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envelope icon appears when no unread email
I keep outlook running in the background, and I've told it to hide itself
when minimised - the only sign it's there is (a) it loads very quickly if I press the outlook shortcut on the QuickLaunch task-bar, and (b) I get a little envelope appear in the system tray when new email arrives. The problem is that I also get this envelope appear when there is no email to read. Now, I've got some email rules that delete and mark-as-read some emails (automated messages from an in-house server). I rather suspect that what's happening is that 1) Message arrives 2) Outlook go "Ooh, an email, RED ALERT!" and displays the little envelope 3) Outlook goes "Ooh, it matches the nuke-it rule, NUKE IT!" and nukes the email, resulting in no unread email 4) Outlook then completely fails to get rid of the envelope, leaving it up 5) I double-click on the envelope, Outlook opens and shows me that I have no unread email and the envelope notification icon was rather misleading 6) Outlook leaves the envelope icon there to ensure that I'll never know if any more email arrives Needless so say, I'm none too impressed - deciding whether or not one has unread email isn't exactly rocket science... Does anyone know any way to pursuade Outlook to _only_ tell you that you've got unread email if you've _actually_ got unread email? Thanks, Peter |
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But you don't say which version of Outlook you're running.
Oops, sorry. It's Outlook 2003 (11.6359.6408) SP1 For what it's worth, it's being run on WinXP-Pro-SP2. Checking windows-update manually tells me that I should install "Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1" (this isn't installed at present, but I guess must be fairly recent as the auto-update hasn't picked it up yet) You want this routine to fortell the future and know that 1) a rule is going to remove a message and 2) it's the last unread message in the Inbox. Software is not psychic. No, I want Outlook's "You've got new unread email" event (that triggers the little envelope icon, and/or a sound and/or a pop-up) to only be run once Outlook _knows_ if there's new unread email, rather than before it can possibly know whether or not it should tell the user. You're correct, software isn't psychic, one has to design software such that there is no requirement for routines to be psychic. Like running the rules first and then deciding whether or not to show an icon, instead of assuming that the rules aren't going to nuke the message even though rules can do so. Would you like that envelope to remain in spite of the fact that you've read a message No, the envelope icon should disappear once Outlook has received evidence that the user's taken notice of it. I agree it's not the sort of functionality one could code in a single short line, but it's not particularly complex. Outlook 2003 SP1 behaves a little differently, in that Microsoft has moved the time when the "show envelope" routine runs to after the time the rules have run. Thus, if a new message arrives and is moved from the folder by a rule, the envelope won't show. Really? Are you sure? That sounds exactly like the sort of thing that would change the behavior from what I'm seeing (which I don't like, but which seems to suit your preferences), to what I'd like. Unfortunately, I am already using Outlook 2003 SP1, and it doesn't do that here. I've done a bit of searching, and found that http://support.microsoft.com/kb/872839/ doesn't mention this change anywhere, which might explain why I don't see it here. However, if there is a patch that does achieve the effect you describe, I'd love to hear about it. Unless SP1 has changed and you got a version that did do this, or we're referring to different things that call themselves "SP1". But should it? Can you think of a scheme to satisfy both? I thought not. Actually, yes I can : If, once a new message has been processed by the rules, it has not been deleted or marked as read then it must count as a "new unread message" and its arrival must trigger the "you've got mail" action (to display the envelope icon, play a sound etc). The envelope icon should persist until an unread message is manipulated by the user in some way, e.g. reading it, deleting it, or moving it. (MS seem to have got this bit largely sussed as-is, except in situations where there is no unread email to read, hence I expect this functionality can remain unchanged) That way, if the rules leave the new item unread, you get the functionality you want and you're satisfied, whereas if the rules destroy or mark the item as read, I get the functionality I want. Like I said, it's not rocket science. Ideally, the rules should be enhanced to include a "don't tell me when this arrives" option (or the opposite, a "tell me this has arrived" rule that's set by default) so that one doesn't have to delete or mark-as-read an email just to not be told about it, putting that functionality under user control. That way a busy manager could only be notified of email marked as "urgent" if they wanted, whilst leaving non-urgent email unread in the in-box (or whatever folder it got put into by rules) until they could be bothered to read it. Again, not rocket science, but this might be deemed more complicated than necessary. |
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