Outlook API emulator?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John A.
  • Start date Start date
J

John A.

We have recently purchased an order management program that we have
now discovered requires Outlook in order to send email to customers.

We neither have nor want Outlook.

Is there an Outlook API emulator or some such program out there that
will relay the mail via SMTP? That's all we'd need.

Thanks!
JA
 
John A. said:
We have recently purchased an order management program that we have
now discovered requires Outlook in order to send email to customers.

We neither have nor want Outlook.

Is there an Outlook API emulator or some such program out there that
will relay the mail via SMTP? That's all we'd need.

Thanks!
JA
Click to expand...


An Outlook API would mean an interface *to* Outlook, like like the API in
Quicken provides access *to* Quicken and the Win32 API provides access *to*
Windows system functions. If the program requires Outlook, and if you need
to have it do e-mails, then you're stuck using Outlook. Of course, since
you never bothered to mention WHAT program you are asking about, no one
familiar with it can help you. If it is a vertical market product then you
contact its developer. If it is a proprietary product for you alone then
contact the programmer that you contracted to write it.

Are you sure the unnamed product might not instead be using a mailto:// link
to send out e-mails? Then whatever e-mail client is currently designated as
the default one is the one used to send out the e-mails. See
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2368.html. It looks like an entire e-mail can
be described within a mailto:// URL, including the body of the message. So
all you have to do is change which e-mail client is the default one.
 
Are you sure the unnamed product might not instead be using a mailto://
link to send out e-mails?
Click to expand...

There are a number of apps that use mapi to send mail - and they require
outlook. Those that don't will say they work with any product or include a
SMTP server.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
 
An Outlook API would mean an interface *to* Outlook, like like the API in
Quicken provides access *to* Quicken and the Win32 API provides access *to*
Windows system functions. If the program requires Outlook, and if you need
to have it do e-mails, then you're stuck using Outlook. Of course, since
you never bothered to mention WHAT program you are asking about, no one
familiar with it can help you. If it is a vertical market product then you
contact its developer. If it is a proprietary product for you alone then
contact the programmer that you contracted to write it.

Are you sure the unnamed product might not instead be using a mailto:// link
to send out e-mails? Then whatever e-mail client is currently designated as
the default one is the one used to send out the e-mails. See
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2368.html. It looks like an entire e-mail can
be described within a mailto:// URL, including the body of the message. So
all you have to do is change which e-mail client is the default one.
Click to expand...

An API is just an API. As long as the API is the same it doesn't
matter what program is presenting it. I think you missed the part
where I wrote "emulator". APIs can be emulated. Take
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/control.htm for instance: it presents
the same API as IE but with the Gecko engine (or at least as much of
the API as it can or needs to present.)

I'm hoping a program exists that can look like Outlook to programs
trying to use its API, but just relay outgoing email to our SMTP
server. It should also preferably be free. :) Heck, I'm thinking of
tackling programming it myself as a learning exercise, but I'm sure
that would take too long to suit our present needs.

The program we're wrestling with, BTW is Dydacomp's MOM. The only
email settings it presents are a checkbox to send notices by email,
and a suboption to use Outlook 2000 or later. The documentation only
mentions sending email via Outlook, so I assume the suboption is only
referring to the version or Outlook. I have read elsewhere that it can
use Outlook Express if you have it set as your default email program,
which we don't really want. I tried it with Forte Agent as the default
email program, but it did not do a thing. I have emailed Dydacomp
about it, but figured I'd look into an Outlook-SMTP relay as well and
see what bore fruit first.
 
John A. said:
An API is just an API. As long as the API is the same it doesn't
matter what program is presenting it. I think you missed the part
where I wrote "emulator". APIs can be emulated. Take
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/control.htm for instance: it presents
the same API as IE but with the Gecko engine (or at least as much of
the API as it can or needs to present.)

I'm hoping a program exists that can look like Outlook to programs
trying to use its API, but just relay outgoing email to our SMTP
server. It should also preferably be free. :) Heck, I'm thinking of
tackling programming it myself as a learning exercise, but I'm sure
that would take too long to suit our present needs.

The program we're wrestling with, BTW is Dydacomp's MOM. The only
email settings it presents are a checkbox to send notices by email,
and a suboption to use Outlook 2000 or later. The documentation only
mentions sending email via Outlook, so I assume the suboption is only
referring to the version or Outlook. I have read elsewhere that it can
use Outlook Express if you have it set as your default email program,
which we don't really want. I tried it with Forte Agent as the default
email program, but it did not do a thing. I have emailed Dydacomp
about it, but figured I'd look into an Outlook-SMTP relay as well and
see what bore fruit first.
Click to expand...


Yes, I realize an API is simply (and hopefully) a well-defined interface for
communication by clients to a server process and that more than one server
process can present the same API to the clients. So, does the UNNAMED
software product actually use MAPI (Mail API) in which the e-mail client is
*not* specified so you use whatever one you want, or did they perhaps use
VBA in Outlook or a plug-in that specifically and only loads inside of
Outlook to perform their proprietary functions? Maybe your UNNAMED product
doesn't rely on just MAPI or a plug-in but instead relies on CDO
(Collaboration Data Objects) to communicate with Outlook. Since these are
DLLs provided by Microsoft, it might be illegal to reverse engineer them to
provide your own CDO emulator. Microsoft does not provide public source
products. It's their proprietary and copyrighted code. Providing a
reverse-engineered CDO emulator would be the same as providing a
reverse-engineered Outlook look-alike program. See
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/insider/providers.mspx.

As I recall, some older versions of Windows don't even supply MAPI until
Outlook gets installed. If you didn't install Outlook, you have *no* MAPI
to issue your function calls against.

Since you have yet to identify the program (perhaps because no one but you
and a few others have it), no one familiar with it will know HOW it
communicates to Outlook. So go ask the author of the unnamed product as to
how it works, why they force users to use Outlook, and if perhaps Outlook
really isn't a forced requirement (i.e., you could use another e-mail
client) but maybe they only document how to use Outlook with their product
because they won't support any user trying to use anything other than
Outlook. If all they were doing is using Outlook for e-mail, they would not
have had to tie their product to a specific e-mail client, so it is likely
that they are making use of non-email functionality of Outlook - but that's
just a guess since the product in question has never been identified.
 
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