sound?

[mmmad]

Did anyone ever solve the mystery of why the sound notifications don't work
in Entourage 2008 v12.1.1 (OS 10.5.4)? I looked in the archives and saw lots
of traffic, but I didn't see anything definitive.

Having recently created a new identity, I don't think that's the solution
for me. The notifications work when I press on the sample button in the
preferences window. They just don't work on incoming mail!

Cheers,
Madeline

 

[Diane Ross]

Did anyone ever solve the mystery of why the sound notifications don't work
in Entourage 2008 v12.1.1 (OS 10.5.4)? I looked in the archives and saw lots
of traffic, but I didn't see anything definitive.

The original problem was fixed with an update.

Having recently created a new identity, I don't think that's the solution
for me. The notifications work when I press on the sample button in the
preferences window. They just don't work on incoming mail!

I'm assuming that all sounds are checked in Preferences --> Notifications.

If you can hear sounds from other applications, but not the Entourage sounds
have a look at this Apple Knowledge Base article.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300832>

An application may have set your audio output settings too high. If that
fails and you have GarageBand, try opening and closing it.

 

[mmmad]

Tried them all. None worked. Sound is working fine in other apps.

I don't have the sounds checked in Notifications, but I have rules that are
supposed to apply sounds for specific accounts.

I'd never opened GarageBand before! It's kind of neat.

 

[Diane Ross]

I don't have the sounds checked in Notifications, but I have rules that are
supposed to apply sounds for specific accounts.

I believe the sounds have to be checked for the rules to work. Have you ever
seen my spiel on using custom sounds with Entourage?

I use Jolly's Play Sound application with a rule to get customized sounds
for certain categories of mail. To me this is much more useful than the
default sounds that do not distinguish between important mail and spam.

See this page for using custom sounds with Entourage. You can even create
your own sounds or use computer voices to announce your mail. For example,
you could have the AppleScript say ³Mail from Dad².

Rule to Play Sound (link includes downloads for sounds and how to make your
own.)

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/sounds.html>

I use a combination of sounds for alerts mixed with voices. I have one alert
that can be heard all over the house it's so loud when I'm waiting on a
really important email.

 

[mmmad]

Ah, selecting the sounds in prefs did turn them all on, but I'm at a loss on
how to control them -- because I want to do exactly what you suggest.

I downloaded Play Sound. I'm a little confused by the instructions as I
didn't think OSX had a finder any more. (The installation instructions say
drop the app on the finder.)

To which Diane responded:

 

[Diane Ross]

I downloaded Play Sound. I'm a little confused by the instructions as I
didn't think OSX had a finder any more. (The installation instructions say
drop the app on the finder.)

See the Blue Apple Face icon in the Dock....that's the Finder. It's the
primary application of the OS.

Are the directions in Play sound to drop on the Finder? All I see is to play
a sound (this is outside of Entourage) you can drop a sound file on the Play
Sound application icon. For our purposes, Entourage will call the
application to play the sound we specify in our script.

1. Download Play Sound
2. Place the application Play Sound in your application folder.
3. Create "Custom Sounds" folder in your Microsoft User Data folder
4. Put the script to play sound in the Entourage script menu items folder.

You can download the sample scripts and sounds or create your own.

 

[mmmad]

I was hallucinating when I read the instructions (drag it to the finder"??).
Anyway, I got it to work and I'm all happy again. Now what will I use to
distract me from doing the work I'm supposed to be doing?

Many thanks, Diane.
Madeline

 

[Diane Ross]

Now what will I use to
distract me from doing the work I'm supposed to be doing?

I can suggest a lot of things to distract you. I just spent time using
two Automator scripts to download desktop images then assign Spotlight
comments to them. It was so easy to do, that I spent quite some time saving
time.

BTW, have you checked out the sample Automator actions for Entourage 2008.
Look at the bottom of the Script menu in the Menu bar.

 

[mmmad]

Sorry, Jolly. In addition to hallucinating while reading the Play Sound
instructions I was looking for the old system file that used to live in the
system folder. Or whatever it was called. I told you. I was hallucinating.

Madeline

 

[Ed Kimball]

Sorry, Jolly. In addition to hallucinating while reading the Play Sound
instructions I was looking for the old system file that used to live in the
system folder. Or whatever it was called. I told you. I was hallucinating.

Madeline

Oh - the Finder file in System Folder? Gotcha.[/QUOTE]


Right. OS X 10.5.4 no longer has a file called Finder in the System Folder
(nor in the Library nor Applications folders nor anywhere else). At least
not a visible one; I didn't search for invisibles.