Creating the Microsoft Outlook Form

The creation of a form in Microsoft® Outlook® has two aspects: manipulating the Microsoft Outlook user interface as a programming tool and defining the logic that steers the form's behavior. In addition, a form can have two parts: user interface and script. This section shows how both parts of the LitCrit Outlook form were implemented and discusses both aspects of their creation, in the following topics:

Both the LitCrit form's user interface and its script were created using Microsoft Outlook 98. The form creation process has the following general steps:

To create a Microsoft Outlook form

1. Decide which message class to base the form on. This decision is discussed in Outlook Forms and Message Classes. Define the actions your forms of these message classes will perform and the technologies they will use to perform them.
2. Open a form in design mode; see Opening a Form in Design Mode. This topic provides various other pointers on moving through a form's pages in design mode and locating online Help.
3. Create the form's user interface.
4. Write the form's script; see Manipulating Outlook Form Script.

For information on what to do after the form is created, see the following procedures in the Deployment section: Creating and Configuring the LitCrit Public Folder, and Publishing the EnhancedLitCrit Form.

Note  One of the forms that make up the Microsoft Outlook part of the LitCrit application is a simple form with the message class IPM.Post.BasicLitCrit. People can use this form to post critiques to the public folder. This is the form inherited from the F & M book club; for more information, see The LitCrit Application in Stand-Alone Operation. Most of the discussion in this guide about Outlook forms centers on a different form — the IPM.Post.EnhancedLitCrit form — whose higher level of functionality makes it more instructive.