Entourage Start-up

S

sddave.mail

I'm new to Apple/Mac/Entourage, and I cannot get Entourage to function
as I wish.
Windows/Office user since '91, so I can get Outlook to do what I want,
but this....

Problem: I would like Entourage to start in Calendar, to show the day's
calendar entries in the pane upon launching Entourage. It consistently
starts up in Mail. I don't see any way in Entourage to specify
starting in Calendar view. There isn't even a View menu item in
Calendar (there is in Mail). Can anyone help?

I've tried the MS Knowledge Base stuff, Mac forums, this one, etc.,
don't see the answer anywhere. What am I missing? Surely starting up
Entourage in a desired pane other than mail can be achieved?

There was an earlier thread on this from 2004 (closed now), and I tried
everything suggested in that thread, but nothing worked (e.g., I shut
down Entourage while looking at Calendar, and next time I started up
Entourage, I'm back to looking at mail! I want to start up in
Calendar). If this won't work, then Apple iCalendar does exactly this,
and I'll quit Entourage (company uses Outlook, so I thought it would be
easier to stay in the "family").

I have a 15.4" MBP, OS X 10.4.6, Entourage 11.2.3, Boot Camp with
Windows XP and MS Office XP in the partition (if that matters), no
other calendar programs. I haven't tried coupling to my Exchange
Server, yet.

TIA,
Dave
 
A

Allen Watson

Problem: I would like Entourage to start in Calendar, to show the day's
calendar entries in the pane upon launching Entourage. It consistently
starts up in Mail. I don't see any way in Entourage to specify
starting in Calendar view. There isn't even a View menu item in
Calendar (there is in Mail). Can anyone help?
Click to expand...
I do know there is a bug in the most current version of Entourage that
sometimes won't "hold" the view you set in a "browser" window. I've reported
the problem, as have others, and as far as I know it is being worked on for
the next release. No guarantee that it will be fixed then, of course, but we
can hope.

Meanwhile, use Tools->Schedule to set up a new schedule that runs at
startup. Have it set to run an applescript.

Copy this script to Script Editor and save it into Entourage Script Menu
Items in Documents. Set your schedule to run this script. It will open a
calendar window, frontmost window, whenever you launch Entourage. If one
exists it will bring it forward; if not, it will create one.

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allW to every window whose name contains "Calendar"
activate
if (count allW) > 1 then
select item 1 of allW
else
set newwin to make new browser window
set displayed area of newwin to calendar area
end if
end tell
 
A

Allen Watson

Minor correction to that script: the IF line should read:

if (count allW) >= 1 then

Greater than or equal, not just greater than.
 
S

sddave.mail

Allen, thank you for your reply. Very interesting. Good to know the
behavior is due to a bug, not my mistake or inexperience with
Entourage.
Not familiar with applescript, so I'll have to investigate this
solution. As I said, I'm new to the Mac (but eager to learn). Did you
just whip out this code? Wow, I'm thinking MS should hire you for
their team! :)

When a product I purchase does not function as expected, I like to know
whether it is due to my mistake/lack of skills, or if it is due to a
product malfunction or shortcoming. That distinction is a big deal to
me.

Dave
 
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