Outlook 2011 Scripting

I’ve found some parts of outlook 2001 to be scriptable, but nothing near what I want to do, and it’s such a simple idea that it’s become maddening. as usual, I found parts of other scripts that get me so far, but then from there I’m stuck. I’m not a good applescript developer, mostly just copy/paste ideas and play unti I can get them to work a little better. I know I should read more about applescript, but every time I read something about it, it seems it never, ever applies to the apps I’m trying to work with. on to the idea…

outlook 2011 has replaced entourage 200x… many menu items from entourage are no longer there, are dynamic (as in the change based on what window you have open), or have been moved to preferences. I’m fine with stuff being moved to preferences, that makes sense, but at least keep a menu item as well for easy access. for example: Accounts are still available under “Tools > Accounts…” while they’re also in the preferences panes. AutoCorrect is not, and that’s what I want easy access too. in the past, I’d write a super-simple applescript or use a custom quicksilver trigger to bring something up that I wanted. this is no longer possible. it just doesn’t work, or doesn’t exist.

can someone explain how to tell outlook to focus on the window that it opens (I managed to get the keyboard command to open the preferences window) and allow me to select/focus the autocorrect pane of that window? I’ve tried listing the items of a window to get an id or name, no luck. listing buttons of a window, telling it to click a button, or select a button, all to no avail. I just don’t know enough about applescript.

with dozens of custom keyboard shortcuts and custom quicksilver triggers (even some with proxy items that I set every time I launched entourage), it was a very efficient process. the benefits of using outlook outweigh those of going back to entourage, but I can’t keep doing simple things over and over again that should be scriptable if I only knew more about how.