Capturing Outlook Forms Events

[Duke2]

Hi,

I'm new to Outlook forms programing, so this quesiotn may sound silly to you
guys. Please bear with me, if so.

I'm trying to retrieve the message ID when a user clicks on a message on
Outlook 2007 and run a script (a macro?) and thereby do some checks and if
the check qualifies the message for a certain condition replace the mesage
with a standard message that's stored locally as an .msg file.

I know how to call a macro but don't know how to link a macro to an event.
Also I don't know how to parse an msg file into IPM.Note form.

Could you help me by giving me some tips, pointing to some reference
matirals online and/or offline (books). I know these are very basic
operations in Outlook programming, but I'm clueless.

Thanks

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

Are you asking what event fires when the user clicks on an item in a folder
window? That has nothing to do with Outlook custom forms. The relevant event
is Explorer.SelectionChange event.

What do you mean by "message ID"? By "replace the message," do you mean
replace the entire Outlook message item? Or replace the message body?

To bring an .msg file into Outlook, use the Namespace.OpenSharedItem method.

The book and web site mentioned in my signature supplement the basic
information available in VBA Help.

 

[Duke2]

Hi Sue,

Thanks for the quick response. I just bought your book "Outlook 2007
Programming" and just started learning Outlook programming.

I'm asking what event fires when the user clicks on an Outlook item, mainly
what events fire when user selects a message by clicking on an item on
Outlook main window. I didnt mean to say what events get fired on Windows
folder level.

I want to capture the unique ID of the message available in the header
called message_ID and then run a query against this message and see if it
qualifies for my special handling. If it does then I want to replace the
entire message with a stathc message that's stored locally in an msg file.

Thanks

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

As I said, Explorer.SelectionChange is the event that fires when the user
clicks on an item in the main Outlook window.

To access the message header, you would use the PropertyAccessor object;
there's an example at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...2007whatsnewdeveloperspart2__propertyaccessor.
It's VB.NET, but the basic approach would be similar in VBA, if that's what
you're writing code for.

What does "run a query against this message" mean in your scenario?

 

[Duke2]

Hi Sue,

By runnig a query I meant, using the email's message ID, I'd run a DB query
against the database stored in the same network and then based on the
results, I'll decide to show the original contents or show a static message
from an msg file (stored locally). I have a back end process running (on
Exchange Server) that sniffs through all email contents and if any of them
have some keyowrds, I want them not be show to the user and instead show a
standard message.

Thank you for directing me to the VB.NET sample. I'll attempt to rewrite it
in VBA. However I have a question, if I want to do this in VB.NEt then I have
to develop an Outlook add-in using VSTO I assume. Please tell me if my
assumption is right. I prefer to write code in C# (or VB.NET) and VBA is my
second choice.

If I can access the message header through PropertyAccessor object, where
should I run the script to access it? This is the most confusing part to me.
As I said before I can write some macros, but don't know how to call them
and/or link them to events.

Thanks
Duke

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

As I said in my earlier response, Explorer.SelectionChange is the event that
fits your scenario. Any good VSTO add-in sample for Outlook should show you
how to work with various event handlers in C#.

I'm not sure your complete scenario is workable, though, unless you plan to
completely replace the original message as it arrives. There's no separate
functionality for controlling what's displayed in the reading pane. Also,
users could turn on AutoPreview, which would show them some of the message
contents even before they click on a particular message. Since you already
have a server process running, maybe it should be doing the message
replacement operation.

 

[Duke2]

Thank you for the reply. In my case though I can not use VSTO but should
stick to macros as I'm not allowed to install anything on client's machines.
I hope this is something that can be done in Outlook 2007.

Yes, my intention is to replace the whole message and not just few fields
like body, subject. However if I do this in the back-end, the replacement
will be permanent I assume. That's also something that's not allowed. I have
to preserve the original message and at the same time display a different
message to the user. If I can replace the complete message as it arrives, my
goal is achieved.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

Before you go down that road, you should be aware that there's no simple way
to distribute VBA code to other users; see
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=28 Also, users can delete VBA
code easily. How are you planning to avoid that?

I have
to preserve the original message and at the same time display a different
message to the user. If I can replace the complete message as it arrives,
my
goal is achieved.

And do what with the original message? Also, if this is an Exchange
environment, wouldn't the user be able to see the full message with OWA?

 

[Duke2]

I thought by publishing into Organizational Forms Library, I can easily
distribute these macros to the users. But after looking at your post, I'm bit
worried.

my intention is not to show the message's original contents if it qualifies
my criteria (as I described before). I've also modified OWA premium pages to
do the same thing. OWA part is prety much complete, but it appears that
without installing anything on client's machine, I wont be able to do the
same thing with Outlook.

If we forget the distribution difficulty for a minute and think this only
needs to work on a single Outlook instance, how can I capture the events and
call a macro? Can you show me an example of this?

Thanks
Duke

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

Forms published to the Organizational Forms library run VBScript code, not
VBA code, and would not provide a solution for your scenario.

These articles on Outlook events include VBA code samples and are also
available in VBA Help on your machine:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147654.aspx -
Explorer.SelectionChange
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147644.aspx -
Inspectors.NewInspector

Still looking for an answer to my question about what you plan to do with
the original message's content if you replace all the fields with data from
some other source.

 

[Duke2]

I'm sorry for not being clear on what am I going to do to the original
message. I'm simply not going to show it the recipient, but then forward a
copy (through a back end process run on Exchagne Server) to an auditor and
preserve it as evidence. In case the auditor gives the approval I'll remove
the blocked status on the message and afterwards user will be able to see the
original contents.

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out now.
Duke

BTW: Pete McClean told me to say hi to you.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

This sounds like a scenario that should be implemented totally at the server
level, with no client-side functionality involved, much as some spam filters
operate.

 

[Duke2]

Hi Sue,

Thank you very much for the advise. I'm now convinced that doing this
operation at client side is not possible.

However to do this at server side, I need to capture message selection event
and then run my check on the server. Do you think Exchange will allow me to
capture message selection events? I know this is something that's not
possible with EWS as it's essentially a request-based set of operations.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

Message selection, being a client function, doesn't fire an event on the
server. But if you modify the contents of the all the messages as they
arrive it, you don't need selection.

 

[Duke2]

Hi Sue,

I'm sorry for making things confusing. Let me explain my requirement in a
differnet (hopefully) simpler way.

When a I select a message by clicking on it on Outlook, I want to capture
that event and inside that event I want to retrieve its message ID, and
instead of retrieving the message X (which it should retrieve), I want to
retrieve message Y from the same mailbox. Is this something possible to do in
Outlook forms?

Thanks
Duke

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

You mean "display," not "retrieve" for the messages, right? And you also
have the requirement, I presume, to prevent the user from seeing the
original item's content. If so, the only way to accomplish those goals is
for the original content to have been replaced *before* the user can do
anything with the item, and that's not something that can be done with an
Outlook form alone.

 

[Duke2]

Hi Sue,

No I mean "retrieve" not just "display". Can I change Outlook to retrieve a
different message instead of the message it's supposed to retrieve from
server?

Thanks
Duke

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

In a programming context, "retrieve" generally means to return values from
some source. You can return whatever values you want from whatever source
you want, but if you want to block the message -- as your previous posts
indicated -- then I can only assume that you're talking about what is
displayed in the UI. So, that's "display," not "retrieve."

Or do you have some other scenario in mind?

 

[Duke2]

Yes in that context it's "display". I only want to display a different
message without replacing the original message in the server. So later on
when I want to, I can display the original message.

In perview however, I dont mind showing the original message.

Thanks
Duke

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

Well, I can't say that makes any sense to me. I mean, what's the point of
showing the user one thing in the reading pane and another thing in the
Inspector window. That sounds like a recipe for confusion. It's certainly
not a scenario that would fit any definition of blocking that I've ever
encountered.

But if you want to do it, just use a custom form for those items that runs
whatever code you want in the Item_Open event handler. Or, even simpler,
design the custom form so that the only visible page has a text box on it
with whatever it is you want the user to see, rather than the message body.

All subject, of course, to the warning I gave earlier about potential
problems with attachments if any of these items are forwarded.