4. Introducing Outlook Forms

Every Outlook item has an associated form that determines how that item looks when the user opens it. A contact form has special controls for displaying a picture and an electronic business card. A message form includes controls for entering and choosing recipients. In a task or appointment form, you can set a start date and a reminder. Six of the forms—message, contact, appointment, task, journal, and post—are commonly customized to provide additional functionality to Outlook. (The distribution list form is rarely customized. The one type of Outlook item that has no customizable form is the note item, found in the Notes folder.) A custom Outlook form not only can provide a different visual layout, but also can run code to respond to the user’s interaction with the form and the item that it displays.

To get you started with Outlook custom forms, this chapter gives a guided tour of the six main standard forms. This should give you an idea of which form might be best for a particular project.