How to display the picture of the sender stored in the addressbook?

[Igor Bray]

One feature I like in Mail is that the sender's picture is displayed if it
is stored in the address book. I teach many students and it is very helpful
to learn their names if their faces are displayed with their emailed
questions. I much prefer the Entourage interface and would love to have this
feature. Is it, or will it be available sometime soon?

Thanks,

Igor

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

One feature I like in Mail is that the sender's picture is displayed if it
is stored in the address book. I teach many students and it is very helpful
to learn their names if their faces are displayed with their emailed
questions. I much prefer the Entourage interface and would love to have this
feature. Is it, or will it be available sometime soon?

Thanks,

Igor

The problem is that Entourage needs somewhere to pick this image up.

Mac.com can collect it from the apples servers for any mac.com subscriber,
who has an image defined in their account or address book. Entourage has no
such access to a centrally synced source.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Igor,

that feature is not available in the current version of Entourage; you can
request it by leaving your feedback with Microsoft (in Entourage, click on
Help>Send Feedback on Entourage).

One feature I like in Mail is that the sender's picture is displayed if it
is stored in the address book. I teach many students and it is very helpful
to learn their names if their faces are displayed with their emailed
questions. I much prefer the Entourage interface and would love to have this
feature. Is it, or will it be available sometime soon?

Thanks,

Igor

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

off topic tangent--but Igor, where did Address Book get the pictures of
your students? Does your institution make those downloadable, or did
you take them, or what? I also teach and am curious to hear more about this.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

The problem is that Entourage needs somewhere to pick this image up.

The address book in Entourage has a field for pictures and they can be
displayed when you check the contact information.
Entourage just doesn't display these pictures in the headers of the
e-mails you receive as Mail does.

What's interesting is that:
- the System address book supports pictured for contacts.
- SyncServices support synching the pictures (it does it through .Mac
and it also does with cell-phones through iSnc)
- Entourage supports pictures for contacts
- ENtourage ca syn through SyncServices now

but ENtourage doesn't sync the pictures for Contacts. I sent a feedback
about this a while ago. Let's hope other people are just as interested
in this as I am and the feature will get a priority high enough to be
implemented in a future version

Corentin

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I see. I have always avoided putting all my students in the address
book each term, instead using Groups to sort their mail into a class
folder, but if I could see their picture in their emails, that might be
a reason to bother giving them each their own entry. Thanks very much
for the reply, always fun to know how other people do things.

 

[Igor Bray]

I will get the students to take their own picture using my laptop and then
put it in the address book with their details.

Looks like I'll have to use Mac's Mail. Too bad, I really do prefer the
Entourage layout.

Thanks to all for the replies,

Igor

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Let's hope other people are just as interested in this as I am and
the feature will get a priority high enough to be implemented in a
future version

Hmmm...

I can't for the life of me think why *I* would want this feature. I
suspect it would just slow things down while pictures are retrieved and
displayed when I scroll through messages. And I can't see where I'd want
to give up amy screen real estate for them.

If it had zero impact on performance, and it didn't take up space that
was otherwise valuable, I suppose I'd just ignore it. But speaking for
myself, I hope that there are many other fixes and features that get
implemented first.

I understand the OP's intended use, though I'd think it might have the
opposite effect, too, since having both the name and picture available,
in my experience and study, tends to reduce memorization of the name,
but I'd think that he's in a small minority of users.

Of course, I'm just a dinosaur who trashes incoming html mail sight
unseen.

Just my curmudgeonly US$0.02...

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

Hmmm...

I can't for the life of me think why *I* would want this feature. I
suspect it would just slow things down while pictures are retrieved and
displayed when I scroll through messages. And I can't see where I'd want
to give up amy screen real estate for them.

If it had zero impact on performance, and it didn't take up space that
was otherwise valuable, I suppose I'd just ignore it. But speaking for
myself, I hope that there are many other fixes and features that get
implemented first.

I understand the OP's intended use, though I'd think it might have the
opposite effect, too, since having both the name and picture available,
in my experience and study, tends to reduce memorization of the name,
but I'd think that he's in a small minority of users.

Of course, I'm just a dinosaur who trashes incoming html mail sight
unseen.

Just my curmudgeonly US$0.02...

It's a nice enough feature, but not one I would vote for, but then, I'm
biased - I'm prosopagnosic:
<http://www.barryw.net/me/pa/prosopagnosia.html>

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hmmm...

I can't for the life of me think why *I* would want this feature.

Well even in general, shouldn't all data available in either database be
synchable with the other??

Wouldn't it be nice to to be able to sync pictures in the Entourage AB
to a cell-phone (or pictures associated with a contact on a phone to the
Entourage AB)??
(or are you talking about displaying pictures in e-mails??)

I
suspect it would just slow things down while pictures are retrieved and
displayed when I scroll through messages. And I can't see where I'd want
to give up amy screen real estate for them.

The pictures are not displayed in list mode in Mail. They are displayed
in the Header portion of the window when you open an e-mail. It's
actually prety nie and several other Entourage users I know wanted to
have that as well. I even know someone who went to the trouble of
importing a bunch of pictures in Entourage before she realized that she
could virtually do nothing with them and that only Mail offered that
feature.

If it had zero impact on performance, and it didn't take up space that
was otherwise valuable, I suppose I'd just ignore it. But speaking for
myself, I hope that there are many other fixes and features that get
implemented first.

It has zero impact onperformances in Mail.

I understand the OP's intended use, though I'd think it might have the
opposite effect, too, since having both the name and picture available,
in my experience and study, tends to reduce memorization of the name,
but I'd think that he's in a small minority of users.

Of course, I'm just a dinosaur who trashes incoming html mail sight
unseen.

:-D
I strip it to plain text. I have considered acquiring a license for
Mailsmith for quite a while (but they don;'t support IMAP).


Corentin

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Well even in general, shouldn't all data available in either database
be synchable with the other??

Dunno - I can't think of any reason that *I* should sync them at all. I
never use Address Book or iCal or Mail. Others' MMV, certainly. As a
matter of principle, I'd prefer that all DBs be open so that they could
be used by any app, but the Entourage db is highly proprietary, and the
Apple apps don't appear to use open XML (though I'd be glad to be told
I'm wrong).

Please realize that I'm a pretty vanilla email user - I just want a
client that works to send and receive text and attachments.

Though I'll admit that I'm pretty well hooked on Project Center for
managing a variety of projects and activities.

Wouldn't it be nice to to be able to sync pictures in the Entourage
AB to a cell-phone (or pictures associated with a contact on a phone
to the Entourage AB)?? (or are you talking about displaying pictures
in e-mails??)

I was talking about displaying pictures in emails, but I would
absolutely *NEVER* want to sync pictures between my phone and Entourage.
The last thing I need is to clutter up my phone db with pictures! I seem
to be able to remember who callers are from their names alone.

In fact, since my phone would display only the picture, if one were
assigned, I'm far better off with just the name - I can easily fake
remembering what someone looks like, but it's really hard to fake
remembering their name!

The pictures are not displayed in list mode in Mail. They are
displayed in the Header portion of the window when you open an
e-mail. It's actually prety nie and several other Entourage users I
know wanted to have that as well. I even know someone who went to the
trouble of importing a bunch of pictures in Entourage before she
realized that she could virtually do nothing with them and that only
Mail offered that feature.

I really can't see why I'd want to give up space in my header pane -
that's for displaying headers. Of course, I never actually *open* mail
messages unless I specifically want to look at the header. Otherwise I
read everything in the preview pane. Again, others' MMV, certainly.

It has zero impact on performances in Mail.

Well, if it doesn't display pictures in the list or the preview pane, I
can believe that. Still, only takes me a second to open the contact
dialog from the contextual menu if I have the urge to see a picture.

:-D
I strip it to plain text.

I'd rather not give the reprobates the satisfaction. (Actually, if
someone in my address book sends me html mail, I do keep and strip it.

I have considered acquiring a license for Mailsmith for quite a while
(but they don;'t support IMAP).

Didn't like it way back when. I find it hard to take it seriously when
their web site "strongly recommends" *both* OS X 10.2.8 and 10.3.5 as
minimal OSs.

It took me a LONG time to switch to Entourage from Eudora. For better or
worse, it will probably require giving up on MacOffice to make me switch
to using anything else.

 

[Igor Bray]

From the replies I've learned that there is a picture field in the Entourage
address under the "personal" section. That will do the job quite nicely for
me.

Thanks,

Igor

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

[...]

I'd prefer that all DBs be open so that they could
be used by any app, but the Entourage db is highly proprietary, and the
Apple apps don't appear to use open XML (though I'd be glad to be told
I'm wrong).

Well the format of the DB is slightly irrelevant as long as all
databases sync to a single unified repository (The Truth Database)
through Sync Services.
That's in part why I would like to see all possible data to sync to the
Truth Database so that other apps have at least the possibility to
access everything they need.

[...]

I was talking about displaying pictures in emails, but I would
absolutely *NEVER* want to sync pictures between my phone and Entourage.

Most phones display pictures nowadays. The purpose there is not to look
for contacts by their pictures though (Yuk!!!).
When the phone rings, it displays the picture of the caller on the
screen. I find this pretty convenient.

The last thing I need is to clutter up my phone db with pictures!

They're very low res and hardly take any space at all.

I seem
to be able to remember who callers are from their names alone.

Well sure, I wouldn';t use that to look for a contact in the AB as I was
saying

I really can't see why I'd want to give up space in my header pane -
that's for displaying headers. Of course, I never actually *open* mail
messages unless I specifically want to look at the header. Otherwise I
read everything in the preview pane. Again, others' MMV, certainly.

It doesn't take any space in the headers area since there is a lot of
empty space there.

Well, if it doesn't display pictures in the list or the preview pane, I
can believe that. Still, only takes me a second to open the contact
dialog from the contextual menu if I have the urge to see a picture.

I don't like reading e-mails in 3-pane view. I open them all by
double-clicking.

[...]

It took me a LONG time to switch to Entourage from Eudora. For better or
worse, it will probably require giving up on MacOffice to make me switch
to using anything else.

I finally dumped Eudora (well not really, but I don't use it to check my
e-mails anymore - it's more for long time storage).
I still use Mail, Entourage and MacSoup for my various accounts though.
I just can't find everything I need in one only app.

Corentin

 

[JE McGimpsey]

When the phone rings, it displays the picture of the caller on the
screen. I find this pretty convenient.

Different strokes, I guess - that's what I'd find really frustrating
unless *both* the name and the picture showed up. I'd undoubtedly get a
call and blank on the name...

But again, if the name comes up I have no use for a picture...