Outclass: Outclass Version 1.1 Documentation

Help feed me! Donations are by no means required, but definitely appreciated.

What's New

• No longer reloads the corpuses for each message classified!
  A new script, outclassify.pl, provides an interactive interface which Outclass uses in the background. The corpuses are loaded only when Outclass starts up and after reclassification of multiple messages. This is merely a stop-gap measure until the POPFile native interface is available which will provide a much richer API for Outclass. 
• Dismiss those annoying dialog boxes
  Now you have the option to never again see the "x messages classified" and "x messages marked as y" dialog boxes. This has probably been the most-requested feature to date.
• Completed the new name migration
  Now Outclass internally refers to itself as Outclass. The installation package will automatically migrate your settings to the new registry key for Outclass preferences (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ SOFTWARE\Vargon Software\Outclass).
• Multiple Buckets
  Now you can have more than just the Spam and Allowed buckets! Add as many buckets as you can stand seeing on your toolbar! (Ok, there is a hard-coded limit of 9999, but who's counting?)
• Multiple Inboxes
  Do you get mail coming into more than just your Inbox? Do you check more than one account? Now Outclass can watch for mail coming into these folders and accounts, too! You can even set up different actions for different inboxes. For example, if something is classified as spam in your Work Inbox, you can have Outclass it move it to your your Junk folder, but if a message is classified as spam in your Hotmail Inbox, you can have Outclass delete it.
• Check Unread Message on Start
  Sometimes, Outlook doesn't let Outclass know there are new messages when you start up. This option lets you classify unread messages in your Inboxes at startup.
• Automatic Handling on Reclassification
  With older versions, if a message was incorrectly classified as Spam and you then marked it as Allowed, it wouldn't be moved back to your Inbox, even if you manually classified it. Manual classification would move spam to your Junk folder, though. In version 1.1, Outclass will always move the message to the folder you specify, automatically, when you mark a message.
• Customizable Buckets and Icons
  Don't like the Mark as Spam and Mark as Allowed buttons? Now you can change them! Do you want an Elvis icon instead of a red X to represent Spam? Now you can have it! See below for more info.

Use

New Users: Launch Outlook. On your first launch with Outclass, you will be prompted to select your Inbox and Junk folders. The Inbox is the folder into which you receive your email. The Junk folder is where you want Outclass to move any messages that are identified as spam.

Upgraders: If you're upgrading from version 1.0 or earlier of Outclass/SpamFree, your settings for Mark Messages Read and Delete Only are not migrated. You can re-set these options on your default Inbox for your Spam bucket. In other words, if you previously had Outclass configured to mark Spam messages as read, you can re-enable that feature by doing the following: Go to Outclass Options. Select your Default Inbox. Click Edit. Select the Spam bucket. Check the Mark As Read checkbox. Click OK. Click OK.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR UPGRADERS: If you are upgrading from Outclass 1.1 Beta 1, your settings will be migrated automatically. However, due to the default directory name change from C:\Program Files\SpamFree to C:\Program Files\Outclass, toolbar images that point to files that may be in the SpamFree folder will not be migrated. However, if the images are the ones that ship with Outclass, they will be automatically repointed when you start Outclass. Custom images may need to be re-entered in the preferences.

When you receive a new email message, Outclass will attempt to classify it. If this is your first time running Outclass, there will be no buckets yet. Outclass will ask you how you want to handle the message (unless you've disabled training mode). It will display the subject, sender, and the classification of the message which will be unclassified at first. Select the proper classification from the dropdown. When you click OK, the message will be handled according to the rules that apply to the bucket you selected (and the inbox the message is in).

Now you can start bulk-training Outclass. Select multiple messages that are spam and click Mark as Spam to mark them as spam. Then select multiple messages that aren't spam and click Mark as Allowed to mark them as allowed.

Once you've sufficiently trained Outclass, you can let it classify messages on its own, without confirmation. Click the Outclass Options button and turn off Training Mode.

Every now and then, a message may be classified incorrectly. At the beginning of training, you should look through your Junk folder daily to make sure that only Junk email is being sent there. If you do find a message that should not have been treated as spam, simply highlight the message, click the Mark as Allowed button, and then move the message back to your Inbox or wherever you would like to keep it. The next time you receive a message similar to that one, it should be classified correctly.

For more information on the accuracy of POPFile classifications and training POPFile, please see the POPFile documentation at http://popfile.sourceforge.net/.

Options

You can access the Outclass options by clicking the Outclass Options button on the toolbar.

Automatically go to my Default Inbox when I launch Outlook

This option is there because I use IMAP email and the default behavior of Outlook is to always open to the local store's Inbox rather than my IMAP Inbox. If this annoys you, too, turn on this feature. If you have more than one Inbox, be sure to set the Inbox you want to go to as the Default Inbox using the Set as Default button.

Confirm spam handling actions (Training Mode)

Turning this on will ask you every time you receive an email if you would like Outclass to attempt to handle the message. This feature can grow to be somewhat annoying, so you will probably want to turn it off after a while, but for any newbies out there, it is on by default.

Classify Unread messages when Outlook starts

Turn on this feature if Outclass consistently fails to classify new messages when you launch Outlook. This feature will scan all of your Outclass Inboxes at Outlook startup for Unread messages and classify them. In actuality, not all messages are checked to see if they're unread because that would cause a significant delay on a large Inbox. Therefore, Unread messages are checked from newest to oldest until a Read message is encountered.

Adding a new Inbox

Click the Add button below the Inbox list. Click the Select Inbox button and pick the folder that you want to monitor for new messages. Then, for each bucket, set what action you want to take when you receive that type of message. For example, if the message is spam and you want it moved to your Junk folder, first click Spam, then click Move the message to: N/A. Then click Select Destination Folder. Pick your Junk folder and click OK. The N/A will change to the name of the folder.
Follow the same procedure to set up what should happen when the message is Allowed. The default for any bucket is Do Nothing. Note: If you select Do Nothing for your Allowed bucket, and a message is incorrectly treated as Spam and moved to your Junk folder, reclassifying it as Allowed will not move it back. In order for that feature to work correctly, you should configure Outclass to "move" Allowed messages to your Inbox (i.e., the same folder that you're monitoring).

Adding a New Bucket

Click the Add button below the Bucket list. Enter a Bucket Name. This should be a short name that represents the classification for the bucket. The value you pick for the Button Label is what you will see on your Outlook toolbar. Next, browse for an icon to use for the button, or use the default picture. Click OK.

If you would like to make your own icon, here are some guidelines:

• The picture should be an 8-bit (256-color) BITMAP (.BMP) picture. Pictures with a greater color depth will not work. Pictures with lower depth may work.
• The picture should be 16 pixels by 16 pixels.
• The upper-left pixel's color (the 0,0 pixel) will be used to generate the transparency mask. Therefore, this pixel should always be the same as the rest of the background color of the icon.

Troubleshooting

The Training dialog box says: Classification: Error creating process. The system cannot find the path specified. (or some other equally cryptic error)

POPFile wasn't found or classify.pl (which is part of Outclass, not POPFile) was not in the POPFile directory. Outclass looks at HKLM\Software\POPFile\InstallLocation to find the location to which POPFile was installed. If it doesn't find this, or the values points to the wrong location, it won't work. You can add this key manually (REG_SZ) and give it a value of the location of the POPFile directory (that contains popfile.pl).

Known Issues

Why doesn't POPFile's history show anything?

Outclass uses POPFile to perform its filtering, but it does not allow the normal POPFile filtering services to run. Therefore, messages are never passed through POPFile's mail receiving functions and POPFile's statistics and other features aren't updated. If you didn't read the warning above, read it now: Unless you know what you're doing, you really should avoid running the POPFile web server on the same system as Outclass.

How does Outclass's message handling coexist with Outlook's mail filtering (rules)?

Outlook's filters will run before Outclass's classification. Therefore, if you set up a Rule to always move mail from billg@microsoft.com to your Microsoft folder, when Bill Gates sends you spam it won't be moved to your Junk folder because the Outlook filter will have moved the message to the Microsoft folder before Outclass gets to look at it.

Does Outclass support magnets?

No. Outlook's built-in Rules feature provides far more functionality than POPFile's magnets. If you need magnet functionality, create an Outlook rule. Optionally, you could fire up the POPFile web interface and add a magnet there and see if it works (it should, provided you have a corresponding Outclass bucket) but that is not supported and really not recommended.

I'm viewing the headers, but I don't see an X-Text-Classification header and/or my subject is not modified.

That's right. Again, when working with Outclass, POPFile does not process the messages; it merely classifies them. POPFile spits out a classification and Outclass moves it to your Junk folder (or not) depending on the classification. The original message is never modified, ergo no header or subject modification occurs.

Back to Vargon Software Home