Outlook add-in item icons

Question

I need an advice. We are developing an Outlook add-in with .net, and I need to investigate if there is a way to create custom labeling for emails. We need to perform the operation by email, depending on whether it was performed on this letter with or without, and display this condition in the Outlook interface (for example, “read”, “unread”). Could you advise something?

Answer 1

You can do this using categories in Outlook 2007 or later. Categories is a color coding shortcut system that works well for this, because you can put one or more categories in email, and addin can create new categories as needed. Unfortunately, I don't have useful code in C #, but I have some in VB.net that will still be useful. :)

For your specific problem, you have processed emails, and then use the category to indicate that you have already processed these emails. Since category labels are also displayed in the user interface, the user can easily see it.

Private Shared ReadOnly CATEGORY_TEST As String = "Custom Overdue Activity"

' This method checks if our custom category exists, and creates it if it doesn't.
Private Sub SetupCategories()
    Dim categoryList As Categories = Application.Session.Categories
    For i As Integer = 1 To categoryList.Count
        Dim c As Category = categoryList(i)
        If c.Name.Equals(CATEGORY_TEST) Then
            Return
        End If
    Next

    categoryList.Add(CATEGORY_TEST, Outlook.OlCategoryColor.olCategoryColorDarkOlive)
End Sub


' This snippet creates a new Task in Outlook, and assigns the category.
' The process for categories is similar when putting them on an email instead.
' Some of the data here is coming from a web service call in a larger app, you can ignore that. :)
 Dim task As Outlook.TaskItem = DirectCast(Application.CreateItem(Outlook.OlItemType.olTaskItem), Outlook.TaskItem)
                task.DueDate = Date.Parse(activity.ActDate)
                task.StartDate = task.DueDate
                task.Subject = String.Format(subjectText, activity.AppID)
                task.Body = String.Format(bodyText, activity.AppID, activity.FileNum, activity.AppID)
                task.ReminderTime = Now.AddMinutes(10)
                task.ReminderSet = True
                task.Categories = CATEGORY_TEST
                task.Save()
                task.Close(OlInspectorClose.olDiscard)