How to: Enumerate, Show, Hide, and Position Modules in the Navigation Pane

  • Article

The NavigationModules property of the NavigationPane object in Microsoft Outlook provides access to the navigation modules contained by the Navigation Pane. You can use the Item method to enumerate the NavigationModule objects contained by the collection, as the Item method is both the default property and the indexer property for the NavigationModules collection. The CurrentModule property determines which NavigationModule object is currently selected in the Navigation Pane.

Also, each NavigationModule object provides several properties that can be used to show, hide, or change the display position of modules in the Navigation Pane:

  • The Visible property determines whether a NavigationModule object can be displayed in the Navigation Pane.

  • The Position property determines the ordinal position of a NavigationModule object when displayed in the Navigation Pane.

The DisplayedModuleCount property of the NavigationPane object determines the number of visible NavigationModule objects that can be displayed by the Navigation Pane. If the Visible property of a NavigationModule object is set to False, or if the Position property of the NavigationModule object is set such that the module doesn't fall within the number of visible NavigationModule objects that can be displayed in the Navigation Pane, the module isn't displayed.

The following code samples in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) consist of the MoveCurrentModuleToTop and MakeAllModulesVisible procedures.

The MoveCurrentModuleToTop procedure uses the CurrentModule property of the NavigationPane object to retrieve the currently selected NavigationModule object and sets the Position property of that NavigationModule object to 1, making it the topmost displayed module in the Navigation Pane.

The MoveCurrentModuleToTop procedure enumerates the Modules collection of the NavigationPane object, setting the Visible property of each NavigationModule object contained in the collection to True. It finally sets the DisplayedModuleCount property of the NavigationPane object to the value of the Count property of the NavigationModules collection for the NavigationPane object, ensuring that every navigation module contained in the Navigation Pane is visible to the user.

Private Sub MoveCurrentModuleToTop() 
 
 Dim objPane As NavigationPane 
 
 ' Get the NavigationPane object for the 
 ' currently displayed Explorer object. 
 Set objPane = Application.ActiveExplorer.NavigationPane 
 
 ' Set the Position property of the currently selected 
 ' module to 1, making it the topmost module displayed 
 ' in the Navigation Pane. 
 objPane.CurrentModule.Position = 1 
End Sub 
 
Private Sub MakeAllModulesVisible() 
 
 Dim objPane As NavigationPane 
 Dim objModule As NavigationModule 
 
 ' Get the NavigationPane object for the 
 ' currently displayed Explorer object. 
 Set objPane = Application.ActiveExplorer.NavigationPane 
 
 ' This loop enumerates through the Modules collection, 
 ' setting the Visible property of each module to True. 
 For Each objModule In objPane.Modules 
 objModule.Visible = True 
 Next 
 
 ' Set the DisplayedModuleCount property to 
 ' display all modules contained by the 
 ' Navigation Pane. 
 objPane.DisplayedModuleCount = objPane.Modules.count 
End Sub