In its latest version, Outlook has been given a cleaner look to make your inbox look less cluttered and without sacrificing information. The program now has a placeholder for the tools, so that the user can use them without having to jump to other windows.
For example, so that you can reply to a message, just click on the button located at the top, where a window will automatically open over the message you were reading on the main screen of Outloook. Please note that you can always open a separate window, but this is definitely the most practical way.
When replying to a message, and carelessly clicking away from it, the message is immediately saved in the drafts folder and will get an orange label. Note that you can always zoom in on the message to fill the screen.
SMART TOUCH
Touch mode in Outlook is the same mini menu as other Office apps, and where the touch option puts a slash with five of the most frequently used commands (Reply, Delete, move to folder, Flare gun e Mark as Unread) right next to your thumb if you're holding a tablet with both hands in landscape mode.
There are some nice touches like the pinch-to-zoom method for switching the calendar between day, week and month views.
If you're composing an email, or perhaps typing a note, pressing and holding it down, instead of a context menu, will open a bar with a bunch of commands at your fingertips, such as bold, bullets, crop, copy and paste.
In Outlook you can still get a menu with commands to deal with the inbox by pressing and holding it in the message list; when touching a field for typing, the virtual keyboard will open automatically. Another curiosity, when a keyboard is connected to the tablet, you can use your finger to place the cursor on the right panel, all without having to cover part of the screen with a virtual keyboard.
For those who like Windows Phone, a fantastic feature is having the buttons All e unread in the inbox; you can always quickly switch between all your messages, as well as those you need to consult. That way, everything is done faster when moving messages, since every time you reply, delete or simply finish reading a message, you can always go immediately to the next one without having to scroll the screen.
All of these features above will allow you to keep the ribbon minimized most of the time, and where it also includes the address book. Your contacts' social media icons are automatically displayed and you can edit the corresponding details without having to open a separate window.
DYNAMIC CONTACTS
With Windows Phone, Outlook automatically gathers entries from contacts it deems to be the same person, in addition to adding details from LinkedIn, Facebook, Windows Live, Messenger and other social networks connected to the program. Of course, you can do this manually, as the button Merge Contacts is available by clicking on the three dots next to the contact panel.
In case your friends are sharing their calendars with you, you can check when (and for how long) their calendar is free. It should be noted that Lync is also integrated, thus allowing a conversation to be initiated via instant messaging.
You can always switch between email, calendar, people and task windows, all using simple text labels, as opposed to using buttons that take up a lot of space in the interface.
Hovering over the word Calendar, you will have a preview in a pop-up of appointments and tasks for today, where you just click on a specific day and view the schedule. By hovering the mouse over People, you will see the most contacted and those configured as favourites, and in Tasks, you can see your to-do list and flagged emails.
These all features are so convenient when you have the details in the calendar bar on the right of the window at all times, and without distracting you. You can pin them there, although we noticed that it's not as useful as in previous versions of Outlook, as we can no longer drag messages over the calendar to create appointments on specific days.
In short, the new Outlook interface has great and good implementations, but it is even from Windows that this program's notifications become more intrusive. For example, when opening Outlook after a long period of time, your screen will fill with notifications, And, while the notifications disappear on their own, there is no way to close them all at once, where the option is to wait is turn off Windows notifications before opening Outlook.
EXCHANGE ACCOUNTS
For those who like to use the tablet, the configuration of Exchange accounts has a different account pattern. You can get cached mode, but be aware that the default is to only get the last 12 months of email. Entering the account settings, there is a slider so you can adjust this option and if you need to, you can always search for older messages on the server.
Starting from Windows 8, you can use the mode tethered (shared internet from mobile devices), Outlook will recognize that you are using this type of connection and will not receive or send messages automatically. So that you can get the messages manually, just click on the notification at the top of the screen.
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