How to delete links

[David Weeks]

Entourage 2004.

All my emails are linked to the contacts in the Address Book. I want
to delete all the links to contacts. It appears that I have to slog
through a long process to delete each linked contact individually.

Is there any way to delete all the links from the many many emails at
once?

On a related note, I need to link an email that contains a reply to an
earlier email. Is there are way to link the two without having to use
the dialog box to pick the file to be linked. Can I use a more
GUI-related method to highlight the two emails, then create the link
that way?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Entourage 2004.

All my emails are linked to the contacts in the Address Book. I want
to delete all the links to contacts. It appears that I have to slog
through a long process to delete each linked contact individually.

Is there any way to delete all the links from the many many emails at
once?

On a related note, I need to link an email that contains a reply to an
earlier email. Is there are way to link the two without having to use
the dialog box to pick the file to be linked. Can I use a more
GUI-related method to highlight the two emails, then create the link
that way?

Any help would be appreciated.

Untested, but should work...

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
repeat with aContact in (get every contact)
repeat with aLink in links of aContact
unlink aContact from aLink
end repeat
end repeat
end tell

(it may take a little time though

 

[Allen Watson]

On a related note, I need to link an email that contains a reply to an
earlier email. Is there are way to link the two without having to use
the dialog box to pick the file to be linked. Can I use a more
GUI-related method to highlight the two emails, then create the link
that way?

I'm not sure where your problem is. If you open one message, click "Link" in
the toolbar, and then "Link to existing Message", you can use the standard
GUI folder interface to locate the second message you want to link to.

 

[David Weeks]

I'm not sure where your problem is. If you open one message, click "Link" in
the toolbar, and then "Link to existing Message", you can use the standard
GUI folder interface to locate the second message you want to link to.

The issue is that for reasons too mundane to list here, I have lots of
emails with the same subject (comes from a web-based form). I create
replies to each email. As the subjects are all the same, threading does
not work well.

I want to have the original message open in its own window, then
down-arrow through the list in the preview pane until I find the correct
reply, and create the link while viewing the reply. Trying to select the
right message from hundreds with the same title, differing only by
modification date is well-nigh impossible.

 

[Allen Watson]

The issue is that for reasons too mundane to list here, I have lots of
emails with the same subject (comes from a web-based form). I create
replies to each email. As the subjects are all the same, threading does
not work well.

I want to have the original message open in its own window, then
down-arrow through the list in the preview pane until I find the correct
reply, and create the link while viewing the reply. Trying to select the
right message from hundreds with the same title, differing only by
modification date is well-nigh impossible.

That's a very good reason. Okay, try this little script. Copy it to Script
Editor (making sure to eliminate undesired line breaks), compile and save it
in Entourage Script Menu Items folder. Then, select a "main message", run
the script, select a second message, re-run the script, and it will link the
second message to the first. It will remember the first script and let you
link several to it, or you can change the main message at any time. (Any
line other than the first "tell" and last line of the script that touch the
left margin are unintentional line breaks imposed by transmission.)

property mainMsg : ""

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set theMsg to item 1 of (get current messages)
set frm to display name of sender of theMsg
set sub to subject of theMsg
if mainMsg = "" then
display dialog "Set this as main message to link others to?" buttons
{"Cancel", "No", "Yes"} default button "Yes"
set b to button returned of result
if b = "No" or b = "Cancel" then
display dialog "Exiting" giving up after 3
else if b = "Yes" then
set mainMsg to theMsg
display dialog "You may now select a message to link to this
one, and re-run the script."
end if
else
set mfrm to display name of sender of mainMsg
set msub to subject of mainMsg
display dialog "Choose option for:
" & sub & return & "From: " & frm buttons {"Set new Main Msg", "Link to Main
Msg", "Cancel"}
set b to button returned of result
if b = "Set new Main Msg" then
set mainMsg to theMsg
display dialog "You may now select a message to link to this
one, and re-run the script."
else if b = "Link to Main Msg" then
link theMsg to mainMsg
display dialog "Messages linked. You may select another message
to link to the main message, or select a new main message, and re-run the
script."
return
else
return
end if
end if
end tell

--
Microsoft MVP for Entourage/OE/Word (MVPs are volunteers)
Allen Watson <[email protected]> Entourage FAQ site:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
AppleScripts for Outlook Express and Entourage:
<http://homepage.mac.com/allen_a_watson/FileSharing3.html>
Entourage Help Pages: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>