Tips for a former Outlook user: where is...?

P

PanJack

Hi. I've just switched to Entourage 2004 after using Outlook for many years.
I'm hunting for certain features that I use every day in Outlook but seem to
be missing from Entourage. But I'm guessing that there are equivalents in
Entourage that I just haven't found yet. I'd appreciate any tips on the
following:

--The fastest way to create a new appointment/task/email. In Outlook, I
could hit Shift-Ctrl-A from any mode to create a new appt, or if in calendar
mode I could click on a date and start typing to create a new event.
Similarly in task mode I could click on the blank line at the top of the
task list and begin typing a new task, or from another mode hit
Shift-Ctrl-T. Shift-Ctrl-M always created a new mail message.
In Entourage, Cmd-N seems to be the only shortcut for doing all these
things. Surely there are speedier ways--what are they?

--Custom views. In Outlook, I could define multiple custom views and apply a
different one to each mailbox. So I could use one set of fonts for my Inbox,
another for Sent Items, a third for a saved messages folder, etc. These
visual cues help greatly in quickly re-orienting the user after he/she has
been interrupted and is returning to work in Outlook. Is there a similar
functionality in Entourage?

--Switching "From" addresses. In Outlook, I could edit the From and Reply-To
headers on outgoing emails, and I used this all the time when I wanted
replies to my message to be filtered by a rule. How do I do this in
Entourage?

Many thanks for any advice.

Wayt Gibbs
 
M

Mickey Stevens

Hi. I've just switched to Entourage 2004 after using Outlook for many years.
I'm hunting for certain features that I use every day in Outlook but seem to
be missing from Entourage. But I'm guessing that there are equivalents in
Entourage that I just haven't found yet. I'd appreciate any tips on the
following:

--The fastest way to create a new appointment/task/email. In Outlook, I
could hit Shift-Ctrl-A from any mode to create a new appt, or if in calendar
mode I could click on a date and start typing to create a new event.
Similarly in task mode I could click on the blank line at the top of the
task list and begin typing a new task, or from another mode hit
Shift-Ctrl-T. Shift-Ctrl-M always created a new mail message.
In Entourage, Cmd-N seems to be the only shortcut for doing all these
things. Surely there are speedier ways--what are they?
Click to expand...

Option-Command-N always creates a new mail message. You can create custom
keyboard shortcuts for other items in the list. See this help article for
instructions on how to create your own keyboard shortcuts in OS X 10.3 or
later.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=152140>

Make sure that the menu title is the exact name of the item type as listed
in File > New ("Note", "Calendar Event", "Task", "Contact", etc., without
the quotes).

If you have an earlier version of OS X, you need to do it using another
utility.
--Custom views. In Outlook, I could define multiple custom views and apply a
different one to each mailbox. So I could use one set of fonts for my Inbox,
another for Sent Items, a third for a saved messages folder, etc. These
visual cues help greatly in quickly re-orienting the user after he/she has
been interrupted and is returning to work in Outlook. Is there a similar
functionality in Entourage?
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of a way to do that. Sorry.
--Switching "From" addresses. In Outlook, I could edit the From and Reply-To
headers on outgoing emails, and I used this all the time when I wanted
replies to my message to be filtered by a rule. How do I do this in
Entourage?
Click to expand...

You can create new "send-only" accounts for this purpose. Go to Tools >
Accounts. Now, create an account with your name, your e-mail address, and
the correct SMTP server settings, leaving the POP server settings blank.
Click the "Options" tab, and manually enter in "Reply-To" header as the
header and your e-mail address as the value. You can do this for various
"Reply-To" and e-mail address combinations.
 
P

PanJack

Brilliant. Thanks!


Option-Command-N always creates a new mail message. You can create custom
keyboard shortcuts for other items in the list. See this help article for
instructions on how to create your own keyboard shortcuts in OS X 10.3 or
later.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=152140>

Make sure that the menu title is the exact name of the item type as listed
in File > New ("Note", "Calendar Event", "Task", "Contact", etc., without
the quotes).

If you have an earlier version of OS X, you need to do it using another
utility.


I'm not aware of a way to do that. Sorry.


You can create new "send-only" accounts for this purpose. Go to Tools >
Accounts. Now, create an account with your name, your e-mail address, and
the correct SMTP server settings, leaving the POP server settings blank.
Click the "Options" tab, and manually enter in "Reply-To" header as the
header and your e-mail address as the value. You can do this for various
"Reply-To" and e-mail address combinations.
Click to expand...
 
P

PanJack

Option-Command-N always creates a new mail message. You can create custom
keyboard shortcuts for other items in the list. See this help article for
instructions on how to create your own keyboard shortcuts in OS X 10.3 or
later.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=152140>

Make sure that the menu title is the exact name of the item type as listed
in File > New ("Note", "Calendar Event", "Task", "Contact", etc., without
the quotes).

If you have an earlier version of OS X, you need to do it using another
utility.
Click to expand...

This technique works great, but I've encountered a hitch in adding a
shortcut to create a new task regardless of Entourage mode. The menu item to
do this from the File:New submenu is "Task". So I used the Keyboard
Preferences pane as described above to associate Shift-Cmd-T with "Task".
That works as expected in every Entourage mode *Except* Task view. The
reason is that when Entourage is in Task View, it enables the View:Columns
submenu, which also includes an item named, you guessed it, "Tasks".

So when I am working in Task View and hit Shift-Cmd-T, rather than creating
a new task (as happens in every other view), Entourage removes the names of
Tasks from the listing. If you think this is a rather pointless "feature" to
include in a Task manager, I wouldn't argue with you.

<Aside> If it is not a principle in Apple User Interface design guidelines
that all menu choices in a program should have unique names, it should be,
for this very reason. If it is an AUI principle already, Entourage
developers should follow it. <End aside.>

Mickey (or anyone), is there a workaround for this kind of situation? I mean
a workaround other than the obvious one, which is to remember to hit Cmd-N
when in Task View to create a new task, and to use Shift-Cmd-T in all other
modes. The reason that is an unsatisfactory workaround should be obvious to
anyone who spends most of their day working in Entourage or Outlook: muscle
memory and cognitive load. The user should be able to develop a habitual
motion to accomplish any frequently used operation. Cognitive resources
should be conserved for the actual work (e.g. Specifying the task) rather
than spent on recalling the operation required before the work can be done.

It's just basic UI design for efficiency. Outlook engineers figured this out
some time ago.

Cheers,
Wayt Gibbs
 
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