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How to: Show or Hide the Navigation Pane

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Outlook Developer Reference

You can set the IsCollapsed property of the NavigationPane object to collapse or expand the Navigation Pane for an Explorer object. The appearance of the Navigation Pane changes depending on the setting of the IsCollapsed property, as well as the settings of other properties for the NavigationPane object. The DisplayedModuleCount property of the NavigationPane object determines the number of modules that can be displayed by the Navigation Pane, while the Visible and Position property values of each NavigationModule object determine which modules are displayed, and in what order.

Setting the IsCollapsed property to True collapses the Navigation Pane. When collapsed, the Navigation Pane displays only the icon for each visible navigation module.

Setting the IsCollapsed property to False expands the Navigation Pane. When expanded, the Navigation Pane displays the icon and name for the number of topmost visible modules contained in the NavigationModules collection of the NavigationPane object, specified by the DisplayedModuleCount property. All other visible modules are displayed as icons at the bottom of the Navigation Pane.

For example, the NavigationModules collection of an expanded NavigationPane object for the active explorer contains eight modules. All modules have a Visible property value of True, with the exception of the third navigation module (the Module object with the Position property value set to 3.) If the DisplayedModuleCount property is set to 4, the icons and names of only the first four visible NavigationModule objects, with Position property values of 1, 2, 4, and 5, are displayed as large buttons in the Navigation Pane. The remaining three visible NavigationModule objects, in positions 6, 7, and 8, are displayed only as icons, on small buttons at the bottom of the Navigation Pane. If the IsCollapsed property is set to False, the collapsed Navigation Pane displays the first four visible NavigationModule objects only as icons. The remaining three visible NavigationModule objects are available on the Navigation Pane dropdown menu.

The following sample ensures that the Navigation Pane is always expanded whenever the currently selected navigation module changes, either programmatically or by user action, by setting the IsCollapsed property to False. The sample performs the following actions:

  1. The sample first obtains a reference to the NavigationPane object for the active explorer when the Startup event of the Application object is raised and assigns it to objPane, so the ModuleSwitch event of the NavigationPane object can be detected.
  2. When the ModuleSwitch event of the NavigationPane occurs, the sample then checks if the current navigation module has changed by comparing the contents of the CurrentModule parameter of the ModuleSwitch event against the CurrentModule property of the NavigationPane object. If these object references are different, the IsCollapsed property of the NavigationPane object is set to False.
  Dim WithEvents objPane As NavigationPane

Private Sub Application_Startup()
' Get the NavigationPane object for the
' currently displayed Explorer object.
Set objPane = Application.ActiveExplorer.NavigationPane
End Sub


Private Sub objPane_ModuleSwitch(ByVal CurrentModule As NavigationModule)


' Check if the currently selected navigation module 
' has changed.
If Not (CurrentModule Is objPane.CurrentModule) Then

    ' Set the IsCollapsed property to
    ' ensure that the Navigation Pane
    ' is visible.
    If Not (objPane Is Nothing) Then
        objPane.IsCollapsed = False
    End If
End If



End Sub