Picture Attachments Wizard (Beta) for Microsoft Outlook


UPDATE:
The commercial version of Picture Attachments Wizard (v. 1.1) has been released.  See this posting for more details.

NOTE:
Due to data loss with OfficeZealot’s blog server, all comments posted between April 28 and June 8 , 2005 to any of my blog entries were inadvertently deleted.  The end of this blog entry contains the text of the comments applicable to this posting that I was able to recover.

After first blogging about a new way to handle viewing multiple picture attachments with Outlook, and then expanding on that idea in my MSDN article, I have now taken it even further by developing a COM Add-In called Picture Attachments Wizard for Microsoft Outlook.  This Beta version (0.9) is a free 45-day trial that can be downloaded here.  Give it a try and let me know what you think – all feedback (constructive, I hope!) is welcome.

Here’s a screen shot of the main Wizard screen:

More screenshots:

Requirements:  Windows XP, Outlook 2000/XP/2003.

Features:

  • Thumbnail view of attached photos in a separate screen
    • from Inbox, select message and view thumbnail screen
    • from e-mail, can tile thumbnail screen horizontally or vertically with the e-mail message
    • Auto-display thumbnails when e-mail opens
  • Run slideshow of attached photos
    • Launch from Inbox or e-mail
    • Can control slide transition timing
    • Navigation buttons for pausing or cycling through the pictures
  • Wizard form
    • View EXIF (Extensible Image File Format, soon to be known as the DCF – Digital Camera File format) details of photos; this is photographic information that is stored in the picture files from most digital cameras (camera model, date picture taken, shutter speed, flash mode, F-number, exposure time, etc.)
    • Open all or selected pictures with a choice of any installed image viewer application
    • Quick save all or selected pictures to default folder (no browsing to save)
    • Expand thumbnail view to full screen
    • Collapse/expand Picture Tasks and Picture Info explorer bars
  • Toolbar on main Outlook window and e-mail window to launch Wizard form, Thumbnails screen, slideshow, quick save attachments and change wizard settings
  • Ability to save all picture attachments in all e-mail messages in your Inbox to a location you choose in one shot
  • Program settings:
    • Change default attachment save directory
    • Auto display Wizard, thumbnails or slideshow when opening an e-mail message
      • Only auto display above when all attachments are pictures or at least one is a picture
      • Auto display thumbnails screen with e-mail message tiled vertically or horizontally
    • Hide extra text on slideshow screen
    • Hide main Outlook Picture Attachments Wizard toolbar on startup

An extra-special thanks to VBAccelerator.com for some great resources, libraries and controls.

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 COMMENTS RESTORED FROM BACKUP:

Thu 5/19/2005 9:56 AM Jon Hewitt

“Absolutlely brilliant. All works OK, but when I start Outlook I get the fllowing error:

Error 5 (Invalid procedure call or argument) in procedure RetrieveInstalledBrowsers of Module basPictureAttachments)”

Thu 5/19/2005 10:13 AM Eric Legault http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault

“Thanks Jon! As for your error – what browsers do you have installed? What version of XP – SP1 or SP2 (or none?)

If you are comfortable working with the registry editor, it would be really helpful if you could export the contents of this key to a file and e-mail it to me (rename the .reg file to .txt so it doesn’t get trashed):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREClientsStartMen
uInternet

You can e-mail me by clicking Contact in the My Links section of this page at the top left.”

Sat 5/28/2005 3:35 PM William Dowell

Love it! thank you! I have no errors my end, (running XP SP2) and all has been brilliant. I look forward to the final version :-)

Fri 6/3/2005 1:52 PM  Chris Manning

I just tried this out and it seems to work great. I think that the options that you added hit the nail on the head. However, what can be done at the end of the trial period with this free version?

Fri 6/3/2005 2:37 PM Eric Legault http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault

Chris: At the end of the trial, the add-in will load but none of the functionality will work, and you’ll have to uninstall it.

Mon 6/6/2005 9:29 AM Chris Manning

When/where will this item be released? How can I continue to use this past the trial period? This application seems to be very stable. Do you have plans to extend the functionality more than what has been developed? Thanks!

END COMMENTS RESTORE
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Eric Legault

Full-stack product builder & consultant for Microsoft 365 & Graph. Microsoft MVP 2003 - 2019. Outlook add-in guru. Rocker. Video/audio engineer. Collects Thors.

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