RE-SIZE  THE  WINDOW  PANES

Below Windows Mail has been purposely set up with its individual windows (known as Panes) unorganised, in terms of them being of incorrect size and/or not having enough room to display their content. For example. The 10 E-Mails (E-Mail 1 and so on) headings can just about be seen, but the message of the opened e-mail (e-mail 1) cannot be seen properly. And there is not enough room to view the Folders window pane. With this section you will be taught how to organise (re-size) the three window panes so that their content can be seen more clearly.


Fig 1.0  The main Windows Mail window and its window panes need organising (re-sizing)

The best place to start with the organising is to actually re-size the main window first, explained in the Re-Size A Window section, so that you have a rough idea of what can be viewable later. In Fig 1.1 below I have re-sized the main Windows Mail window so that I will have enough space to view my e-mails, after re-sizing the window panes.


Fig 1.1  The main Windows Mail window has been re-sized horizontally and vertically

With the main Windows Mail window roughly re-sized the next step is to re-size the Folders window pane. It needs moving to the right, towards the e-mail window pane, so that there is enough space to view the Local Folders (Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, Deleted and so on - Including your created sub-folders, if any).

To move the Folders window pane to the right you must first make the Left/Right Direction Mouse Pointer appear. You do this by slowly hovering the mouse pointer over the line that seperates the Folders window pane and the E-Mail window pane until the normal mouse pointer changes into the Left/Right Direction mouse pointer (Fig 1.2 below). At this point you keep the mouse still, click the left mouse button and keep it held down. You then move the mouse pointer to the right, with the left mouse button still held down, towards the E-Mail window pane. When the Folders window pane has been re-sized (stretched) to a comfortable width, whereby you can comfortably see each Local Folder, let go of the left mouse button. Doing so will set the new size (width) for the Folders window pane (Fig 1.3 below).



Fig 1.2  Move the mouse pointer until the Left/Right Direction mouse pointer appears

If all went well with the above mouse dragging process you should end up with the Folders window pane looking something like this.



Fig 1.3  When you are happy with the size (width) of the Folders window pane release the left mouse button

Now that there is enough space for the Local Folders, as well enough space for any sub-folders that may of been created, you can adjust the height of the E-Mail window pane. The process for doing this is the same as the above width adjusting.

To adjust the height of the E-Mail window pane you must make the Up/Down Direction Mouse Pointer appear. You do this by slowly hovering the mouse pointer over the line that seperates the E-Mail window pane and the E-Mail Messages window pane until the normal mouse pointer changes into the Up/Down Direction mouse pointer (Fig 1.4 below). At this point you keep the mouse still, click the left mouse button and keep it held down. You then move the mouse pointer upwards, with the left mouse button still held down, towards the E-Mail window pane. When the E-Mail window pane has been re-sized (shrunk) to a comfortable height, whereby you can comfortably see about 10 E-Mails (e-mail headings/envelopes), let go of the left mouse button. Doing so will set the new size (height) for the E-Mail window pane (Fig 1.5 below).


Fig 1.4  Move the mouse pointer until it changes into the Up/Down Direction mouse pointer



Fig 1.5  When you are happy with the size (height) of the E-Mail window pane release the left mouse button

As you can now see, by adjusting the width of the Folders window pane the width of the E-Mail window pane is also adjusted. If you wanted to widen the E-Mail window pane further you would need to re-size (widen) the main Windows Mail window or re-size (shrink) the Folders window pane. And the same applies (height-wise) for the height of the E-Mail window pane, which also adjusts the height of the E-Mail Messages window pane.

The E-Mail window pane is also known as the Main Pane or Message Listings Pane and the E-Mail Messages window pane is also known as the Preview Pane. Preview means the whole e-mail message, that you may have to scroll through using the preview pane if the whole message is too large for the viewable area of the preview pane. Preview does not mean you are getting a sneek preview only (i.e just some of the message), it means you are initially viewing the first portion of the message in order to assess what it is. If you then want to read more of the message you can do so by scrolling through it, using the scrollbars of the preview pane, or you can double click on the e-mail itself (the e-mail listing/header) to open the message in its own window.

With the window panes now organised the next thing to do is read the next section which will teach you how to customise the columns in the E-Mail window pane.



??? Index Customise The Columns