BUG: Links to Outlook emails, which are dragged-and-dropped onto a Task, are always broken

[jakebob]

When a task is created from an email, the Outlook email's ID is copied to the File Link field, but when an Outlook email is added to an existing task, the email's URI is copied to the File Link field instead. For emails that have spaces in the subject, the link is always broken.

Example Outlook ID: outlook:00000000C3C5D87B779BF549A67144AFC3E3A4220700A06A763472FC0748A25E811689A5C4C000000000010C000060E982096DD40141B1BF34D75E6E6FB20000000165D90000 (This link format always works)

Example Outlook URI: outlook://us...@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you (This leads to the error below)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new task.

2. Drag and drop an email from Outlook 2016 onto the task.

3. Click the magnifying glass icon in the File Link bar or the icon in the column.

Expected Result: the email opens in Outlook

Actual Result: Outlook opens with a warning:

The full text of the dialog box:

This error can appear if a hyperlink was added to the Subject box of an Outlook message and the address of the hyperlink contains one or more spaces. The hyperlink does not work because the address is incomplete. It breaks at the first space.

To fix this problem, add an angle bracket to each end of the hyperlink address.

For example:

<outlook:Sent Items>

<http://website/a page on the site>

Or replace the spaces with "%20" and then reset the hyperlink by editing it.

I also tried dragging and dropping the email in the comments field, which gives <outlook://us...@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you>, as it suggests in the dialog box, but clicking on this link leads to the same error.

[.dan.g.]

Hi jb

Can you confirm what version you are using please?

On Friday, 21 June 2019 10:16:00 UTC+10, jakebob wrote:

When a task is created from an email, the Outlook email's ID is copied to the File Link field, but when an Outlook email is added to an existing task, the email's URI is copied to the File Link field instead. For emails that have spaces in the subject, the link is always broken.

Example Outlook ID: outlook:00000000C3C5D87B779BF549A67144AFC3E3A4220700A06A763472FC0748A25E811689A5C4C000000000010C000060E982096DD40141B1BF34D75E6E6FB20000000165D90000 (This link format always works)

Example Outlook URI: outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you (This leads to the error below)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new task.

2. Drag and drop an email from Outlook 2016 onto the task.

3. Click the magnifying glass icon in the File Link bar or the icon in the column.

Expected Result: the email opens in Outlook

Actual Result: Outlook opens with a warning:

The full text of the dialog box:

This error can appear if a hyperlink was added to the Subject box of an Outlook message and the address of the hyperlink contains one or more spaces. The hyperlink does not work because the address is incomplete. It breaks at the first space.

To fix this problem, add an angle bracket to each end of the hyperlink address.

For example:

<outlook:Sent Items>

<http://website/a page on the site>

Or replace the spaces with "%20" and then reset the hyperlink by editing it.

I also tried dragging and dropping the email in the comments field, which gives <outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you>, as it suggests in the dialog box, but clicking on this link leads to the same error.

[jakebob]

ToDoList 7.2.13.0 (Stable Release)

[.dan.g.]

You can also create Outlook links by dragging and dropping into the comments field. Do you have the same problems there as well?

ps. If you hold down the shift key when dropping an Outlook message onto an existing task (or the comments) it will use the ID instead of the email URI.

On Friday, 21 June 2019 10:16:00 UTC+10, jakebob wrote:

When a task is created from an email, the Outlook email's ID is copied to the File Link field, but when an Outlook email is added to an existing task, the email's URI is copied to the File Link field instead. For emails that have spaces in the subject, the link is always broken.

Example Outlook ID: outlook:00000000C3C5D87B779BF549A67144AFC3E3A4220700A06A763472FC0748A25E811689A5C4C000000000010C000060E982096DD40141B1BF34D75E6E6FB20000000165D90000 (This link format always works)

Example Outlook URI: outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you (This leads to the error below)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new task.

2. Drag and drop an email from Outlook 2016 onto the task.

3. Click the magnifying glass icon in the File Link bar or the icon in the column.

Expected Result: the email opens in Outlook

Actual Result: Outlook opens with a warning:

The full text of the dialog box:

This error can appear if a hyperlink was added to the Subject box of an Outlook message and the address of the hyperlink contains one or more spaces. The hyperlink does not work because the address is incomplete. It breaks at the first space.

To fix this problem, add an angle bracket to each end of the hyperlink address.

For example:

<outlook:Sent Items>

<http://website/a page on the site>

Or replace the spaces with "%20" and then reset the hyperlink by editing it.

I also tried dragging and dropping the email in the comments field, which gives <outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you>, as it suggests in the dialog box, but clicking on this link leads to the same error.

[jakebob]

Yes, the same problem occurs if I drag and drop to the comments field.

Holding shift does work.

[.dan.g.]

Can you turn logging on (Tools > Enable Logging), then perform the drag'n'drop which fails and finally post the log file (exe folder) please.

[jakebob]

I enabled logging, dragged and dropped the email onto an existing task, clicked on the email, saw the error in Outlook, then copied the log. I then replaced replaced sensitive information with placeholders. On line 230 I see the reference to the email's URI. 

[Koruneko]

Hello !

It has always been like that (working with TDL since 7.1 and the bug already exist). Some special characters broke the link if we don't use the Shift+Drag'n drop way.

for example : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/abstractspoon-todolist-support/oupKxRjO_e0

At this moment, I've made some test with the ASCII table ...

> (it's interpreted as closing tag for <outlook://))
/ (interpreted as a directory change)
- (when there is some text after '-' , it'll work, but if there nothing behind, there's an error message).
% ! " #

It doesn't work with these characters taken by single, but it may work when they are used in a sentence :
Ï Ð Ò Ù Ý Þ ß à á â ã å é í

If it can help ... TYhe problem still exist in, 7.3 DP ...

Regards,

Koru.

Le vendredi 21 juin 2019 02:16:00 UTC+2, jakebob a écrit :

When a task is created from an email, the Outlook email's ID is copied to the File Link field, but when an Outlook email is added to an existing task, the email's URI is copied to the File Link field instead. For emails that have spaces in the subject, the link is always broken.

Example Outlook ID: outlook:00000000C3C5D87B779BF549A67144AFC3E3A4220700A06A763472FC0748A25E811689A5C4C000000000010C000060E982096DD40141B1BF34D75E6E6FB20000000165D90000 (This link format always works)

Example Outlook URI: outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you (This leads to the error below)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new task.

2. Drag and drop an email from Outlook 2016 onto the task.

3. Click the magnifying glass icon in the File Link bar or the icon in the column.

Expected Result: the email opens in Outlook

Actual Result: Outlook opens with a warning:

The full text of the dialog box:

This error can appear if a hyperlink was added to the Subject box of an Outlook message and the address of the hyperlink contains one or more spaces. The hyperlink does not work because the address is incomplete. It breaks at the first space.

To fix this problem, add an angle bracket to each end of the hyperlink address.

For example:

<outlook:Sent Items>

<http://website/a page on the site>

Or replace the spaces with "%20" and then reset the hyperlink by editing it.

I also tried dragging and dropping the email in the comments field, which gives <outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you>, as it suggests in the dialog box, but clicking on this link leads to the same error.

[.dan.g.]

Koruneko is right. We did a lot of experimentation a while back to see what worked and what didn't work and I implemented as much of what we discovered that I could get to work.

If you want to experiment yourself, this article shows you how to enable the 'outlook://' link protocol after which you can create links in a dummy web page and see which links open and which do not.

FWIW I used to install this protocol myself for TDL but it requires admin permissions and once I discovered I could call Outlook.exe directly I changed to that method.

Something else to try is running TDL with admin permissions which in turn will run Outlook.exe as admin which might alter how it handles shortcuts.

[.dan.g.]

ps. Also try creating some links to emails whose subjects do not start with 'RE:', for some reason I often found that Outlook would stumble over these...

On Tuesday, 25 June 2019 22:35:21 UTC+10, jakebob wrote:

[.dan.g.]

The problem will be somewhat improved in 7.3 with the new 'Html Comments' plugin, because the display text and underlying link are separate, so the links will always use the GUID whilst the text will be the unmodified email subject line.

On Friday, 21 June 2019 10:16:00 UTC+10, jakebob wrote:

When a task is created from an email, the Outlook email's ID is copied to the File Link field, but when an Outlook email is added to an existing task, the email's URI is copied to the File Link field instead. For emails that have spaces in the subject, the link is always broken.

Example Outlook ID: outlook:00000000C3C5D87B779BF549A67144AFC3E3A4220700A06A763472FC0748A25E811689A5C4C000000000010C000060E982096DD40141B1BF34D75E6E6FB20000000165D90000 (This link format always works)

Example Outlook URI: outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you (This leads to the error below)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a new task.

2. Drag and drop an email from Outlook 2016 onto the task.

3. Click the magnifying glass icon in the File Link bar or the icon in the column.

Expected Result: the email opens in Outlook

Actual Result: Outlook opens with a warning:

The full text of the dialog box:

This error can appear if a hyperlink was added to the Subject box of an Outlook message and the address of the hyperlink contains one or more spaces. The hyperlink does not work because the address is incomplete. It breaks at the first space.

To fix this problem, add an angle bracket to each end of the hyperlink address.

For example:

<outlook:Sent Items>

<http://website/a page on the site>

Or replace the spaces with "%20" and then reset the hyperlink by editing it.

I also tried dragging and dropping the email in the comments field, which gives <outlook://user@company.com/Inbox/~RE%3A Update on the Test Messages we sent you>, as it suggests in the dialog box, but clicking on this link leads to the same error.

[jakebob]

Gotcha. Well with the Shift- Drag and Drop, it's not so much of an issue. I'll mark this as complete. Thanks for the timely responses and helpful info!