Or is







there some new alternate gismo in OL2003 that does it
now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will
lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the "unique-enough" portions of
people's







names from







my (very large) Contacts file without the pre-2003
convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely
this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if so, why would they
leave the







field







there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in
becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention the nickname
feature







without ever







describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You were using the long abandoned IMO version of Outlook. It was completely
different than the full version.

You would be better off using the autocompletion feature of Outlook 2003. If
you want to populate your autocmpletion cache immediately with every address
in your Contacts Folder instead of letting it build up gradually as you send
messages, you can use this technique:
Go to tools, options, mail setup, send/receive. Uncheck the "Send
immediately when connected box". Next, press the Send/Receive Button (in
Options) and uncheck "Schedule an automatic send/receive". Finally, click
"Work Offline, or if you want to be extra careful, disconnect your computer
from the internet by removing your network and/or telephone connection.
Now open a new e-mail, press the bcc or to or cc button, select the contact
folder you would like to bring into your NK2 (autocomplete) file. Select
all names by highlighting first and last contact and then add them by
pressing the OK button at the bottom. With your computer disconnected from
your mail server, press the send button. This will automatically populate
your autocomplete file with all of the selected e-mail addresses. Next, go
to your Outbox and delete the e-mail(s) that you just created. Go back into
your Tools, Options, Mail Setup, Send/Receive and change your options back
to the original settings. Remember to put your mail settings back and plug
in your removed cables.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

OK, thanks. I guess we need to create new autoresolution entries
manually, to recreate the arrangement we had. But how? The Outlook help
doesn't seem to have any info on this, and Googling it only brings up a
few of your posts suggesting to do it.

Many thanks for any further direction.

Minor item: I can't imagine we'd been using a different version of Outlook
previously, since everything looks essentially the same in our new OL 2003
as compared to the previous installation (2000). The Contacts window has
always said 'Contacts' with no hint that it's the Outlook Address Book or
the windows Address Book. Is there some place that tells you which is
being used?

Mark Tangard

I'm telling you there has never been any such feature with the Outlook
Address Book. It was only a feature in the Windows Address Book, never in
the full version of Outlook. You apparently have never used the full
version of Outlook before.
You can manually create autoresolution entries if you want.
Autocompletion will work after you type in a single letter in the To:
field.
You can even populate the autocompletion cache with every entry in your
Contacts Folder if you're in a hurry to get it working.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

could you clarify that? How I can have the same functionality, which
was
not "completion" of any sort, but rather instantaenous conversion?
Maybe
I don't understand what you mean by "populating" the autocompletion
cache?
Can I populate the cache with unique abbreviations (so as to produce a
single autocomplete choice after just a few letters), abbreviations
that
are *not* necessarily the first letters of the person's name or email?
I'd love it if I could.

The root annoyance here for me is that, since it DID work, it must have
been *intended* to work, at least at one time. (It can't have been a
mindblowing coincidence that it worked, consistently, for years, eh??)
Maybe MS forgot about it; but they left it available until now. And
while
I'm used to seeing keyboard users' needs flippantly dismissed in
today's
mouse-slimed world, this was an essential capability for me and I'd
like
to have it, or some facsmile, back.

MT

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions
of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's
what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once
you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same
functionality as
you had before.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any
unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and
have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address.
Then,
when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit
CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address,
saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade
to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times
per
day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not
senile
or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked
was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:



The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was
the
long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was
actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has
never
used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution
and
autocompletion don't provide.



-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"





Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm
greeted
with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior
versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's
nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length
(even
just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the
Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost
the same
way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could
type
simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K
(or wait)
and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having
recognized
his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname
had to be
a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter
nicknames
couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the
delay of
choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise
nickname
strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such
Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this
feature
well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work.
(I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual
name or
email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct
person
when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but
it
surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have
been
built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS
programmers
forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling
through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very
useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this
just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:







To what feature are you referring? Outlook has
never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the
same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that
is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]








in
message








Hard to believe the nickname field is
still there when
apparently







it's no







longer usable for anything, but that's
what I gather from
today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know
a third-party
fix that







restores







this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's
eyes...)
feature?







Or is







there some new alternate gismo in OL2003
that does it
now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will
lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the
"unique-enough" portions of
people's







names from







my (very large) Contacts file without
the pre-2003
convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely
this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if
so, why would they
leave the







field







there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in
becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on
keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention
the nickname
feature







without ever







describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Randy]

Mark,

I couldn't help but read through your correspondence with Russ. You'll find
few people on this newsgroup who know more about Outlook then Russ. And, I
guess you know by now that 2000 did not have autocomplete, just
autoresolution which may people confuse.

We wrote a utility that will enable you to fully edit, export, etc. the
autocomplete cache, but I think what you really need to know is more about a
simple workaround for "creating" a fully populated autocomplete file. If
you contact me through www.dcs-imaging.com (sales@), I'll be happy to send
you the text for populating the NK2 file. While you're at our web site,
take a looks at our products page, we have an NK2 editor there called
Owtlook. Again, I don't think it's anything you can use at this time, but
you should at least be aware of its existance.

Randy

OK, thanks. I guess we need to create new autoresolution entries
manually, to recreate the arrangement we had. But how? The Outlook help
doesn't seem to have any info on this, and Googling it only brings up a
few of your posts suggesting to do it.

Many thanks for any further direction.

Minor item: I can't imagine we'd been using a different version of Outlook
previously, since everything looks essentially the same in our new OL 2003
as compared to the previous installation (2000). The Contacts window has
always said 'Contacts' with no hint that it's the Outlook Address Book or
the windows Address Book. Is there some place that tells you which is
being used?

Mark Tangard

I'm telling you there has never been any such feature with the Outlook
Address Book. It was only a feature in the Windows Address Book, never in
the full version of Outlook. You apparently have never used the full
version of Outlook before.
You can manually create autoresolution entries if you want.
Autocompletion will work after you type in a single letter in the To:
field.
You can even populate the autocompletion cache with every entry in your
Contacts Folder if you're in a hurry to get it working.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

could you clarify that? How I can have the same functionality, which
was
not "completion" of any sort, but rather instantaenous conversion?
Maybe
I don't understand what you mean by "populating" the autocompletion
cache?
Can I populate the cache with unique abbreviations (so as to produce a
single autocomplete choice after just a few letters), abbreviations
that
are *not* necessarily the first letters of the person's name or email?
I'd love it if I could.

The root annoyance here for me is that, since it DID work, it must have
been *intended* to work, at least at one time. (It can't have been a
mindblowing coincidence that it worked, consistently, for years, eh??)
Maybe MS forgot about it; but they left it available until now. And
while
I'm used to seeing keyboard users' needs flippantly dismissed in
today's
mouse-slimed world, this was an essential capability for me and I'd
like
to have it, or some facsmile, back.

MT

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:

I'm saying this has never been a feature in any of the full versions
of
Outlook. Outlook users have never used the Nickname field for
autoresolution. Autoresolution uses the other name fields and that's
what
Outlook users did up until Outlook 2002. Outlook 2002 and 2003 offer
autocompletion and now most users use autocompletion instead. Once
you
populate your autocompletion cache, you'll have the same
functionality as
you had before.

-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

Russ,

I thought I did explain it. I'll try again:

The feature that now appears gone is the ability to record any
unique
string in a contact's Nickname field (which still exists), and
have it
recognized as corresponding to that contact's email address.
Then,
when I
type that string into the TO field while composing and then hit
CTRL+K,
the characters I typed become replaced by said email address,
saving
several keystrokes and/or an episode of heavy scrolling.

I'm SURE that this worked as described before our recent upgrade
to
OL2003. I'm sure of it because I used it myself dozens of times
per
day,
as did several others in my office, and I'm pretty sure I'm not
senile
or
hallucinating (yet). Are you saying that the fact that it worked
was
unintentional?

--
Mark Tangard, Microsoft Word MVP 2001-2004
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters


Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:



The only version that ever made use of the Nickname field was
the
long
abandoned IMO mode and the reason it used it was that it was
actually
using the Windows Address Book. The Outlook Address Book has
never
used
it.
Explain what feature has been "taken away" that autoresolution
and
autocompletion don't provide.



-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] "Mark Tangard"





Hi Russ,

Almost every time I mention this to Outlook experts I'm
greeted
with
disbelief. But it most certainly did work in the 2 prior
versions, so
it
must have been designed to do so:

In 2000, I found that Outlook's equivalent to Netscape's
nickname
feature - whereby one could set a nickname of any length
(even
just 1
character) to correspond to a full email address in the
Netscape
address
book - was Outlook's nickname field. It worked almost
the same
way:
If I
had recorded "jx" as Joe Smith's nickname field, I could
type
simply
"jx"
in the TO field while composing, then hit Tab or CTRL+K
(or wait)
and
the
TO field would show Joe's full name underlined, having
recognized
his
email address from the Contact data.

(The only difference was that, in Outlook, the nickname
had to be
a
string
not found in any other Contact field; so one-letter
nicknames
couldn't
be
used, as in Netscape, and if one wanted to avoid the
delay of
choosing
from a list of possible matches, one had to devise
nickname
strings
that
wouldn't be located elsewhere; hence the 'x' in many such
Outlook
nicknames.)

While Outlook's helpfiles surely never documented this
feature
well,
the
program definitely did "use" it and it always did work.
(I could
record a
nickname field that had *nothing* to do with the actual
name or
email
address represented and it would resolve to the correct
person
when
entered in the TO field.) That's not autocompletion, but
it
surely is
a
form of automatic resolution, otherwise it wouldn't have
been
built to
behave that way. Has it now been unbuilt? Did MS
programmers
forget
it
was there?

Outlook users who dislike heavy typing or scrolling
through long
Contact
lists (several of us here) depended on it! It was a very
useful
feature
for folks who must originate lots of emails. Is this
just another
productive thing MS has taken away??

--
Mark Tangard
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters



Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] wrote:







To what feature are you referring? Outlook has
never used the
nickname
field for name resolution. Outlook 2003 has autoresolution the
same
as
every previous version and also an autocompletion feature that
is
invoked
after typing in only one letter of a name.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]








in
message








Hard to believe the nickname field is
still there when
apparently







it's no







longer usable for anything, but that's
what I gather from
today's
Googling. Is it true? Does anyone know
a third-party
fix that







restores







this essential (but apparently not to Microsoft's
eyes...)
feature?







Or is







there some new alternate gismo in OL2003
that does it
now?

I must originate huge numbers of emails daily. I will
lose 10 to
30
minutes per day typing the
"unique-enough" portions of
people's







names from







my (very large) Contacts file without
the pre-2003
convenience of
being
able to type fixed 2- and 3-character nicknames. Surely
this
feature
wasn't simply destroyed, eh? (And if
so, why would they
leave the







field







there??) Has Microsoft gone the way of Macromedia in
becoming
100%
apathetic to users who depend on
keyboarding timesavers?

Outlook 2003 help seems happy to mention
the nickname
feature







without ever







describing its purpose or use.

Anguished screams,

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Moreover, it was Randy and his group that came up with this method for
populating the autocompletion cache at one time. They sent it to me along
with permission to post it without attribution.
As more and more users are discovering that autocompletion largely replaces
autoresolution, they are also starting to recognize the importance of their
autocompletion cache as a database. For that reason alone, their utility is
worth a look. Microsoft did very little to document the changes that the
autocompletion feature brings to the scene, so most users are caught by
surprise by these changes. They also did nothing to document the differences
between IMO and Corp/Workgroup modes of Outlook. It's no wonder Outlook
users remain confused.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Mark,

I couldn't help but read through your correspondence with Russ. You'll
find few people on this newsgroup who know more about Outlook then Russ.
And, I guess you know by now that 2000 did not have autocomplete, just
autoresolution which may people confuse.

We wrote a utility that will enable you to fully edit, export, etc. the
autocomplete cache, but I think what you really need to know is more about
a simple workaround for "creating" a fully populated autocomplete file.
If you contact me through www.dcs-imaging.com (sales@), I'll be happy to
send you the text for populating the NK2 file. While you're at our web
site, take a looks at our products page, we have an NK2 editor there
called Owtlook. Again, I don't think it's anything you can use at this
time, but you should at least be aware of its existance.

Randy

OK, thanks. I guess we need to create new autoresolution entries
manually, to recreate the arrangement we had. But how? The Outlook help
doesn't seem to have any info on this, and Googling it only brings up a
few of your posts suggesting to do it.

Many thanks for any further direction.

Minor item: I can't imagine we'd been using a different version of
Outlook previously, since everything looks essentially the same in our
new OL 2003 as compared to the previous installation (2000). The
Contacts window has always said 'Contacts' with no hint that it's the
Outlook Address Book or the windows Address Book. Is there some place
that tells you which is being used?

Mark Tangard

I'm telling you there has never been any such feature with the Outlook
Address Book. It was only a feature in the Windows Address Book, never
in the full version of Outlook. You apparently have never used the full
version of Outlook before.
You can manually create autoresolution entries if you want.
Autocompletion will work after you type in a single letter in the To:
field.
You can even populate the autocompletion cache with every entry in your
Contacts Folder if you're in a hurry to get it working.
-- Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]

 

[Mark Tangard]

Thanks, both Russ and Randy. Will try this out when the dust clears here.

But one question remains. From what I gather (tell me if I'm correct),
it's not currently possible to define a two-character abbreviation that
resolves to (ok ok, completes to) (*produces*) a specific name if the
abbreviation doesn't match a part of the name or email. Right?

For example, formerly I typed jx plus CTRL+K to send mail to Jack Smith.
Even though there's no 'x' in his name or email address, it
immediately spewed forth his email address because I had put 'jx' in his
nickname field. From what you're saying, it sounds like I can't do that
any longer -- that autocompletion requires a string that is part of the
name or email? Am I correct? (There's a good reason we needed this,
but I won't bore you with the details.)

TIA
Mark Tangard

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Yes, it's possible. Create a distribution list with the two-character
abbreviation and give it one member.