A Better Way To View Multiple Picture Attachments
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.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The content of this article is superceded by a newer version with more features, outlined in this article on MSDN:
Office Developer Center: Viewing Multiple Picture Attachments in Outlook 2003:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_ol2003_ta/html/Office_Outlook_ViewMultPictAttach.asp
UPDATE: The information in this post is really intended for those of you who have some decent experience programming within the Outlook VBA Editor. I never meant for this to be consumed by general users, so if you don't know how to set references to Type Libraries, create User Forms or compile and debug VBA, then you know you are not the intended audience. I may redo this solution as a downloadable, installable COM Add-In sometime - for use by ALL Outlook users - so stay tuned...
This is one of my most heavily used weapons in my Outlook macro arsenal, and saves me a lot of grief. Take a look at the screenshot below:
Doesn't this drive you nuts? You can select all of the attachments in an e-mail, but you can't launch all of them at the same time. You have to double-click each one individually. I'm sure there's been many times when you've received an e-mail from one of your friends with 15 joke pictures, or Aunt Rose sends you 5 photos of her new cat, and it quickly becomes a real chore to open - view - close every single attachment.
Read on, and I'll show you the code for a much better way to handle this.
The Message Attachments Form
Ultimately, this is what you will see when you click a custom button on one of your toolbars:
This form will contain a list of all the picture attachments in the current message (those with .gif, .jpg, .tif or .bmp extensions; you can enter additional ones in the frmAttachments.FillList procedure). You can selectively choose non-contiguous entries in the list with Shift-clicks, all entries, just one attachment (double-clicks are enabled), and then click a button to show the picture(s).
Launching the Message Attachments Form
First off, to launch this form, create this macro and put it either in your ThisOutlookSession module or any Modules you have in your VBA Project:
Sub ViewAttachments()
On Error GoTo EH:
Dim objMessage As Object
Set objMessage = Application.ActiveInspector
If objMessage.CurrentItem.Attachments.Count = 0 Then Exit Sub
Set frmAttachments.objMessage = objMessage.CurrentItem
frmAttachments.FillList
frmAttachments.Show
EH:
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox "Something is wrong!"
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub
You'll also need to create a custom button on one of your message Toolbars. To do this, choose Customize from the Toolbars sub-menu under the View menu of your message. Click the Commands tab, choose Macros from the Categories list, and select OutlookVBA.ViewAttachments. Now drag that to a spot on any of your Toolbars and you're good to go.
Message Attachments Form Code
Here is the code for the frmAttachments UserForm. Rather than recreating the UserForm yourself, you can download the file to save yourself some trouble. I'll include the code here for reference anyway:
Option Explicit
Public objMessage As MailItem
Dim objFs As New Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim objTempFolder As Scripting.Folder
Dim strTempFolderPath As String
Dim strTempFilesUsed() As String
Dim lngTempFileCount As Long
Const ImageViewerFilePath As String = """C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe """
'ALTERNATELY, IF YOU HAVE Office XP's Photo Editor INSTALLED, USE THAT AS IT IS FAST AND SUPPORTS
'MULTIPLE IMAGE WINDOWS; LOOK FOR C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\PhotoEd\PHOTOED.EXE
'OR YOU CAN USE WHATEVER IMAGE VIEWER YOU WANT, AS LONG AS IT CAN TAKE ONE FILE NAME AS AN ARGUMENT
'FROM THE COMMAND LINE OR RUN DIALOG
Sub FillList()
'PRE-POPULATE THE LIST BOX WITH PICTURE ATTACHMENT FILE NAMES
Dim objAtt As Attachment, objAtts As Attachments
Set objAtts = objMessage.Attachments
lstAtts.Clear
For Each objAtt In objAtts
Select Case Right(objAtt.FileName, 3)
Case "jpg", "gif", "tif", "bmp", "JPG", "GIF", "TIF", "BMP"
Me.lstAtts.AddItem objAtt.Index
Me.lstAtts.List(lstAtts.ListCount - 1, 1) = objAtt.FileName
End Select
Next
End Sub
Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
Unload Me
End Sub
Private Sub cmdOpen_Click()
On Error GoTo EH:
Dim strFileName As String
Dim intX As Integer, varRet As Variant
If lstAtts.ListIndex = -1 Then Exit Sub
'LOOP THROUGH SELECTED PICTURE ATTACHMENTS
For intX = 0 To lstAtts.ListCount - 1
If lstAtts.Selected(intX) = True Then
strFileName = strTempFolderPath & "\" & objMessage.Attachments.Item(lstAtts.List(intX, 0)).DisplayName
objMessage.Attachments.Item(lstAtts.List(intX, 0)).SaveAsFile strFileName
ReDim Preserve strTempFilesUsed(lngTempFileCount)
strTempFilesUsed(lngTempFileCount) = strFileName
lngTempFileCount = lngTempFileCount + 1
'LAUNCH IMAGES IN DEFINED IMAGE VIEWER
varRet = Shell(ImageViewerFilePath & " " & """" & strFileName & """", 1)
End If
Next
EH:
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox Err.Number & vbCrLf & Err.Description & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "[error in cmdOpen_Click]", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "ERROR"
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub
Private Sub cmdOpenAll_Click()
On Error GoTo EH:
Dim strFileName As String
Dim intX As Integer, varRet As Variant
If Me.lstAtts.ListCount <= 0 Then Exit Sub
'LOOP THROUGH ALL PICTURE ATTACHMENTS
For intX = 0 To lstAtts.ListCount - 1
strFileName = strTempFolderPath & "\" & objMessage.Attachments.Item(lstAtts.List(intX, 0)).DisplayName
objMessage.Attachments.Item(lstAtts.List(intX, 0)).SaveAsFile strFileName
ReDim Preserve strTempFilesUsed(lngTempFileCount)
strTempFilesUsed(lngTempFileCount) = strFileName
lngTempFileCount = lngTempFileCount + 1
'LAUNCH IMAGES IN DEFINED IMAGE VIEWER
varRet = Shell(ImageViewerFilePath & " " & """" & strFileName & """", 1)
Next
EH:
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
MsgBox Err.Number & vbCrLf & Err.Description & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "[error in cmdOpenAll_Click]", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "ERROR"
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub
Private Sub lstAtts_DblClick(ByVal Cancel As MSForms.ReturnBoolean)
cmdOpen_Click
End Sub
Private Sub UserForm_Activate()
GetTempFolder
End Sub
Private Sub UserForm_Terminate()
DeleteTempFiles
Set objMessage = Nothing
Set objFs = Nothing
Set objTempFolder = Nothing
End Sub
Sub DeleteTempFiles()
On Error GoTo EH:
Dim objFile As Scripting.File
Dim intX As Integer
For intX = 0 To UBound(strTempFilesUsed)
Set objFile = objFs.GetFile(strTempFilesUsed(intX))
objFile.Delete True
Next
EH:
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
If Err.Number = 9 Then Exit Sub 'strTempFilesUsed ARRAY IS EMPTY; NO FILES WERE OPENED
If Err.Number = 53 Then Resume Next 'FILE NOT FOUND; MAY HAVE GOT DELETED ALREADY IF THE SAME FILE WAS
'OPENED MORE THAN ONCE, AS THE FILE NAME WOULD HAVE BEEN DUPLICATED IN THE ARRAY WE ARE PARSING
MsgBox Err.Number & vbCrLf & Err.Description & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "[error in DeleteTempFiles]", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "ERROR"
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub
Sub GetTempFolder()
On Error Resume Next
Dim objTempFolder As Scripting.Folder
'GET THE TEMP FOLDER
Set objTempFolder = objFs.GetSpecialFolder(2) 'path is found in the TMP environment variable
If objFs.FolderExists(objTempFolder & "\AttachmentsTemp") = False Then
Set objTempFolder = objFs.CreateFolder(objTempFolder & "\AttachmentsTemp")
Else
Set objTempFolder = objFs.GetFolder(objTempFolder & "\AttachmentsTemp")
End If
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
'UNABLE TO RETRIEVE TEMP FOLDER
'YOU MAY WANT TO HARDCODE A FOLDER HERE THAT WILL WORK ON YOUR SYSTEM
strTempFolderPath = "C:\Temp"
If objFs.FolderExists(strTempFolderPath) = False Then
objFs.CreateFolder strTempFolderPath
End If
Set objTempFolder = objFs.GetFolder(strTempFolderPath)
Else
strTempFolderPath = objTempFolder.Path
End If
End Sub
Final Comments
You might notice that I'm using Internet Explorer to launch the images. I can't assume what you are using as the default image viewer on your PC, but IE is always there (!) so I chose that. Feel free to change the viewer to whatever you like. See the inline comments in the code for more information. Have fun using this! I hope it makes your life easier when working with multiple picture attachments.
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COMMENTS RESTORED FROM BACKUP:
Sun 6/5/2005 11:40 PM Jimmy
"Hi Eric .. I get a compilation error for the line "objFs As New Scripting.FileSystemObject". It says "User defined type not defined". Please help!
Jimmy"
Mon 6/6/2005 1:15 AM Jimmy
""90
Object variable or with block variable not set
[error in cmdOpen_Click]
"
This is the error I got while trying to open any picture attachment. Anyone got that problem?"
Mon 6/6/2005 6:50 PM Jimmy
"Thanks for that Mate, now I got this runtime error
"91
Object variable or with block variable not set
[error in cmdOpen_Click]
"
This is the error I got while trying to open any picture attachment. Anyone got that problem? "
END COMMENTS RESTORE
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