Cannot Drag Attachments to Dock Applications in Leopard

[ben@yaleSOM]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I am running Entourage 2008 (12.1.7), and have just upgraded my OS from OS 10.4 Tiger to OS 10.5 Leopard. In Tiger, I frequently dragged attachments from Entourage on to an icon in the dock -- for example, to open an jpeg image in Photoshop rather than Preview, which is the default. In Leopard, this behavior doesn't work. When I drag the attachment on the icon, it darkens to indicate that the file type can be opened in that application, but when I release the button nothing happens.

This drag behavior works fine from the Finder or from other applications (at least, it works in Mail.app).

Is this simply a bug in Entourage? Is there any way for me to fix it or work around it?

Thanks

Ben

 

[Diane Ross]

Is this simply a bug in Entourage? Is there any way for me to fix it or work
around it?

Works for me in Leopard for any application.

When you upgraded to Leopard which method did you use?

There are three types of install options for Leopard:

Upgrade Mac OS X (the default upgrade method)*
Archive and Install
Erase and Install

* <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/leopard.html>

You could try downloading and running the Apple combo updater to see if that
will fix any problems.

<http://support.apple.com/downloads/Mac_OS_X_10_5_7_Combo_Update>

 

[ben@yaleSOM]

Thanks, Diane. When you say that it works for you in any application, do you mean including Entourage? I ask only because my officemate also has Entourage and Leopard, and she has the same problem.

I used the upgrade method for installing Leopard.

Ben

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks, Diane. When you say that it works for you in any application, do you
mean including Entourage? I ask only because my officemate also has Entourage
and Leopard, and she has the same problem.

I used the upgrade method for installing Leopard.

I can drag any file to an icon on the dock to open in that application and I
can drag a file to the Entourage icon in the dock to add it as an
attachment.

As I mentioned on the link, the upgrade method is the one that users
encounter the most problems with. I would try the combo to see if that fixes
the problem. It's quick and easy to do. If that fails, do you have a
computer you could use to do an "Archive & Install" to see if that fixes the
problem? If this works then do this on all computers. The last time I had to
do this, the only software I had to reinstall was my Microsoft keyboard
software.

At this point an "Erase & Install" sounds like a more time consuming fix.
There was a lot of changes under the hood between Tiger and Leopard. Going
the "Erase & Install" gets rid of all old files and forces you to look at
all your applications to be sure they are Leopard compatible.

 

[Ed Kimball]

I can drag any file to an icon on the dock to open in that application and I
can drag a file to the Entourage icon in the dock to add it as an
attachment.

As I mentioned on the link, the upgrade method is the one that users
encounter the most problems with. I would try the combo to see if that fixes
the problem. It's quick and easy to do. If that fails, do you have a
computer you could use to do an "Archive & Install" to see if that fixes the
problem? If this works then do this on all computers. The last time I had to
do this, the only software I had to reinstall was my Microsoft keyboard
software.

At this point an "Erase & Install" sounds like a more time consuming fix.
There was a lot of changes under the hood between Tiger and Leopard. Going
the "Erase & Install" gets rid of all old files and forces you to look at
all your applications to be sure they are Leopard compatible.

Diane,
I'm not sure you're catching Ben's point. He's asking about dragging files
(i.e., attachments) FROM Entourage to the dock, not to Entourage.

Can you drag an attachment from an Entourage message to a dock icon and get
the app to launch and open the attachment? I can't, using Entourage 11.4.0
and OS X 10.5.7. In fact, if I drag a PDF or JPG to Preview in the dock,
Preview doesn't even highlight, let alone open. QuickTime will highlight for
both file types, but it doesn't launch.

I must admit I've never tried it before, so I don't know when this
(mis)behavior started. I just double-click on the attachment (or select it
and click Open). I can see, however, when it might be useful to drag an
attachment to an app that isn't the default for its file type.

Ben, if it works for Diane but not for you, me or your officemate, I'm going
to assume that Entourage has a bias against Yale.

 

[Diane Ross]

I'm not sure you're catching Ben's point. He's asking about dragging files
(i.e., attachments) FROM Entourage to the dock, not to Entourage.

Ben, can you clarify exactly the behavior you want? Perhaps I misunderstood
because I don't believe you could ever drag an attachment from an Entourage
message to a dock icon to open in that application.

Ben, if it works for Diane but not for you, me or your officemate, I'm going
to assume that Entourage has a bias against Yale.

LOL!!

 

[ben@yaleSOM]

Hi Diane and Ed,

Ed has it exactly right. (Well, the Yale connection is up for debate, I suppose.) I was able to drag attachments from an Entourage message to a dock icon and open it in that application in Tiger and I no longer can in Leopard.

Since this does work in Mail.app, and since I get the darkening of the icon when I drag an attachment to it, my guess it that this is a bug rather than simply a missing feature.

But nice to know, I guess, that it's not just me.

best

Ben

 

[ben@yaleSOM]

I came up with a slightly wacky workaround for this problem. 99% of the time I'm using this function with Photoshop, for the reasons mentioned above. So I made an Automator action to open files in Photoshop and then attached it as a folder action to a folder on my desktop. Now I can drag an attachment into the folder from Entourage and it opens in Photoshop.

I also made an Automator action to empty the folder and attached it to an iCal event that runs once a day.

(I haven't done much in Automator before, but "Save as plug-in" makes this kind of thing really easy.)

Ben

 

[Diane Ross]

I came up with a slightly wacky workaround for this problem. 99% of the time
I'm using this function with Photoshop, for the reasons mentioned above. So I
made an Automator action to open files in Photoshop and then attached it as a
folder action to a folder on my desktop. Now I can drag an attachment into the
folder from Entourage and it opens in Photoshop.

I also made an Automator action to empty the folder and attached it to an iCal
event that runs once a day.

(I haven't done much in Automator before, but "Save as plug-in" makes this
kind of thing really easy.)

Ben

Thanks for sharing! I've been trying to use Automator more and it helps to
see examples like this.

If you would like to keep these files, you could use a folder action that
would save the file in that folder by date. This way you could keep them
organized and easily see the older ones to delete.

Since you are interested in Automator, check out the workflows to backup
Entourage.

Quit all Microsoft applications before backing up
<http://tinyurl.com/q5ckb2>

More backup options:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/backup_articles.html>