I deleted all Entourage vRge08 files (i.e contacts/events/messages)from the Finder menu

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Hi fellow Entourage users....Merry Xmas to you all!

I'd really appreciate some help. I've just spent AGES adding events to my
Entourage Calendar.

I was going through Finder on my Mac and found copies of ALL Entourage
vRge08 files (emails/contacts/event) stored there and figured I could just
delete them as I didn't need a back-up!!!

Big Mistake - now my Entourage calendar is empty. I haven't actually
Emptied the trash as yet, so can salvage all this info but I have no idea
which folder to put it back into???

I've tried dragging and dropping back into the documents folder but that
doesn't seem to make a difference to what I see in Entourage - so I'm
missing something - I'm sure its very straightforward - can anyone help!!!

Also another question!!! When composing an email and you're in the 'To' box
- how do you get the automatic address option....i.e you start typing the
first few letters of your contacts name and its automatically recognized?
I'm currently having to go to the 'check names' field and then selecting all
the names individually - a real pain - I'm sure there's an easier way
similar to Outlook.

Thanks

Ins

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Hi Ina!

My comments are inline with yours...

I was going through Finder on my Mac and found copies of ALL Entourage
vRge08 files (emails/contacts/event) stored there and figured I could just
delete them as I didn't need a back-up!!!

Big Mistake - now my Entourage calendar is empty. I haven't actually
Emptied the trash as yet, so can salvage all this info but I have no idea
which folder to put it back into???

What you deleted are "cache files", which Entourage generates for
Spotlight to use. Deleting these is harmless other than you may not be
able to find Entourage items using Spotlight.

Deleting these files *does not* delete items within Entourage itself.

I suspect you've also cleaned house in your Documents folder and deleted
or renamed your Microsoft User Data folder. This is where your Entourage
Database lives and Entourage must be able to find your information
there. If you changed anything within this path then put things back.
Double-click your Macintosh HD and drill down into these folders:

/Users/yourName/Documents/Microsoft User Data/
Office 2008 Identities/Main Identity/Database

Also another question!!! When composing an email and you're in the 'To' box
- how do you get the automatic address option....i.e you start typing the
first few letters of your contacts name and its automatically recognized?
I'm currently having to go to the 'check names' field and then selecting all
the names individually - a real pain - I'm sure there's an easier way
similar to Outlook.

First, go into Entourage menu --> Preferences... --> Mail & News
Preferences --> Compose and make sure the last option "Display a list of
recently used addresses when addressing messages" is selected. This Most
Recently Used (MRU) list will begin building as you send and receive
messages. After you've sent to or received a message from someone his
address will begin appearing in the list.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Thank you SOOOOOO much for your help

As you're so Entourage savy, is it okay to hit you with some more q's!!

Is there a way I can make sure all copies of e-mails aren't cached? I kinda
find this a useless feature as my e-mails will always be within
Entourage/Gmail so I don't need another copy of it?? That was the initial
thing that bothered me and that's why I got happy and deleted!!

You're right in that all the friends/family b'days that I entered in my
Entourage calendar are still there - BUT when I click on the 'Recurring
Yearly' - nothing appears whereas before they were all listed and I'd put
them into 'Friends' and 'Family' categories - so I kinda want that back????

All suggestions greatly received

Thanks

Insiya

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Does anyone know of a very quick way to delete all the quotation marks from
my contacts list so the names appear as soon as I start typing as oppose to
my having to type "john" etc etc

Most of the names start in quotation marks eg "john" "smith" - so its
painful to retrieve names -

I've started editing each contact one by one, but its killing me!! There's
gotta be a quicker way of mass editing?? Like you'd do in a word document
(find all " " and delete or replace etc etc)

THANK YOU

 

[Diane Ross]

Is there a way I can make sure all copies of e-mails aren't cached? I kinda
find this a useless feature as my e-mails will always be within
Entourage/Gmail so I don't need another copy of it?? That was the initial
thing that bothered me and that's why I got happy and deleted!!

In Entourage Preferences select Spotlight. Uncheck the option.

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Is there a way I can make sure all copies of e-mails aren't cached? I kinda
find this a useless feature as my e-mails will always be within
Entourage/Gmail so I don't need another copy of it?? That was the initial
thing that bothered me and that's why I got happy and deleted!!

These cached files aren't for backup purposes. They allow you to search
items within Entourage using Spotlight. If you don't allow Entourage to
create these files then you won't be able to search for items later.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Thanks Jolly Roger, that all sounds really complicated!

I did however attempt what I thought you were suggesting I tried.

I opened Apple Script found in a SAMPLE FOLDER an Entourage.scpt - I then
clicked on File New and copied and pasted what you had typed and then
clicked on RUN.

I'm totally clueless so no doubt have gone by this the wrong way. Can you
give me some help in baby steps

Starting with what I do when I open apple script - do I need to open a new
window or overtype the existing Entourage sample script?

What I don't understand is, why on earth would anyone want " " all over
their contacts when importing to Entourage - they're annoying as hell.

 

[Diane Ross]

I opened Apple Script found in a SAMPLE FOLDER an Entourage.scpt - I then
clicked on File New and copied and pasted what you had typed and then
clicked on RUN.

I'm totally clueless so no doubt have gone by this the wrong way. Can you
give me some help in baby steps

Open the Script Editor found in the root Application folder --> AppleScript
folder.

Copy and paste the text between "-- begin script" and "-- end script" into a
new script window.

Next click on Compile.
Save the script in your Script Menu Items folder inside the Microsoft User
Data folder for future use..
Then select Run.

This is a script you will probably not use again.

Note. Often scripts will not compile when copied from an email message. This
one gave me no problems. Since you are a novice, I wont go into details on
fixing a script line endings so it will compile.

What I don't understand is, why on earth would anyone want " " all over
their contacts when importing to Entourage - they're annoying as hell.

It happens sometimes when you import from a PC to a Mac.

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Thanks Diane.

I followed your instructions and saved the script in the Microsoft User Data
folder in the Entourage Script Menu Items folder. I then Ran it - what was
supposed to happen!!!

Were the " " meant to disappear from my address book?? Nothings changed!!

My original import was done on my macbook from yahoo to entourage - no pc's
involved.

This is all rocket science - for something which I thought should be so
simple - I can't believe it requires this coding in Apple script which I
know is easy to all the experts but for someone who just uses the macbook
for basic features - its a minefield!!

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Okay sorry to be such a pain - I just want to be crystal clear with what I'm
now attempting!!

1. Open new script in apple script and then copy and paste the following all
in ONE SCRIPT

-- begin script
on run
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set contactList to the contacts
repeat with nextContact in contactList
my RemoveQuotesFromContact(nextContact)
end repeat
end tell
end run

on RemoveQuotesFromContact(someContact)
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
tell someContact
-- remove double quotes
set first name to my SearchReplace(first name, "\"", "")
set last name to my SearchReplace(last name, "\"", "")
set title to my SearchReplace(title, "\"", "")
set nickname to my SearchReplace(nickname, "\"", "")
-- remove single quotes
set first name to my SearchReplace(first name, "'", "")
set last name to my SearchReplace(last name, "'", "")
set title to my SearchReplace(title, "'", "")
set nickname to my SearchReplace(nickname, "'", "")
end tell
end tell
end RemoveQuotesFromContact

3. THEN CLICK RUN???

Okay if the above is all correct - I've done that a few times but keep
getting this APPLE SCRIPT ERROR

"Can¹t make «class cAbE» id 4733 of application "Microsoft Entourage" into
the expected type."


THANK YOU

 

[Insiya Kaderbhai]

Thank you again for being so patient with me!! I'm learning lots tonight!!

Again, a screen shot of your contacts window would really help us
understand precisely what you are seeing! Please consider posting a
screen shot. - SCREEN SHOT BELOW
http://img56.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1mw5.png



Do me a favor and run this simple script, and tell me what happens when
you run it:

-- begin script
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
activate
display alert "There are " & (count of contacts) & " contacts."
end tell
-- end script

.Followed the instructions above and it came back with "there are 394

contacts"