Entourage 2004 questions: import mails and link to contacts, attachment handling

P

Philby

Hi all,

despite the rather unfair pricing of Office 2004 Upgrade over here in
Europe (almost double the US price at $376 for intl. english!), I'm
really tempted to go back to Entourage after having used Apple Mail.app
for about 1.5 years.
Now I'm wondering:
1) is it possible to tell Entourage to re-link all imported mails (must
be around 60'000) to a) contacts in the Address Book and b) to itself,
i.e. with the extremely handy "you replied to this message" etc.
thingies?
2) is it now possible for Entourage 2004, on downloading a mail, to
automatically save attachments to disk, link to the saved attachment in
the message, and then delete the attachment from the database? I think
I saw something about "alias" in Entourage 2004's AppleScript
dictionary, but also remember that this was not possible in Entourage.X.

TIA for any infos on this, and kudos to M$ for a really nice Upgrade!
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Hi all,

despite the rather unfair pricing of Office 2004 Upgrade over here in
Europe (almost double the US price at $376 for intl. english!), I'm
really tempted to go back to Entourage after having used Apple Mail.app
for about 1.5 years.
Now I'm wondering:
1) is it possible to tell Entourage to re-link all imported mails (must
be around 60'000) to a) contacts in the Address Book and b) to itself,
i.e. with the extremely handy "you replied to this message" etc.
thingies?
Click to expand...

Not to other messages, but you can do it for contacts. If you already have
contacts in place, and have the "Automatically link messages to the contacts
that send them" preference, I think it will may even happen as you import
the mail. Same with having categories defined for the contacts first and
having the categories applied automatically. If it doesn't work on import, I
know that the categories, and therefore I'd expect the links, would reform
if you'd drag out a mail folder to make an MBOX, delete the originals, then
drag the MBOX back in. Since I'm pretty sure the import from Mail is going
to work more or less the same way, I think it probably just will happen on
import. Make sure you have the preferences defined before you do the import.

2) is it now possible for Entourage 2004, on downloading a mail, to
automatically save attachments to disk, link to the saved attachment in
the message, and then delete the attachment from the database? I think
I saw something about "alias" in Entourage 2004's AppleScript
dictionary, but also remember that this was not possible in Entourage.X.
Click to expand...

You can link to files now. (You're welcome - there was an "issue" with this
I reported - it seems to be all fixed now.)

Here's a rough idea of how to make it work. You would set a rule to run the
following script when "Attachment Exists". I say "rough" because there has
to be a routine added to this script to prevent either an error or
overwriting a previous attachment if the one you download has exactly the
same name as a previous one. I'll do that, then post the script at

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

In the meantime, here's the idea. You can test it out:


tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

set attachFolderPath to (((path to MUD) as Unicode text) & "Saved
Attachments:") -- or define your own
set theMsg to item 1 of (get current messages)
set msgAttachments to attachments of theMsg

repeat with theAttachment in msgAttachments
set attachName to name of theAttachment
set attachName to my replaceColons(attachName)
save theAttachment in (attachFolderPath & attachName)
delete theAttachment
link theMsg to alias (attachFolderPath & attachName)
end repeat
end tell

to replaceColons(someText)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {":"}
set textItems to text items of someText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"-"}
set someText to textItems as Unicode text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"/"}
set textItems to text items of someText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"-"}
set someText to textItems as Unicode text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
return someText
end replaceColons





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

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - **2004**, X
or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
D

Dr. No

Not to other messages, but you can do it for contacts. If you already have
contacts in place, and have the "Automatically link messages to the contacts
that send them" preference, I think it will may even happen as you import
the mail.
Click to expand...

Excellent -- I'll miss the "in-message threading", though... shame it
can't be done after the fact, on imported messages.
You can link to files now. (You're welcome - there was an "issue" with this
I reported - it seems to be all fixed now.)

Here's a rough idea of how to make it work. You would set a rule to run the
following script when "Attachment Exists". I say "rough" because there has
to be a routine added to this script to prevent either an error or
overwriting a previous attachment if the one you download has exactly the
same name as a previous one. I'll do that, then post the script at
MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

In the meantime, here's the idea. You can test it out:


tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set attachFolderPath to (((path to MUD) as Unicode text) & "Saved
Attachments:") -- or define your own
set theMsg to item 1 of (get current messages)
set msgAttachments to attachments of theMsg
repeat with theAttachment in msgAttachments
set attachName to name of theAttachment
set attachName to my replaceColons(attachName)
save theAttachment in (attachFolderPath & attachName)
delete theAttachment
link theMsg to alias (attachFolderPath & attachName)
end repeat
end tell

to replaceColons(someText)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {":"}
set textItems to text items of someText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"-"}
set someText to textItems as Unicode text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"/"}
set textItems to text items of someText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"-"}
set someText to textItems as Unicode text
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
return someText
end replaceColons
Click to expand...

Sweet. This is almost back to Eudora (in a way still the best E-mail
client), but with Entourage's vastly superior abilities.

Thanks a lot Paul!
 
J

jeff mark

I just got office 2004. I have office OSX. When I installed Office
2004 all my links were gone. I had "Automatically link messages to the
contacts that send them" preference checked. When I called MS they
said it would be lost during update. That is hard to believe. I see no
others writing about this problem. I did try Paul's solution (dragging
the mbox out, deleting and re dragging it in) This worked for saved
emails, but the "sent" emails are still no longer liked. Is this
because I can not delete the "sent " mailbox.? Any other solutions?.
Thanks
 
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