My First VSTO Application – BeSure

If you exchange email with me on a regular basis, you know that I am the king of email faux pas. I regularly do things like this:

• Use CNTRL+Enter to send an email sooner than I really want to send it.
• Send emails that are missing attachments.
• Send from my work account when I meant to send from my personal account (this one is a biggy in Outlook).
• Hit Reply All when I meant Reply.
• Include the wrong person on the CC line.

In short, I am well aware of proper email etiquette, but I am notoriously bad at exercising it. All I really need is a last minute check to ensure I am not doing something stupid.

Enter my first real (Visual Studio Tools for Office) application. I just want to give myself an "Are You Sure" screen before sending an email in Outlook and review all the critical aspects of the email before I send it.

This Add In for Outlook 2007 simply displays a window before actually sending my email, giving me an opportunity to change my mind. It shows me the major things that I should check before really hitting send:

• The account I am sending the email from
• The addresses on the To: line
• The addresses on the CC: line
• The addresses on the BCC: line
• The number of attachments on the email.

The code is up on Elegant Code’s Google Code SVN repo here and you can download the click once installer here. I guess if anyone cares about something as inane as this, you are welcome to send me feedback and suggestions.

I am the first to realize this is a lame little utility, but it was interesting to write it as I got a little more familiar with the VSTO model. Also, I know there aren’t any real unit tests in the test project. The reasons for this are twofold.

1. The app is nothing much more than a Windows form with drag and drop attributes and 2-line event handlers.
2. I am feeling lazy tonight.

Enjoy.