====================================================
clOutMon by cLabs. Version 0.1   Build 4   3/8/2000
Outlook Monitor
http://members.home.net/chrsmo/clabs.htm
mailto:chrismo@homemail.com
====================================================

clOutMon is freeware. cLabs provides it AS IS and does not take 
responsibility for any harm it causes whatsoever.

Outlook Monitor is a Win 9x/NT tray applet that monitors the 
Inbox for unread email. An empty or full envelope is displayed 
depending on the status of unread email in the Inbox. It also 
removes the Outlook envelope from the tray.

It has only been confirmed to work with Outlook 98, although it 
should work with other versions. If you confirm that it works 
with other versions of Outlook, please email me (see top).

You have Outlook running in order to *start* clOutMon. You can
shut down Outlook and clOutMon will remain running.

====
WHY?
====

Microsoft Outlook displays an envelope in the tray whenever any 
new email arrives. I subscribe to a number of heavy volume mail 
lists and hate that. I have rules that move all my list mail to 
various folders. Real mail remains in my Inbox. I got tired of 
being distracted by the ever present envelope icon and never 
knowing if I had real mail in my Inbox. 

While there are a ton of monitoring utilities available, most 
don't seem to replace the envelope icon Outlook places in the 
tray. (Maybe some do, I don't claim to have researched this 
much). In the Microsoft newsgroups, the MVP replies I read in 
response to people requesting the death of the Outlook envelope 
mentioned there was no utility they knew of that would kill the 
envelope. I took up the challenge.

I was quickly vanquished. Then I ran across some code Nick Repin 
wrote that got me most of the way there. Thanks to his otherwise 
undocumented code to enumerate tray icons (see 
http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/gigo/311/ for more information) 
I was able to squash the envelope.


=====
FILES
=====

clOutMon.exe   executable
readme.txt     this readme file


======
SOURCE
======

clOutMon was written in Delphi (http://www.borland.com/delphi).

cLabs plans on making this cheezy little program Open Source in 
the near future.


====
BUGS
====

- if connection to Exchange server is lost, clOutMon doesn't 
disable the timer and keeps checking the InBox every x seconds 
and throwing a new error dialog. Bad. Best workaround is kill the 
clOutMon process from Task Manager (NT) or the Task List (9x). If 
you want, you can turn this into a video game called, "Try to 
close the tray icon before *another* dialog box appears to 
thrwart your attempt." Difficulty level for this game can be set 
be decreasing the Check Inbox interval.


====
TODO
====

DISCLAIMER: All of the following may never happen:

- Allow selection of folders to monitor
- Allow option for on-demand checking
- Option to double-click tray icon to bring Outlook to front
- Offer to make envelope disappear if no msgs. But then, how do 
  they shut down the utility?
- Maybe mimic Outlook tray behavior - only display when something 
  new comes in and stop display when any new thing has been read. 
- Offer to accept login parameters - or throw up a dialog so they 
  can monitor Outlook without it open. 

=========
BUILD LOG
=========
Build 4 - 3/3/2000
-------------------
Added Options dialog to set the frequency with which the Inbox is 
checked.

Added option to beep (either default .wav or PC Speaker) at a 
user-defined interval for an unlimited or limited time when 
unread mail exists in the Inbox.


Build 3 - 3/3/2000
-------------------
1st released build.