The XML Document Object Model

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One of the great things about the new version of Outlook Web Access is that it lets you customize the client using either Web Storage System forms, which we'll look at momentarily, or by simply adding some parameters to the URL you pass to OWA. In this section, we'll take a quick look at the parameters you can pass to OWA to make it perform the functionality you want. Table 19-3 shows these parameters.

Table 19-3. The parameters you can use to customize Outlook Web Access.

Command	Supported Parameters	Description
Cmd=	Navbar	Displays only the left-hand navigation of OWA, including the Outlook bar, Outlook icons, and the folder list.
	Contents	Displays only the right-hand contents of OWA without navigation bar.
	New	Creates a new item in the folder.
	Options	Displays the Options page.
	Open	Opens an item for reading. Be careful because e-mail messages end with .EML. If you pass just the subject of the email message without the trailing .EML, OWA will not be able to find the item.
	Edit	Opens an item for editing.
	Reply, ReplyAll, Forward	Performs the specific operation on the item.
View=	A string that specifies a view in the folder—for example, <;$QD>By Conversation Topic<;$QD>, <;$QD>Daily<;$QD>, <;$QD>Monthly<;$QD>.	Shows the items in the folder using the view you specify.
M=	A number that corresponds to a month	The month value you want to display.
D=	A number that corresponds to a day	The day value you want to display.
Y=	A number that corresponds to a year	The year value you want to display.

The Training application takes advantage of the cmd=Contents, the view=, and the date semantics, such as m=, d=, and y=. For example, this URL from the Training application shows a public folder calendar with a monthly view, without the navigation bar:

http://server/pfpath/?cmd=contents&view=monthly&d=15&m=4&y=2000

You can take these URL parameters and use them as hyperlinks, or even as sources for frames within your applications. This extensibility of OWA allows you to quickly add Web services, such as calendaring, without having to write a single line of code.