Sick of staring at Arial 10 text? Miss automated signatures and prefixed replies? This extension patches Exchange to behave more like a traditional Internet mail client.
The Exchange Internet Idioms package requires Microsoft Windows 95, with Exchange and MAPI installed, of course, or Windows NT 4.0.
It will not work with Microsoft Office 95 WordMail, since the WordMail forms don't support client extensibility; anyway, if you're using WordMail, you don't need my extension, since WordMail already contains most of the Idioms in one fashion or another. (You do need a memory upgrade, but that's not my department.)
For the same reason, it will not work with the simplified send note
included in the Windows 95 Messaging Update.
This will prevent Idioms from appending signatures to messages
sent through Internet Explorer mailto: references
unless you visit and clear Tools - Options - Send - Use simplified send note
to disable this feature.
It will not work on NT 3.51 and the "Beta 2" Exchange client sometimes used thereon.
If you read messages courtesy of the Internet Mail Connector component of Microsoft Exchange Server, Idioms cannot change the read font.
Finally, if you send mail through the Exchange Server IMC, and the IMC is configured to munge message plaintext with reply prefix characters, using the Idioms reply prefix function will yield twice-prefixed reply text. Note that you will not see this double-prefixing in your copy of the reply; only your correspondents who do not receive or else cannot render rich text will see this it. To avoid this, either do not use the Idioms reply prefix function, or else have your e-mail administrator turn off this function in the IMC by editing the registry on the server hosting the IMC, setting the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System
\Current Control Set
\Services
\MSExchangeIMC
\Parameters
\UseRTFText
to a dword value of 0 (zero).
Download inetxidm.zip (available in both Intel and Alpha flavors) from this Web page, and unzip it. Copy the DLL inetxidm.dll into your system directory (\windows\system on Windows 95, \windows\system32 on Windows NT). Check your system directory for the file msvcrt40.dll; if you lack this, see the runtime installation instructions above. Finally, feed the file inetxidm.reg to regedit. (Double-clicking it in Explorer will do this.)
(How thoughtful of me.) Exit and log out of Exchange. Fire up regedit, open the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
\Microsoft
\Exchange
\Client
\Extensions
and delete the "Internet Idioms" tag and its value. Delete the file inetxidm.dll from your system directory.
On Tools.Options, you will see a new property page tab, Idioms.
The Font button allows you to specify the default read font. Once set, any message from a non-rich-text-using sender will appear in this font, as opposed to Arial 10. I recommend Courier 10. Should you forward or reply such a message, your added text will appear in a different font, specified on Tools.Options.Read; I recommend that you set this to Courier 10 as well.
The checkbox, if set, lets you enter a chunk of boilerplate text into the following edit field. Exchange will append this text to every message you send, for as long as you keep the checkbox set. You may clear the checkbox to disable this behavior. You may also override this setting on a single message through the Format - Use signature command (q.v.). Rich text recipients will see this text in the font Arial 10. (To compose a signature block that looks good in a monospace font, which is how non-rich-text recipients will see your signature, first assemble the text in Notepad or another monospace editor, then paste the results into the Idioms signature edit control.)
Another checkbox lets you enter a reply prefix string. If set, Exchange will change the format of its replies to prefix each line of text with this string. Note that if the original message consisted of Exchange-style paragraphs, this function will quote the entire paragraph with only a single prefix character: it will not break the paragraph into lines. When faced with a very long message, or one containing Exchange-style paragraph lines in its first few lines, Idioms will offer to use the native Exchange reply format.
On the Format menu of a send note you will find a new command, Use signature. Set its checkmark to append the signature to any particular message, or clear it to suppress the signature, such as when forwarding a message to another user. You may place this command on the toolbar, if you like. Note that the setting of Use signature is the setting of the checkmark on the Options.Idioms pane. By default, Exchange signs only new messages and replies - not forwarded messages.
At the bottom of the page rests my vanity About UI.
Note that Idioms keeps all its settings per-profile. If you have been using a 0.1.x version of Idioms, you may now delete the registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
\Angry Greycat Designs
\Internet Idioms
\0.1
(yes, Greycat with an e -
since then, I've Americanized the spelling)
that an earlier version used.
There are plenty of these. This is sample code, after all, stressing simplicity at the expense of features and configurability.
Signatures always appear at the end of the message body, after any included message text in a reply. Even when Exchange indents reply text, only rich-text capable recipients will be able to differentiate the included text from the signature of the replying sender. Use the reply prefix feature to change the shape of a reply into something that works well with signatures.
Some users have reported seeing signatures enjamb against the end of their message when they didn't end the message with a carriage return. Other users report that their signature loses all its preceding blanks. These are shortcomings in the MAPI engine that synchronizes rich text with plain. To work around them, eschew leading whitespace in your signature, or else never include rich text in your messages.
Signatures cannot exceed 4K characters.
Read-font settings notwithstanding, signature text always appears in Arial 10. This doesn't matter if the recipient isn't receiving rich text, since that recipient will see everything in a single font.
There's no way to specify "Auto" when selecting the color of a read-font.
A read-font, once set, overrides any font the user may have selected in Tools.Options.Send. To revert message text to the specified send font, press Ctrl-Space. Note that reply fonts still work without any such magic.
Replies that use prefixes throw a lot of rich text into the message. This can double the size of the message in your local store.
The reply prefixing function is hideously, unusably slow when invoked on long messages.
Internet Idioms is available only in English. When used with a non-English-language Exchange, it will generate reply text consisting of a mixture of English and the localized language.
Read-font mapping does not work correctly with non-Western scripts such as Cyrillic and Greek. Unfortunately I lack the resources to develop for this configuration. (Could anybody loan me a Thai-language keyboard and Thai Windows 95?)
One user reports that Internet Idioms prevents the Exchange Server client AutoSignature function from working.
In what language did you write this?
C++, though C would work as well..
I want the extension to handle <feature>. Will you add this feature?
No, sorry. This is sample code; I'm deliberately keeping it simple, and so will add no more features to this extension.
I want the extension to handle <feature>. Can I have the source to implement it myself?
No, sorry. The source is part of my book. I can't give it away. At present, all I can do is direct you to the MAPI documentation.
Book? What book?
This book.
Why is the reply prefix checkbox grey? Why can't I click on it?
You have an old version of Idioms. Please update it.
Do you have any future plans for Idioms?
This autumn I plan to fix some of its more obvious pieces of brain damage, my tendonitis willing.