This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Folder Home Pages and Web Views
Every Outlook folder supports a folder home page. This is the Internet web page, HTML file, or Active Server Pages (ASP) file that you'll see when you click the folder's name. An example of a folder home page is shown in Figure 3.36.
)
Figure 3.36 You can set a folder home page for any Outlook folder.
You can set your folder home page to a shared meeting workspace or your company's home page.
Why Use a Folder Home Page?
Setting a folder home page to a generic website really isn't very helpful. After all, you can't actually access any of the items in that Outlook folder with a website as your home page. However, you can create your own folder home page and embed an ActiveX control called the Outlook View Control. With the Outlook View Control, you can view the items in an Outlook folder from a web page. Outlook Today is an example of a type of folder home page that utilizes this functionality.
Setting a Folder Home Page for a Folder
Setting a folder home page is fairly simple. Right-click on a folder and select Properties. In the properties dialog box, click the Home Page tab so that it is displayed (see Figure 3.37).
)
Figure 3.37 You use the Home Page tab to set or remove a folder home page.
Enter the URL or path for your folder home page. A folder home page can be a website on the Internet or a file on your intranet. Click the Browse button to locate a file on your hard drive or network share. Make sure that the Show Home Page by Default for This Folder check box is checked and click OK to save your changes.
Removing a Folder Home Page from a Folder
If you need to access the items in the folder or just don't need the folder home page anymore, right-click on the folder and select Properties. Select the Home Page tab of the Properties dialog box. Uncheck the box marked Show Home Page by Default for This Folder. You can also delete the URL of the home page. Click OK to save your changes.
Programming a Folder Home Page
You can program your own folder home page just like any other web page. You can create a new folder home page in any HTML editor (Word, FrontPage, Visual InterDev, or even Notepad). Within your new folder home page, you can provide links to other internal or external websites, graphics, and a mechanism for viewing the items within the Outlook folder. The Outlook View Control offers a way to access Outlook data through an ActiveX control on an HTML page. In Outlook 2007, the View Control is installed automatically and is available for use.
To set a reference to this file in an HTML page, use the following code:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<OBJECT classid=CLSID:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
id=ViewCtlFolder
width="100%"
height="430">
<param name="Namespace" value="MAPI">
<param name="Folder" value="Tasks">
<param name="View" value="By Category">
<param name="Restriction" value="">
<param name="DeferUpdate" value="0">
</OBJECT>
</body>
</html>
The preceding example creates a folder home page that displays a By Category view of your tasks, as shown in Figure 3.38. This can be helpful if you need to display your Outlook items along with links or other information from a corporate web site or Intranet.
)
Figure 3.38 This example shows the Inbox with a folder home page viewing the Tasks folder.
You can set any folder's home page property to this home page. The View Control exposes several parameters you need to set. The first is the Folder parameter. You can set this value to any folder in your default message store simply by typing the folder name. If you need to refer to a folder called Workgroup Meeting Minutes, which is a subfolder of the Inbox, use the following:
<param name="Folder" value="Inbox\Workgroup Meeting Minutes">
You can create a folder home page with two View Controls to display the contents of two different folders. Just create another reference to the Outlook View Control, as in the following example:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<OBJECT classid=CLSID:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
id=ViewCtlFolder
width="100%"
height="200">
<param name="Namespace" value="MAPI">
<param name="Folder" value="Tasks">
<param name="View" value="By Category">
<param name="Restriction" value="">
<param name="DeferUpdate" value="0">
</OBJECT>
<P>
<P>
<OBJECT classid=CLSID:0006F063-0000-0000-C000-000000000046
id=ViewCtlFolder
width="100%"
height="200">
<param name="Namespace" value="MAPI">
<param name="Folder" value="Calendar">
<param name="View" value="Day/Week/Month View">
<param name="Restriction" value="">
<param name="DeferUpdate" value="0">
</OBJECT>
</body>
</html>
The preceding code creates a folder home page with a view of the Tasks folder and a view of one day of the Calendar folder, as shown in Figure 3.39.
)
Figure 3.39 This folder home page shows two Outlook View Controls.
There are other advanced properties of the View Control, but they're beyond the scope of this book. For more information about using the Outlook View Control, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article "General Information About the Outlook View Control" at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q291407.