Decipher Client-Side Rules binary definition for Microsoft Outlook - outlook

Outlook saves its client-side rule definitions in a binary blob in a hidden message in the Inbox folder of the default store for a profile. The hidden message is named "Outlook Rules Organizer" with a message class IPM.RuleOrganizer. The binary blob is saved in property 0x6802. The same binary blob is written to the exported RWZ file when you manually export the rules through the Rules and Alerts Wizard.
Has anyone deciphered the layout of this binary blob?

Hmmm, that is a tough one...
Here's the server side rules protocol
According to this cryptic affair it looks as though you'll probably need to spend some time in Reflector as well...
Ah, these look closer to the mark and promising, give them a look:
Description of programming with Outlook rules
How to use the Rule.dll sample to create an inbox rule in Visual Basic
In general, Microsoft is explicitly saying it hasn't kept the documentation up on the rules in the last two versions and so the caveats...

I had exactly the same problem, so I spent a (too) long time looking into the format.
I developed a library https://github.com/hughbe/OutlookRulesReader that contains a specification and reference implementation library (in Swift) for reading and writing Outlook Rules Files
A full description of the format can be found here

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MS Teams: Collaboration with Save As Option

So I have an Excel file that functions as a report folks fill out daily. I'd like to have it as it's own tab, but when they're done filling it out, they FILE > SAVE AS to the Team files. Basically a quick access tab, where they would then save each file to a folder that functions as an archive.
Is this possible? If so, what am I missing during setup?
Thanks!
So I guess it's kind of possible to do what you're wanting, maybe by hosting the spreadsheet somewhere else (not in the general "Shared" folder in the Team's SharePoint site), and making it Read Only so users have to save it elsewhere, but for something like this, it really sounds like more of a "form" type of scenario, and I'd suggest looking to a more standard form solution. Maybe look into Microsoft Forms, Power Apps, or even Forms for Excel (Also part of Office 365, but stores the final result into a spreadsheet in your OneDrive). It depends on the Excel and what it's doing, of course, but this is assuming it's a reasonably simple form. If not, post a comment here with more information and I can update this answer / suggest alternatives.

Spell-checking SpecFlow feature files in Visual Studio

Is there a Spell Checker (like http://etherealcode.com/respeller/ or http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7c8341f1-ebac-40c8-92c2-476db8d523ce) that could check the spelling in SpecFlow feature files inside Visual Studio? I've got ReSharper along with ReSpeller installed, but it does not seem to spell-check anything in my .feature files...
I use Visual Studio Spell Checker for spell checking feature files (note that you can also find it in the "Extension Manager" online gallery).
Here's the description from the website:
This extension provides spell checking support for various "natural
language" portions of files. This includes:
* Plain text files (the entire file is spell checked)
* Source code (comments and strings are spell checked)
* HTML/ASP (things that aren't HTML tags are spell checked)
Custom dictionaries can also be added to spell check in different languages (e.g. OpenOffice versions 2, 3, and 4 dictionaries).
I've not seen one in VS, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is a problem.
Let's consider how you create your scenarios and features. In best practice, these are created from a conversation between the stakeholder and the developer. Think if it, if you like, as akin to pair-programming, this is pair-specification design. This process would start with a verbal conversation and only as we find common understanding do we then reach for a tool to record this.
Since features are just plain-text specification files then there are many tools that can record this. To me, VS feels a little one-sided in favour of the developer. Why not be more partisan and instead use email so you can both use its spell-checker and send both parties a copy of exactly what was agreed upon? Maybe use Word, or any other tool that can save as plain-text.

How to use language files in MVC3?

right now I am typing out my messages in the controllers I use like this:
TempData["flashError"] = "There Was A Problem Updating Your Account, Please Try Again";
I would like to reference a key/value system such as:
TempData["flashError"] = Messages["accountProblem"];
Is there a certain way to do this so I can maintain my messages from a separate file? Can someone tell me best practice?
You may take a look at the following guide. You'd basically externalize the messages into resource files for each language and then you could use the strongly typed class that is automatically generated by Visual Studio to access those strings in your code.
to add to Darin's answer
there's a sample application that uses resource files for MUI
you can download it from here: http://prodinner.codeplex.com
it also has a code walkthrough pdf file
also, see it live: http://prodinner.aspnetawesome.com

Getting an IVsTextLines from file path

I've written a basic LanguageService extension for Visual Studio 2008 for my studio's proprietary scripting language. It works perfectly fine, and I've implemented a basic symbol table to keep track of script definitions and calls allowing for goto definition functionality.
The problem I've run into is that I only know how to parse the current active view, and I'd like to scan the entire solution's contents so that the user can goto the definition of a script defined in a file they have yet to open and have parsed. I've figured out how to generate a list of all files in the solution, but now I need to create a new Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.Source which requires a Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.IVsTextLines and I have no idea how to create a new one based off of the file I have.
Maybe I'm going about the problem the wrong way and someone can point me towards a better way to cause a file to be parsed by the LanguageService.
Regards,
Colin
Poking around I found that the reason Visual Studio needs a new Source is that it's keeping an internal list of them, and they're like the view into the text file held by the editor.
I came to the conclusion that files that are closed do not need IVsTextLines or to be entered into the VS internal list of Source files because I'm not doing any operations directly on them, all I care about in this case is to build a table of symbols and their corresponding TextSpan. So instead I created a new API for my parser that just took in a string and built my AST instead of grabbing the text from a ParseRequest, and only worried about specific types of symbols I needed to record. I then pushed this into a BackgroundWorker.
So I guess I was going about the problem in the wrong way. Although it does seem weird I can't just trigger a file to be opened into the Source list.
Interestingly I asked this question to Microsoft on their support forums and they advised me I had to purchase some service and support plan for them to answer my question.

Load MS Word files with AJAX

I want to dynamically load (AJAX) the text from some Microsoft Word files into a webpage. So I might have a link to essays I've written and upon mouseover have it load the first few sentences in a tooltip.
Only if you have a parser. I think the new format is a zip archive with XML schema. But the old one is just binary.
There are some parsers out there.
I know of wvWare but it seems it's outdated. (http://wvware.sourceforge.net/)
This is maybe something worth looking at: http://poi.apache.org/hwpf/index.html
And yeah, forgot to mention how to do this. :-)
First you need to make the javascript ask for the data through ajax. The serverside has to take care of the parsing and return the text to the javascript. This will be a pain in the ass. I haven't done this myself and have never tried the parsers I linked, so I'm not sure if they suit you. Images, stylesheets, etc.... not sure if that will be useable.
At least, good luck.
For security reasons, it is not possible to directly load a local file (such as a Word document) into the page using simply Javascript. The user will need to upload the file to the server, which you will want to parse on the server and then you can load whatever result you like into the page using Ajax.
It sounds like you mean to upload your files (e.g. essays) to your server to allow users to download them, and want to create a server-side page that will parse the files and print the first few lines (so it can be called by an AJAX method that displays a preview on hover).
To suggest a tool for this, we'll need to know whether these are "old" Word format (Office 2003 - extension is .doc) or "new" Word format (Office 2007 - extension is .docx).
It will also be good to know what you're using to create your pages server-side, since different document-reading tools support different programming languages. If you're using Java to read .doc files, you can use the tool we use at my place of work, which is POI (http://poi.apache.org/). If you're using something else, try searching google for {read in }, e.g. {read .docx in ruby}.
If all of this is Greek to you and you have no prior experience with developing custom server-side web code, this is probably going to be unnecessarily painful and you should consider an alternative (like manually creating a 3-line text "preview" page for each regular page, and then just showing that).

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