Outclass: Outclass Version 1.2 Documentation

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What's New

• Prevent Outclass from loading for a single session
  Do you work with multiple profiles? Do you not want to set up Outclass for each profile you may use? Hold down SHIFT when loading Outlook or the profile and Outclass will ask if you if you want to disable it. Simply restart Outlook or load another profile to re-enable Outclass. 
• New Mail Notification
  Outlook will tell you when you receive new email, sure. But if you're like me, then half the time it's spam. Now Outclass can tell you when you've received new email that's "allowed" (or for any other bucket you might have).
• Run Outclass as a non-priveleged user
  So you're security-conscious and you run in the recommended non-priveleged user mode but annoyed because Outclass won't run because you're not an administrator. That's no longer an issue. See the documentation below for more information. 
• Classify more than just Internet Email
  If your inbox also contains Exchange messages that have no Internet headers, Outclass will now classify them properly, exporting the Subject and Sender as classifiable headers to POPFile. 
• Got a lot of Buckets? No Problem!
  All of your buckets will now appear under the Reclassify dropdown menu and only buckets that you explicitly set to be on your main Outclass toolbar will appear there. Cut down on the clutter! 

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. If you don't have a junk folder already, you can create one by clicking the New Folder button. 

Upgraders: Do not attempt to upgrade from any version prior to 1.1 -- it probably won't work. Upgrade to 1.1 first then to 1.2.

When you receive a new email message, Outclass will attempt to classify it. If this is your first time running Outclass, there will be two default buckets: allowed and spam. 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 arrived 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/.

Running as a Non-Privileged User

Beginning with Outclass 1.2, you no longer need to be a member of the Windows Administrators group in order to run Outclass. You do, however, still need to have administrative privileges to install Outclass. However, POPFile will not run properly for a non-privileged user by default. Because Outclass uses POPFile you will need to make some modificaitons to your POPFile installation in order to make it work correctly.

POPFile stores its corpus files in a directory named corpus inside the directory where you installed it. You should ensure that your non-privileged account has at least Read+Read & Execute+Write+Modify privileges (or Change privileges in NT4) privileges to this folder and its files and subfolders.

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. (Note: This feature does not work correctly in versions 1.2B1 and earlier) 

Re-Enable Disabled Dialog Boxes

Clicking this button will re-enable all dialog boxes for which you may have checked "Do not show this message again."

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. Check the "Show this Button on the Main Toolbar" if you would like the reclassification button for this bucket to appear on the Outclass toolbar. All buckets will appear under the Reclassify dropdown regardless of this setting. 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 outclassify.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).

The Outclass toolbar has disappeared or is empty and you're running Outlook 2002

Outlook 2002 has disabled Outclass. Do the following:

• Launch Outlook 2002
• Go to the Help menu and select About Microsoft Outlook
• Click the Disabled Items button
• Select Outclass in the list
• Click Enable
• Close Outlook 2002 and restart it

I'll never understand why Microsoft hid that "feature" in the About dialog.

Messages aren't being classified on startup

Note: As of version 1.2B2, this should no longer be a problem. However, sometimes it takes a long time for Outlook to initialize and/or a connection to be established to your email account. In these cases, the instructions below may still be appropriate.

I'm not quite sure what goes on with Outlook when it starts up, but I've noticed that I can classify and handle several messages on startup but then when I go look at my inbox, I briefly see all the deleted messages that have been handled and then they all turn back to unread as if they were never classified. I've tried several methods to ensure that messages are always classified on startup. Version 1.2 includes a new startup classification routine that also employs a delay to allow headers to be fetched by Outlook before Outclass starts handling them.

That being said, the built-in delay is 10 seconds which should be more than adequate for most people. However, if you find that messages are still not being classified properly, you can try increasing this delay. Doing so is not currently supported from the main interface, so you will have to use the registry editor to increase the value of the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vargon Software\Outclass\SleepOnStart

The default value is 10. Set this value to the number of seconds you want Outclass to delay on startup before attempting to classify new messages. Note that this setting will only affect Outlook how long Outclass delays before classification when Outlook is started -- not at any other time -- and will only have an effect if the Check Unread Messages at Startup option is enabled.

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.

I am using a foreign-language version of Outlook and the Outclass icons all look the same and have a white background. What's wrong?

I wish I knew. Although Outclass is still completely functional on foreign-language versions of Outlook, many people have reported this graphic anomaly. It's been reported on the German, Dutch and Spanish versions of Outlook. The code to populate the button graphics uses the clipboard to copy/paste images. Something at this point is being messed up. I'm looking for a developer with access to a non-English Outlook that exhibits this problem to help me fix it. Note: The code that this affects is written in VB so VB experience is a must. =) Also, since the code mainly wraps a Microsoft demo, it's not part of the GPL distribution, so please let me know if you have the skills and desire to help tackle this problem and I will send you the appropriate code.

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

Outlook's filters will usually 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. However, Outlook appears to randomly call add-ins and rules -- there is no predictable order so while a rule will normally execute before an Outclass operation, it may not always do so.

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. Due to the randomness in Outlook processing filters vs. addins, magnets will make an appearance in a future version of Outclass.

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.

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