Has anyone else noticed that the scrolling function of a pointing device
(Thinkpad pointing stick center scroll in my case) not work in the preview
plane? This worked in Outlook Express, and made viewing messages,
particularly in newsgroups, very efficient.

With Outlook Express, I would keep the highlighting in the message list
portion, using the up and down arrows to go between messages and right and
left arrows to expand and collapse the messages. Meanwhile, keeping the
pointer in the preview pane allowed me to scroll and read the message bodies
without using the slider, or shifting the highlighting away from the message
list. Now with Live Mail, I have to both shift the highlighting to the
preview pane for each message and find the slider bar each time. To make
things worse, scrolling is even more necessary with Live Mail because the
message header is so large. Anyone know a fix? Does Microsoft read this
list?

Hit the Shift key to scroll in the Reading pane.
My up and down arrows move between messages.

Ron Sommer wrote:
> Hit the Shift key to scroll in the Reading pane.
> My up and down arrows move between messages.

I just tried your suggestion, but it doesn't work for me. The shift key
doesn't have an effect on the scroll function (center wheel of a mouse for
example) at all. Used with the up and down arrows, it selects multiple
messages though.

,"Andrew Lee" <whatsupandrew> wrote in message
news:6395
> Has anyone else noticed that the scrolling function of a pointing device
> (Thinkpad pointing stick center scroll in my case) not work in the preview
> plane?


One aspect of scrolling depends on the mode you read in.
Plain text or HTML? I.e., in the Read options, is
Read all messages in plain text
checked or unchecked?


> This worked in Outlook Express, and made viewing messages,
> particularly in newsgroups, very efficient.


Scrolling in Plain text in OE is less efficient than scrolling
in HTML. E.g. pressing Spacebar continually can allow
you to go to the bottom of the list and through all message
text whether the keyboard focus is in the Preview pane
or just in the message list. More significantly IMO Tab
in the message pane will do useful things such as find links
for you.

WLMail makes this even worse and it doesn't support
Shift-Space (for scrolling backwards) which OE
(at least imperfectly <w>) does support.


>
> With Outlook Express, I would keep the highlighting in the message list
> portion, using the up and down arrows to go between messages and right and
> left arrows to expand and collapse the messages.


All that cursor action is unnecessary if you are looking at every
message. Just press the Spacebar. ; )


> Meanwhile, keeping the
> pointer in the preview pane allowed me to scroll and read the message bodies
> without using the slider, or shifting the highlighting away from the message
> list. Now with Live Mail, I have to both shift the highlighting to the
> preview pane for each message and find the slider bar each time. To make
> things worse, scrolling is even more necessary with Live Mail because the
> message header is so large. Anyone know a fix?

Turn off the news message header. Alt-V,L,Alt-h,Alt-d
BTW why does WLMail make us use Alt- inside its dialogs?

Tip: if you are using a narrow message view you can
still (relatively easily) see all the necessary details
with Message Properties. (Alt-Enter)

If you aren't using IE8 (which makes WLMail's fonts
unreadable) try using HTML mode for reading.
I think even with WLMail you will find less need for
focus switching. In any case, try using Tab if necessary
to switch keyboard focus back to the Message list.
Actually, this is another example of WLMail's annoying
incompatibilities. Now you have to think about where focus
is and where you want to go. So instead of (semi-mechanically)
pressing Tab you may have to press Backtab (Shift-Tab)
(or Tab twice). Either way, you won't have to move your pointer
from the reading pane just to get to the next message.


Does Microsoft read this
> list?


Sometimes.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
---

Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.
Instead of Shift key, the Spacebar advances the text in the Reading pane.

Ron Sommer wrote:
> Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.
> Instead of Shift key, the Spacebar advances the text in the Reading pane.

Thanks for the tip - it works. Is there any way to scroll back up within
the reading pane? I often want to re-read something.

Robert Aldwinckle wrote:
> Andrew Lee wrote:
>> Has anyone else noticed that the scrolling function of a pointing device
>> (Thinkpad pointing stick center scroll in my case) not work in the
>> preview
>> pane?
>
> One aspect of scrolling depends on the mode you read in.
> Plain text or HTML? I.e., in the Read options, is
> Read all messages in plain text
> checked or unchecked?

unchecked

>> This worked in Outlook Express, and made viewing messages,
>> particularly in newsgroups, very efficient.
>
> Scrolling in Plain text in OE is less efficient than scrolling
> in HTML. E.g. pressing Spacebar continually can allow
> you to go to the bottom of the list and through all message
> text whether the keyboard focus is in the Preview pane
> or just in the message list. More significantly IMO Tab
> in the message pane will do useful things such as find links
> for you.



> WLMail makes this even worse and it doesn't support
> Shift-Space (for scrolling backwards) which OE
> (at least imperfectly <w>) does support.

That's too bad. When I was reading your reply, the last semi-visible text
was a half line showing only the top half of the text. Pressing the space
bar advanced it so the bottom half of that line was at the top of the view.
There was no chance to read that particular line without having to shift
focus to the preview pane. You would think that they would repeat at least
last line after the advancing the text, preferably the last five or so
lines, so you can place yourself.

>> With Outlook Express, I would keep the highlighting in the message list
>> portion, using the up and down arrows to go between messages and right
>> and
>> left arrows to expand and collapse the messages.
>> All that cursor action is unnecessary if you are looking at every
> message. Just press the Spacebar. ; )

There's no way I would want to read every message in the some of the
newsgroups that I frequent... I may be understating how efficient I can be
viewing newsgroups in Outlook Express. I never have to use the pointing
stick/mouse within a newsgroup. I keep it stationary over the preview pane
and am able to scroll up and down within that pane, as well as shift up and
down between threads and messages, and open and collapse threads, all
without moving my hand positions even (just the four arrow directions with
the right hand and scroll with the left).

>> Meanwhile, keeping the
>> pointer in the preview pane allowed me to scroll and read the message
>> bodies
>> without using the slider, or shifting the highlighting away from the
>> message
>> list. Now with Live Mail, I have to both shift the highlighting to the
>> preview pane for each message and find the slider bar each time. To make
>> things worse, scrolling is even more necessary with Live Mail because the
>> message header is so large. Anyone know a fix?
>
> Turn off the news message header. Alt-V,L,Alt-h,Alt-d
> BTW why does WLMail make us use Alt- inside its dialogs?

I already turned it off for reading news.

> Tip: if you are using a narrow message view you can
> still (relatively easily) see all the necessary details
> with Message Properties. (Alt-Enter)

I've never really needed the Alt button except for rarely for Ctrl-Alt-Del
to bring up the Task Manager. I need to look down at the keyboard to hit
it, which is annoying.

> If you aren't using IE8 (which makes WLMail's fonts
> unreadable) try using HTML mode for reading.
> I think even with WLMail you will find less need for
> focus switching. In any case, try using Tab if necessary
> to switch keyboard focus back to the Message list.
> Actually, this is another example of WLMail's annoying
> incompatibilities. Now you have to think about where focus
> is and where you want to go. So instead of (semi-mechanically)
> pressing Tab you may have to press Backtab (Shift-Tab)
> (or Tab twice). Either way, you won't have to move your pointer
> from the reading pane just to get to the next message.

I didn't know there was an IE8. I just switched to Firefox from IE7 a month
or two ago because IE7 didn't allow me to adjust the size and customize a
lot of the stuff at the top to get an uncluttered, clean look. I found IE6
much better than IE7 in that respect. Firefox has been great.

It's annoy to try to hit that Tab button - like you said, you have to think
about where to place the focus. With Outlook Express, I could do all the
reading without ever shifting the focus around.
[..]

"Andrew Lee" <whatsupandrew> wrote in message
news:d310
> Ron Sommer wrote:
>> Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.
>> Instead of Shift key, the Spacebar advances the text in the Reading pane.
>
> Thanks for the tip - it works. Is there any way to scroll back up within
> the reading pane? I often want to re-read something.
>
Not that I know.

With the highlight in the message list,
Ctrl + down (or up) arrow
leaves the highlight, but outlines the next message.
Hit down arrow, highlight moves to the next message past the outlined
message.

It looks like Office 2007 problem again. See if the following helps you. Use
wlmail.exe as the program name.

http://www.lvlolvlo.net/2007/02/11/o...scrolling-fix/

Regards,
leo.

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:
[..]

It looks like Office 2007 problem again. See if the following helps you. Use
wlmail.exe as the program name.

http://www.lvlolvlo.net/2007/02/11/o...scrolling-fix/

Regards,
leo.


"Andrew Lee" wrote:
[..]

Leo wrote:
> It looks like Office 2007 problem again. See if the following helps you.
> Use
> wlmail.exe as the program name.
>
> [..]
>
> Regards,
> leo.

Wow, that fixed the problem. A big thanks to you! The only tp4table.dat
file (of many, from older drivers, I presume) that I modified was the one in
the System32 folder. I didn't have a folder by Synaptics.

I just added the following two lines just above the [AutoScrollTable]
section:

; Office 2007 Scroll Fix
*,*,wlmail.exe,*,*,*,WheelStd,0,9

Now, I'm just curious. What do the 0,9 refer to. I noticed in the same
file, there were Outlook Express fixes that looked similar, but ended in
1,9.

I wrote:
> newsgroups that I frequent... I may be understating how efficient I can
> be viewing newsgroups in Outlook Express. I never have to use the
> pointing stick/mouse within a newsgroup. I keep it stationary over the
> preview pane and am able to scroll up and down within that pane, as well
> as shift up and down between threads and messages, and open and collapse
> threads, all without moving my hand positions even (just the four arrow
> directions with the right hand and scroll with the left).

Now that I got my the scroll fixed, I think I realized why none of you use
my method of going through messages, and have to struggle with changing
focus, etc. I use my pointing stick (and mouse at work) with my left hand
even though I'm right handed. This leaves the right hand free for the four
arrow buttons. My method isn't efficient at all if you use the pointing
device with your right hand.

I switched to using the pointing device with my left hand really early on
when pointing devices first came out because I gave it a try on a whim, and
found it easy to control. Then I figured out it could be more efficient in
certain kinds of keyboard work, as well as give me an option to avoid
repetitive stress problems. Try it, you might like it!