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What's New

• NSOutlook 1.6 available. This release adds support for Outlook 2000.
• NSOutlook 1.5 available. This release adds in support for Outlook Express, as well as fixes for some Outlook 97 issues in NSOutlook 1.4. Download it from http://www.macgyver.org/software/outlook/nsoutlook.zip. If you downloaded any previous NSOutlook version, I'd suggest upgrading to this version as it fixes a couple of minor bugs in Outlook 97 support, as well as the 'Send Page' option.

  NOTE: Due to limitations in Outlook 97, it is not possible to send the actual page as it is in Outlook 98/2000. A future release may try to send the page as an attachment, but don't hold your breath unless I get a lot of demand for this feature.

  Currently, NSOutlook doesn't support very much functionality in the Send Page option for Outlook Express. However, all other functionality should be present for Outlook Express. In order for you to use Outlook Express with NSOutlook, you must have Outlook Express set as your default mail client. Otherwise, NSOutlook will default to Outlook, even if you have Outlook Express installed on your system.

I personally love using Netscape's browser. I'm sorry, it's just what I grew up with and love, so to speak. Some people prefer Internet Explorer, but I just don't. However, I do love my Outlook 98/2000. It's by far the best email client I've ever used. The problem is that if you click on a mailto URL in Netscape, it always runs Netscape Messenger -- it's email client. I don't like it, and probably never will. I like my Outlook. So, how does one get the two working together? I spent the better part of my 1998/1999 New Year holiday trying to figure out how to get Netscape Communicator to launch Outlook and this is the result...

This isn't really a browser plugin so much as a DLL replacement. Netscape Communicator allows you to specify an alternate DLL for it to use when answering requests to view your inbox, check for new messages, or send new mail. So what's this new DLL actually do? A few things:

• Whenever you click on a mailto URL that would normally spawn a new mail message, it will instead spawn a new message using Outlook 98/2000.
• On the Communicator|Tools menu, an entry to spawn Outlook 98/2000 now appears, allowing you to launch Outlook 98/2000 from the Netscape toolbar.
• When you use the File|New|New Message, it will spawn a new message using Outlook 98/2000.
• When you use the Inbox button in Netscape, it will spawn the Outlook 98/2000 Inbox.
• When you use the Send Page option in Netscape, it will send a copy of the page using Outlook. This works exactly the same way it does from Internet Explorer. It took me a little while to get this one working, but now that it does, I feel satisifed finally. :)

You can always get the latest version of this by grabbing it from http://www.macgyver.org/software/outlook/nsoutlook.zip. To install it, simply follow these steps:

1. Extract all the files from the nsoutlook.zip file into a directory somewhere. If you're in Netscape, exit out of it.
2. Copy the NSOUTLOOK.DLL file into C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program or wherever you happen to have Netscape Communicator installed.
   It is imperative that you copy NSOUTLOOK.DLL into the Program subdirectory of your Communicator installation.
3. Edit the prefs.js file located in C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\someuser, where someuser happens to be the Netscape profile you selected when you setup Netscape.
4. Add the following entries to the prefs.js file, or edit them if they already exist. You can use any text editor such as Notepad or edit to get the job done:

   user_pref("mail.use_altmail", true);
user_pref("mail.use_altmail_for_news", false);
user_pref("mail.altmail_dll", "nsoutlook.dll");

5. That's it! Start up Netscape and you're all set.

Troubleshooting