Outlook Add-in Interaction with Desktop Search Paul Lennon <plennon[ at ]legato.nospam.com> 2/2/2007 2:31:25 PM Hi, I have an Outlook add-in that works fine as the user moves about the Outlook UI. They forward a message, I get the forward event. Same goes for open and reply. Now our users want to use Windows Desktop Search (WDS) and Google Desktop Search (GDS). Both of these applications present a list of messages to the user from which they can open, forward, reply and the like. Each of these actions transfers the user to Outlook where the message appears ready for them to access. My add-in receives the "open in Outlook" open event and behaves correctly. I am not able to receive the reply, reply all and forward events. I receive the open event because I monitor the Inspector activate event and then hook all of the messages within the inspector view. This works with the desktop search apps since their open passes through the Inspector. Messages that are replied to or forwarded are used as the template for a new message. I suspect that they are read and that I should receive a read event. The inspector is activated only after the forwarded message is created and made available for edit. I receive message events because I registered my addin with each message in the Inspector. Since the search app can find any message in the entire mailbox does this mean that I need to register with every message just so that I can learn when a message is being read? I know of customers with 10s of thousands of messages per mailbox (one claims 100K), this seems like a brute force method. Is there a lighter way? Does Outlook post an event that says "I am reading this message"? Thanks for your help, Paul

Re: Outlook Add-in Interaction with Desktop Search "Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]" <kenslovak[ at ]mvps.org> 2/2/2007 3:44:33 PM Obviously you can handle NewInspector and that will tell you something was opened, you just have no way of knowing if it was opened as a forward or reply or whatever without hacking at the subject and seeing if it has RE or FWD in it and that's only good for English (a German reply would have AW). Unless those search objects expose a programmable API there's no way to know what they are showing. Handling a possible action on every item in every folder of every open store is not practical. Even if you could set it up the processing overhead would bring Outlook to its knees. I'd probably try to do the best I could with NewInspector by checking for EntryID = "" to see if it's a new item, checking for Body and HTMLBody being blank and testing the subject for clues as to replies and forwards. In a threaded conversation you can also use ConversationTopic to find other emails in the same thread and guess about reply/forward. The item.Read event only fires for an item where you are handling events, so that's not practical. -- Ken Slovak [MVP - Outlook] http://www.slovaktech.com Author: Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Reminder Manager, Extended Reminders, Attachment Options http://www.slovaktech.com/products.htm "Paul Lennon" <plennon[ at ]legato.nospam.com> wrote in message news:%23jgsSbtRHHA.1016[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... [Quoted Text] > Hi, > > I have an Outlook add-in that works fine as the user moves about the > Outlook UI. They forward a message, I get the forward event. Same goes for > open and reply. Now our users want to use Windows Desktop Search (WDS) and > Google Desktop Search (GDS). Both of these applications present a list of > messages to the user from which they can open, forward, reply and the > like. Each of these actions transfers the user to Outlook where the > message appears ready for them to access. > > My add-in receives the "open in Outlook" open event and behaves correctly. > I am not able to receive the reply, reply all and forward events. I > receive the open event because I monitor the Inspector activate event and > then hook all of the messages within the inspector view. This works with > the desktop search apps since their open passes through the Inspector. > Messages that are replied to or forwarded are used as the template for a > new message. I suspect that they are read and that I should receive a read > event. The inspector is activated only after the forwarded message is > created and made available for edit. > > I receive message events because I registered my addin with each message > in the Inspector. Since the search app can find any message in the entire > mailbox does this mean that I need to register with every message just so > that I can learn when a message is being read? I know of customers with > 10s of thousands of messages per mailbox (one claims 100K), this seems > like a brute force method. Is there a lighter way? Does Outlook post an > event that says "I am reading this message"? > > Thanks for your help, > > Paul

Re: Outlook Add-in Interaction with Desktop Search Paul Lennon <plennon[ at ]legato.nospam.com> 2/2/2007 5:21:10 PM Hi Ken, I agree, registering each item for events would be terrible. Presently I see the NewInspector event and then the Open on the new message. You are suggesting that I modify the new message during the Open event. That makes sense. I was going through the message properties on a forwarded message and I didn't see any references to the source message. Do you know if Outlook tracks the original message id? Trying to match the new message to one of many thousand others is going to be a bear too. The desktop search apps are most likely calling in through a MAPI or CDO API. I wonder if I can hook into that and intercept the forward/reply request there? Thanks for your help. Paul

Re: Outlook Add-in Interaction with Desktop Search "Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]" <kenslovak[ at ]mvps.org> 2/2/2007 7:24:20 PM I'm not suggesting that you modify anything on the message. I suggested a series of checks of: EntryID: null string for new emails just being opened and never saved. Could be new, reply, forward. Subject: will have RE or FWD at beginning if the message is a forward or reply. ConversationTopic: Any earlier message in a thread will have the same ConversationTopic, which can be searched for. ConversationIndex gets longer by as I recall 20 bytes per message in a thread. So message 1 will have a ConversationIndex length of X, message 2 (reply or forward) would have X + 20, etc. Anything will be a hack, you just have to pick the hacks you want to use. -- Ken Slovak [MVP - Outlook] http://www.slovaktech.com Author: Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Reminder Manager, Extended Reminders, Attachment Options http://www.slovaktech.com/products.htm "Paul Lennon" <plennon[ at ]legato.nospam.com> wrote in message news:%23dVKJ6uRHHA.4384[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... [Quoted Text] > Hi Ken, > > I agree, registering each item for events would be terrible. Presently I > see the NewInspector event and then the Open on the new message. You are > suggesting that I modify the new message during the Open event. That makes > sense. I was going through the message properties on a forwarded message > and I didn't see any references to the source message. Do you know if > Outlook tracks the original message id? Trying to match the new message to > one of many thousand others is going to be a bear too. > > The desktop search apps are most likely calling in through a MAPI or CDO > API. I wonder if I can hook into that and intercept the forward/reply > request there? > > Thanks for your help. > > Paul