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Building Applications with Microsoft Outlook 2000 shows you how to customize the Microsoft e-mail and scheduling application. The book provides an abundance of tutorial and reference material with which to experiment to create your own projects. In addition to providing technical information, the book plants the seeds of ideas in reader's minds for improving their own enterprises with Outlook.
Byrne gives an introduction to Outlook's design tools and a straightforward walkthrough of essential Outlook development techniques (creating a comment-tracking tool for beta software and a discussion forum in the process). He also describes the elements needed for producing more elaborate applications--including forms, controls, events, and actions. He pays particular attention to Outlook's relationship to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and VBScript before describing how to extend Outlook with Visual Basic Component Object Model (COM) components in environments that include Exchange Server.
Building Applications with Microsoft Outlook 2000 includes plenty of code and fortifies it with informative commentary, supplementary data and--most valuable--ideas about how you can put Outlook's customization capabilities to use in real life. A typical chapter includes instructions for achieving specific programming goals, along with reference material. --David Wall
Book Description
Custom solution builders at all levels-from end users and administrators to programmers-will find the strategies and tutelage they need to develop productivity-enhancing applications with Outlook 2000. This results-oriented book offers direct-from-Microsoft tips for creating applications that take full advantage of Outlook's built-in mail client, scheduling and organizing capabilities, and seamless integration with each of its Microsoft Office suite-mates. The companion CD contains all the source code and files used in the book to fuel rapid productivity.
Easy to follow and very indepth
2001-10-20
I am very excited about the book. I have learned that Outlook can do so much more than is available in the basic canned version. I am not a programmer, nor am I very technical, and yet I am able to follow the information in the book. Indepth, but even amateurs can understand it!
Some Valuable Information...Presentation Needs Work
2001-09-01
This Reference Guide is packed with information to help a budding programming get started in Customizing Outlook. The enclosed disc provides some good examples support this reference material well. However, the structure of the book is a little off base. Instead of feeding a bunch of detail at the beginning, Mr. Byrne should start off with a simpler approach. In addition, he should have used a more structured approach and used Bolder or Capitalized Font for critical areas of emphasis. Furthermore, it would have been nice to give at least a basic run through on Visual Basic Programming.
None the less after some trial and error, a savvy user should be able to at least get started on some Outlook Customizations. This reference guide certainly increases in value if the budding programming who uses this book is taking a class where a professor can explain the details behind the book. 3 1/2 stars seems about right.
Great book for Programmers
2001-04-18
This is an intermediate to advanced book that keeps it worthwhile VB programmers that don't know the quirks of the Outlook Object Model. The examples and disk are very helpful.
A good start for beginners and a reference for the seasoned
2001-01-11
If you want to start making applications with Outlook 2000 and have no previous knowledge of how to achieve this, this book is definitely a must.
There is no explanation of how to use Outlook in this book, just pure development. And that's good! The author, Randy Byrne, takes you on a journey visiting every aspect of Outlook, from how to make macros with VBA, through customization of forms covering the Outlook Object Model in detail, creating COM Add-ins and customizing folder home pages. The last chapter also explains how to make Exchange agents.
On the downside, although the books has many examples, still many of these, in my experience, don't apply when writing real-world applications. Although he mentions CDO - which you also will have to use sooner or later - it is not covered. The book also refers a bit much to the included cd which you need to install to follow some of the examples.
But - a great buy for the beginning Outlook developer (and there so many topics covered in this book, so you won't be putting it away for long time - I frequently use it myself).
Almost Exhaustive
2000-07-06
This is a must have reference if you plan on doing any amount of Outlook programming. The book is edited by Sue Mosher (of MS Outlook 2000 Programming in 24 Hours fame). Byrne (the author) does a good job of laying out the "world" starting with brief (30 pages) introduction of Outlook, some examples of what you can create, and the various design tools. Next comes a quick guide to building applications followed with a full blown example (which BTW works). Other sections cover building forms (controls, fields, properties, actions, folders, events, outlook and command bars, the assistant), VBA and VBScript (this BTW is where you will spend most of your time wearing the book out), and how to distribute (and maintain) applications. Byrne then goes on to advanced topics like COM Add-ins, Home Pages, Data Access, ActiveX, MTS, and Exchange Server scripting objects. To top it off a CD with complete code examples is included. The book literally paid for itself shortly after coming in my door. The only thing I wish it had examples of is Javascript for which there are nil, but this is Outlook afterall!
