"Robert W. King" wrote in message

....
QP
Is it possible to create a toolbar button that performs the equivalent of pressing
the space bar on the keyboard in Outlook Express?
/QP


Partly. E.g. when messages are small enough all Spacebar does is
open the next message.

If you open a message in a message window you can have buttons
for Next and Previous which allow you to navigate through a thread
which is already read. Depending on how big you make those message
windows you may find little need to do anything more than go on to the
next one (unless you are dealing with non-trimming bottom-posters eg).

Alternatively, what I do, in order to use the Preview pane instead,
is press Shift-F3 and search for a single space anywhere in each message.
The result of this simple setup is that I can run forward easily through
any thread unread or read, one message at a time. Presumably you could
create buttons which would replace the use of Shift-F3 and F3 (which does
the actual navigation). Again, how much in-message scrolling you need to do
will depend on the size of your Preview pane and the size and layout
of the messages you are reading.


QP
My motive is pure and simple laziness. I much prefer to navigate with my hand
on my trackball rather than shifting from it to my keyboard and back all the time.
So any suggestions you might have would be very welcome.
/QP

Sounds like you have your trackball on the wrong side of your keyboard.
If you put it on the left you can do both, use the trackball for clicking
with the left-hand while the right can operate the Spacebar and
cursor keys, etc. No "shifting" required. In fact then even the Tab key
is within easy reach of the left-hand without as much disruption as
moving the right-hand from mouse to keyboard entails.

E.g. you may find tabbing between Preview pane and Message list
easier than repositioning the pointer and clicking within them.
FWIW I prefer to keep my mouse pointer mostly over the Preview button
and then use my keyboard to change focus, scroll, etc. Doubleclicking
on the Preview button has the useful property of centering a message
near the bottom of the message list pane (e.g. in order to see how it fits
within a thread.)


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
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