Knowledge Base

OL98: How to Automatically Close a Form When Calling an Action

Article ID: 193460

Article Last Modified on 11/23/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Outlook 98 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q193460

SUMMARY

This article describes how you can automatically close a form after a second form is launched from the first.

MORE INFORMATION

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When you design a form solution in Microsoft Outlook 98, you can use actions on a form to launch a second form. You may want to have the first form close automatically when the second form is launched.

To do this, follow these steps:

Set Up the Folder

To store mail messages, create a new Public Folder.
Right-click the folder, click Properties, click the Administration tab, and then click the "Personal Address Book" button to add the folder's address to the Personal Address Book. If the button is not enabled, make sure you have a Personal Address Book service available in your Exchange profile.

Create the Second Form First

Open a new mail message.
Click "To:" on the form, select Personal Address Book from the list of available address books, select the name of the public folder, and then click "To:->". Click OK.
Change the Subject of the message to "This is Form2".
On the Tools menu, click Forms, and then click Design This Form.
On the Tools menu, click Forms, and then click Publish Form As. For this example, select the Personal Forms Library, although you can also publish the form to another location. Set the Display Name to Form2 and then click Publish.
Close and do not save changes to this item.

Create the First Form

Open a new mail message.
Click "To:" on the form, select Personal Address Book from the list of available address books, select the name of the public folder, and then click "To:->". Click OK.
Set the Subject to "This is Form1."
On the Tools menu, click Forms, and then click Design This Form.
On the Actions page, click New. Set the name of the action to "Get Form2." In the "Form name" list, select Forms... and navigate to the Form2 form that was previously published in the Personal Forms Library. Change the setting to address form like a "Reply to Folder." Enable the option to "Send the form immediately." Click OK.

On the Form menu, click View Code. Type the following Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) code into the Script Editor and then close the editor:

   Function Item_CustomAction(ByVal Action, ByVal NewItem)
      Item.Close 1 'olDiscard
   End Function

On the Tools menu, click Forms, and then click Publish Form As. Change the "Look in" setting to Outlook Folders and then click Browse and navigate to the public folder previously created. Type Form1 as the Display Name of the form and then click Publish.
Close and do not save changes to the item.

Testing the Forms

With the folder selected, on the Actions menu, click New Form1.
Click Send.
Open the new item in the folder.
Click the "Get Form2" action.

You will now have no forms open and the folder will receive a new item with a Subject of "This is Form2".

NOTE: If you do not wish to use actions, you can also publish a second form (Form2) to a forms library and then create a command button on the first form (Form1) and add VBScript code similar to the following:

   Sub CommandButton1_Click()
      ' Create a reference to the Inbox
      Set MyInbox = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI").GetDefaultFolder(6)
      ' Create a new instance of Form2
      Set NewItem = MyInbox.Items.Add("IPM.Note.Form2")
      ' Address the form and populate its fields
      NewItem.To = "emailname"
      NewItem.Subject = "This is form2"
      ' Send the second form
      NewItem.Send
      ' Close the current (first) form
      Item.Close 1
   End Sub

NOTE: One approach that will not work is trying to use Visual Basic Script to close an item from within its own Send event. Outlook will typically generate the following error:

One or more parameter values are not valid.

REFERENCES

For more information about creating solutions with Microsoft Outlook 98, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

180826 OL98: Resources for Custom Forms and Programming

182349 OL98: Questions About Custom Forms and Outlook Solutions

Additional query words: OutSol OutSol98

Keywords: kbdswnet2003swept kbhowto kbprogramming KB193460

Microsoft KB Archive/193460

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