How to: make Entourage announce new email arrival

"You have new mail, Master..."

I find that I tend to keep Entourage in its own Leopard Space. That Space is typically in the background, and when I return to it I am almost always greeted with a few new messages and at least one to which I could (or should) have immediately responded.

If you wish to use the script, place it in a folder such as 'Documents' and apply it using a rule, as seen below. If you have questions, please post them in the comments, below.

http://babygotmac.com/dl/Entourage_Speak_Sender.scpt

So I thought to myself, "Hey stupid, why don't you harness the power of the computer-machine and make it TELL you when you get new email. That way you can decide whether to switch back and forth or not".

After a short slap-fight (which I lost, sadly), I decided I was right and that I should do exactly that. Being the master hacker that I am, I immediately did what all good programmers do - I looked for code online (there is very little originality in programming, sorry to break it to you).

While it was easy to find Applescript for Apple Mail, Entourage items are a little more scarce...the Entourage Applescript library is as anemic as the application itself.

After awhile though, I found a pre-existing chunk of code on a German website. With a bit of tweaking, I was able to achieve my goal, which was to make Entourage say the name of the sender upon receipt of a message.

I started by setting up a rule in Entourage that would run the script when new mail arrived:

Screenshot 02

Everything worked great, and I felt a strange sense of accomplishment.

There was a problem though: I have iTunes open constantly. This meant that I was barely able to hear when my script spoke to me, so I made some changes that would tell iTunes:

  • to pause (if it was open)

  • to adjust the volume by 10%
  • wait one second
  • speak the senders name.

After that, it lowers the volume back to 'normal' and resumes playing.

I also ran into an issue wherein it was announcing EVERYTHING. This was problematic because our mail server tags spam with [SPAM] in the subject line - meaning I got an announcement regarding every offer for herbal remedies that I received. The solution to this one was to simply tell Entourage (in the aforementioned rule) that it should ignore items with [SPAM] in the subject, as well as a few other smaller criteria.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with my script. I do, however, want to make a few changes, including:

  • If Entourage is the frontmost, active program - do not speak.
  • If the name contains numbers, say only the domain name. Nothing worse than a confirmation address being read out, ugh.

If you know how to do these things, or have ideas on how to make the script better, please post them in the comments below.

Download here:
http://babygotmac.com/dl/Entourage_Speak_Sender.scpt

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