Suggestion: Shoould be able to customize the collapsed nav bar

[P Cause]

When the navigation bar is collapsed I find that it is too wide and that too
much space is used for the title. I'd like to be able to shrink the
font/size for the title . For the folders that are displayed, the text is
kind of useless, becuase all Inboxes in all PSTs are called inbox. Ability
to modify the font size and use smaller icon would be appreciated.

Same general comments for the todo bar.

 

[BillR [MVP]]

agreed

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Those would be great comments to submit with the Send a Smile tool from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A2E1F4E2-BC0F-4403-B09F-7A677D55F274. This tool will transmit your comments and a screenshot back to Microsoft. For more information, see http://spaces.msn.com/turtleflock-ol2007/blog/cns!C1013F1F9A99E3D8!135.entry


--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[P Cause]

Thanks, Sue, but aren't the folks at MS reading these groups? To be honest,
I'm a bit disappointed in OL 2007. There are some nice clean ups and fixes,
but the focus seems to have been too much on eye candy and not enough work on
substantative improvements. And certainly, no progress on speed and size!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

No, these groups have always been peer-to-peer support groups, going back some 10 years or so. A very small number of Microsoft folks pop in infrequently to answer a handful of questions, but there has never been any sustained presence, by design.

You shouldn't expect performance improvements over the previous version at this stage in the beta. This version isn't performance optimized at all.

There are quite a few substantive improvements, especially in the areas of collaboration, search, programmability. Maybe it will grow on you.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[P Cause]

Thanks, Sue. OL looks pretty slow compared to the performance of other
Office 2007 components.

I was already using desktop search so these improvements are not big news to
me. OL 2003 was TERRIBLE for search. The disappointment is that the search
stuff breaks existing desktop search.

Not sure what the collaboraiton improvements you mention are, I'll have to
look more closely. I'm an Exchange user but NOT Sharepoint.

When you say programmability, what are you referring to? Stuff for
developers or things we users can do without writing C# code? Have they done
anything to make program access easier and not have the pop up appear all the
time? that drove me crazy trying to create scripts to do various things.
The stuff that Skype deos, where you can see "always allow X programmable
access" is nice. it would eliminate the need for everyone to use Redemption.

Maybe it will grow on me, but I can see too many other places where effort
could have been spent the last few years and instead we get the ribbon bar
eye candy.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I was already using desktop search so these improvements are not big news to

me. OL 2003 was TERRIBLE for search. The disappointment is that the search
stuff breaks existing desktop search.

WDS 3.0 is a beta, too. It will get better.

Not sure what the collaboraiton improvements you mention are, I'll have to
look more closely. I'm an Exchange user but NOT Sharepoint.

For Exchange, you get much easier sharing of folders, more granular OOA and more rules space for Exchange 2007, and at least an hour's worth of other stuff. (I've done the presentation twice.)

When you say programmability, what are you referring to? Stuff for
developers or things we users can do without writing C# code?

Both. The object model has almost doubled.

The stuff that Skype deos, where you can see "always allow X programmable
access" is nice. it would eliminate the need for everyone to use Redemption.

That's pretty much taken care of, assuming it's OK with your network administrator.

Maybe it will grow on me, but I can see too many other places where effort
could have been spent the last few years and instead we get the ribbon bar
eye candy.

It's not eye candy. I'd suggest you read up about the theory, testing, etc. at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[P Cause]

yes, I understand that they think this is better and their tests show it, but
doesn't mean that for existing users it is an improvement. After all, I am
usre that MS thought that the stupid animated characters that did help in
previous versions of Office were an improvement as well and I am sure they
had tests to prove that too

My complaint about WDS 3 is that the KB article could have mentioned
explicitly that it broke WDS 2.6.5 and didn't uninstall it. One assumed
that the beta install owuld take care of this or at least turn off the WDS
2.6.5 indexing service. It is Beta, true, but I'd expect beta to be feature
complete. WDS 3.0 feels more like late Alpha.

Will go find the presentation. Thaks for the replies.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

yes, I understand that they think this is better and their tests show
it, but

doesn't mean that for existing users it is an improvement. After all, I am
usre that MS thought that the stupid animated characters that did help in
previous versions of Office were an improvement as well and I am sure they
had tests to prove that too

He touches it briefly, but provides link to resources why the animated
characters didn't work:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/17/481809.aspx

My complaint about WDS 3 is that the KB article could have mentioned
explicitly that it broke WDS 2.6.5 and didn't uninstall it. One assumed
that the beta install owuld take care of this or at least turn off the WDS
2.6.5 indexing service. It is Beta, true, but I'd expect beta to be feature
complete. WDS 3.0 feels more like late Alpha.

Reads rather explicit to me:
"Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is an engine preview only that can be used
by applications such as Microsoft Office 2007 to index content and
deliver results. Users of earlier versions of Windows Desktop Search
should not upgrade to this release unless explicitly directed to do so."
And
"This release of Windows Desktop Search does not include full desktop UI
and is an engine preview only. It is meant to support searching from
desktop applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook and OneNote 2007.
Since this release does not provide a full desktop search experience,
users of earlier versions of Windows Desktop Search and MSN Toolbar
should not upgrade to this release unless directed to by Outlook 2007,
OneNote 2007 or another application. The next beta release of WDS 3.0
will include end-user UI to allow searching over all indexed content
from a single place."
From the KB article:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...53-6e20-4cf7-8bfc-1cac7f35da49&displaylang=en

Patrick Schmid