Customized Outlook Form Questions

[gwolinsky]

Some backgroud. Our users (law firm) need to be able to append some
standard text to the subject lines of email messages at their
descretion. I decided to try and customize a form to include this
functionality. I started by designing the standard mail message form.
I shortened the subject line field and added a button that simply
appends the required text to what is already in the subject line. Only
about 5 lines of code.

I was able to publish it as a new form to the Organizational Forms
folder for others to use. In testing it, the recipient gets the "This
item contains active content that cannot be displayed..." when trying
to preview the message. If they open the message, it displays fine.
Also, the icon for the message is a "post" icon instead of the usual
email icons.

I've seen several things on the boards regarding this, but it seems
everything is talking about OL2k or OL2002. We are using OL2003.

Is there anyway to:
1. Set the form up so that this will work in preview;
2. Get the icons correct;
3. Have the users use this as the default email form.

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated as I am a newby
to Outlook programming of any kind.

Sincerely,
Glen Wolinsky

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

A custom form is the worst possible solution for this. Besides your issue #1, if the recipient isn't using Outlook and you send an attachment with the message, the recipient won't be able to read the attachment at all.

The best solution would be a COM add-in. If you have a small number of users, you could also consider a VBA solution, but keep in mind there's no supported distribution procedure for Outlook VBA code, which is designed for your personal use.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[gwolinsky]

I was afraid of that. I've got an add-in solution that works but
causes a problem with our MailSite (iManage) integration. I'm still
trying to figure out how to make that work as you can see from these
postings:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...dins/browse_frm/thread/443c60d8db818e65?hl=en

Thanks,
Glen