Defult Mail Message Custom Form

[minditservices]

Hello -
I have a number of small, but annoying, quirks when I made a custom
form the default form for mail messages. All of these items are non-
existant if I put back the normal Outlook Message form.

I am using Outlook 2003 with Service Pack 3. The only thing I added to
the normal Message Form is a Categories button. You click the
categories button, select your categories, then they show up in a
field right below the Subject line.

1. Every time I close a message it says "Do you want to save
changes?", then I have the option of Yes, No and Cancel. This appears
to have something to do with the envelope icon that indicates the read
status of the message. If the status of that indicator changes from
unread to read then Outlook prompts to save. If I save the message it
wont ask again upon reopening/closing. I should not have to save a
message to change the envelope icon.

2. The information bar does not display. I read the article
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294359, but it just says that this
is the expected behavior and that you can add controls to simulate the
information bar. Can someone give me an example of some controls I can
use?

3. When marking a task complete I get the error message "There must be
at least one name or distribution list in the To, Cc, or Bcc box."
This only happens with assigned tasks.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

1) Do you have any code in the Item_Open event handler for your form? Are you
saving the item after you add categories?

2) You could use a label or text box. However, most of the information that
the Infobar displays is not available from Outlook objects. You'd have to use
a low-level API such as CDO 1.21 or Redemption to access those properties.
Also, I don't know that anyone has publicly documented all the information
that the Infobar displays, so you'd have to do some research to figure that
out.

3) Could you explain how marking a task complete is related to this message
form?

BTW, I don't recommend using a custom form as the default for all outgoing
email messages. Unless your mail server is stripping TNEF content, it's
going to cause attachment problems for any non-Outlook recipients. Since
Outlook 2007 does natively what you are doing with categories, you might want
to start thinking about an upgrade.

 

[minditservices]

Can you elaborate on how Outlook 2007 works with categories in this
respect? Am I able to add a field into the message so that it is right
in front of the user? If it is not smak in front of them and easy to
use they wont use it. This is the default form for all users in our
company.

1. I dont have any code that I have written. I just used the WYSIWYG
form editor, I am not a programmer.

2. Ok.

3. I have no idea. It just started throwing this error when the mail
form was changed. It will save the status change if I try twice, just
annoying to have to mark it complete multiple times.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

The Outlook Help and How-to articles on Microsoft's web site have screen
shots that show you how the Categories button on the ribbon (which replaces
the toolbar and menus) results in categories being visible on the open item.
See:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102179011033.aspx?pid=CH100777491033

1) Are you seeing this every time you open an item with your form? Or only
if you change the categories?

3) Are you saying that you started get this prompt for *tasks* when the
*message* form was changed? That doesn't make any sense to me. I can't think
of any possible connection. Or are you referring to messages that have flags,
which turn them into tasks sort of?
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart
for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Can you elaborate on how Outlook 2007 works with categories in this
respect? Am I able to add a field into the message so that it is right
in front of the user? If it is not smak in front of them and easy to
use they wont use it. This is the default form for all users in our
company.

1. I dont have any code that I have written. I just used the WYSIWYG
form editor, I am not a programmer.

3. I have no idea. It just started throwing this error when the mail
form was changed. It will save the status change if I try twice, just
annoying to have to mark it complete multiple times.