categories don't work for sent mail

[janeherenow]

When I receive mail from someone to whom I've assigned a category it
color codes correctly. But when I send mail it stays black. Doesn't
make any difference whether I take the address from most recently used
list or drag it from the address book. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Diane Ross]

When I receive mail from someone to whom I've assigned a category it
color codes correctly. But when I send mail it stays black. Doesn't
make any difference whether I take the address from most recently used
list or drag it from the address book. What am I doing wrong?

In Entourage Preferences (under Entourage in the Menu bar) open the Address
Book tab. At the bottom of that window, there are selections on linking
category to contact.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

This feature isn't available in Entourage. However, you can try the free
script "Set Sent Message Category" by Paul Berkowitz. It sets the category
of sent messages to the category of the first recipient. You can get the
script here:
http://www.scriptbuilders.net/search.php?search_str=Set+Sent+Message

Follow the instructions in the Read Me to install the script and set it up
to run as an outgoing rule on all outgoing messages.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

What makes you say it's not available? When I reply to a message whose
sender is in my address book with a category assigned, my reply message
in Sent Items *does* have the same category.

That's because it's a reply. Replies to messages automatically inherit the
category of the original message. However, this isn't the case for new
messages.

 

[janeherenow]

In Entourage Preferences (under Entourage in the Menu bar) open the Address
Book tab. At the bottom of that window, there are selections on linking
category to contact.

I went there and checked everything at the bottom of the menu (3
choices--the last one was already checked, about received mail, and
that has been working, as I said), then sent myself an email at
another account that should have displayed my name and the subject,
etc., in Sent box in red, as in address book. Still black.

 

[janeherenow]

What makes you say it's not available? When I reply to a message whose
sender is in my address book with a category assigned, my reply message
in Sent Items *does* have the same category.

Great! That's what I want. How did you get it to happen?

 

[janeherenow]

That's because it's a reply. Replies to messages automatically inherit the
category of the original message. However, this isn't the case for new
messages.

Oh! Shoot! Yeah, my replies color-code too, just not new messages.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Oh! Shoot! Yeah, my replies color-code too, just not new messages.

You can make an Outgoing Rule (Tools/Rules/Outgoing), or several. There's no
way* to make a single outgoing rule to cover all categories, but for those
categories that are important to you, each could have its own rule:

Criterion
If <Any To recipient> <Is in category> <Work>

Action
<Set category> <Work>


etc. A separate rule for each category that matters.


*Actually it can be done via AppleScript, by setting an Outgoing rule to run
a script on all messages. Download my "Set Sent Message Category" script
from

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

(You'll also need to get Stuffit Expander, free, from versiontracker if
you're in Tiger or Leopard and never had an earlier OS on your computer., to
expand the ,sit download. Macs used to come with SE but no longer do. Or
save this script to your Entourage Script Menu Items folder, and link your
rule to that:

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

set theMsg to item 1 of (get current messages)

try
set theAddresses to address of address of every recipient of theMsg
whose recipient type is (to recipient)
on error -- news messages have no 'to recipients'
return
end try


repeat with theAddress in theAddresses
set theContacts to find theAddress
if theContacts ‚ {} then
set theContact to item 1 of theContacts
set theCategory to category of theContact
if theCategory ‚ {} then
set category of theMsg to theCategory
exit repeat -- just category of first recipient to have a
non-empty category
end if
end if
end repeat


end tell



I have a note that early versions of Entourage 2004 had a bug, I'm not sure
if it's been fixed or not. Here's a version that will work vrnm if there's
still a bug, and also makes an exception for messages sent to mailing lists
registered in Mailing List Manager.


--Set Sent Message Category [v1.0.0PB]
-- Paul Berkowitz <[email protected]>


tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

set mailingListAddresses to list address of every mailing list

set theMsg to item 1 of (get current messages)

try
--set theAddresses to address of address of every recipient of
theMsg whose recipient type is (to recipient) -- bug in e11
set theAddresses to {}
set theRecips to (every recipient of theMsg)
repeat with i from 1 to (count theRecips)
set theRecip to item i of theRecips
set recipType to (recipient type) of theRecip
if recipType is (to recipient) then
set end of theAddresses to address of address of theRecip
end if
end repeat

on error -- news messages have no 'to recipients'
return
end try


repeat with theAddress in theAddresses
if {contents of theAddress} is not in mailingListAddresses then
set theContacts to find theAddress
if theContacts ‚ {} then
set theContact to item 1 of theContacts
set theCategory to category of theContact
if theCategory ‚ {} then
set category of theMsg to theCategory
exit repeat -- just category of first recipient to have
a non-empty category
end if
end if
end if
end repeat


end tell

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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