Outlook Views

Microsoft Outlook allows you to create customizable views that allow you to better sort, group, and ultimately view data of all different types within an explorer. There are a variety of different view types that provide the flexibility needed to create and maintain your important data. Outlook supports the following objects, derived from the View object.

Object name	Description
BusinessCardView	This object allows you to view data as a series of Electronic Business Card (EBC) images.
CalendarView	This object allows you to view data in a calendar format.
CardView	This object allows you to view data in a series of cards.
IconView	This object allows you to view data as icons, similar to a Windows folder or explorer.
TableView	This object allows you to view data in a simple, field-based table.
TimelineView	This object allows you to view data in a customizable linear time line.

While you can use the View object to interact with the properties and methods common to all views, you must cast the View object to one of the derived view objects, such as the CardView object, to access certain properties, such as the HeadingsFont property of the CardView object. You can use the ViewType property of the View object to determine which type of view is represented by that object.

You can define a new view by using the Add method of the Views collection for a Folder object. Visibility for the view can be set either at the time of creation, by specifying an OlViewSaveOption constant in the SaveOption parameter of the Add method, or any time after the view is created, by specifying an OlViewSaveOption constant for the SaveOption property of the View object. Adding a new view raises the ViewAdd event of the Views collection.

You can use the Remove method of the Views object to remove an existing custom view. Removing a view raises the ViewRemove event of the Views collection.

Once a view is defined, you can customize the view programmatically by casting the View object to one of the derived view objects, such as the BusinessCardView object, and performing whatever changes are needed. Use the Save method of the derived view object or the View object to save any changes to the view.

You can apply the view, once defined and customized, to the current Explorer object by using the Apply method of the derived view object or the View object. Applying a view raises the ViewSwitch event of the Explorer object.