Slashdot Mirror
Play Random Sounds for E-Mail Notifications?
An anonymous reader asks: "I, like many of my fellow Outlook-using geek friends, like to set funny sounds to be played when a new message arrives ('Leeroy Jenkins' is the one I have set now). However, we have always wanted to be able to have random sounds be played when a new message arrives, rather than the same sound over and over. I've searched high and low, and I was hoping Slashdot could suggest/write a program that can randomly play sound files from a specified folder when a new message arrives. Any ideas?"
Is this what Ask Slashdot has boiled down to - asking about playing random sounds when email arrives? There's gotta be better material to pick from than this.
set windows to play a sound eg. c:\sounds\newmail.wav and then have a folder with a number of wave files in it eg. c:\sounds\collection and schedule tasks to copy sounds to c:\sounds\newmail.wav every X minutes/seconds/whatever ?
pretty clunky but relatively simple for the average bear
-- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
Use a seperate new e-mail notification program (that plays random sounds) in parallel to outlook.
Or write a script that occasionally copies a random WAV to notify.wav (which is what outlook plays).
BTW, the place to start looking for outlook info is the excellent slipstick.com
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
also, it's farking stupid. the point of a new mail sound (or any event sound) is to have a sound that you know means new mail. if you've got apps making random sounds, how are you meant to know what's going on. :p
probably why no mail app has such a feature.
oh sorry, it would be "entertaining"
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I like! In fact, I like it so much, I think I'll assign random sounds to ALL system events!
[click][click][clickity][click]
Done!
SPROING!!!
Oh! I've got an email! Um...no, wait - what was that? Maybe an instant message...nope. Oh no! It's an illegal oper@*^!>$?%_)#&=
assert(birth_date<time-86400)
Another paid attempt to get Slashdot readers to hate Microsoft less.
How we know is more important than what we know.
#!/usr/bin/perl
$ DESTFILE="/tmp/sound.wav";) || die "Can't open $SOUNDDIR: $!\n"; /\.wav$/) {
$SOUNDDIR="/usr/share/sounds";
opendir(DIR,$SOUNDDIR
$count=0;
while(defined($file = readdir(DIR))) {
if($file =~
$files[$count]=$file;
$count++;
}
}
$arraysize=@files;
while(1) {
$rnd=int(rand($arraysize));
$filename=$files[$rnd];
`cp $SOUNDDIR/$filename $DESTFILE`;
sleep 10;
}
Mangle appropriately (source dir, sleep time, dest file, file-type).
Have fun.
Red.
Be glad to help - just give me your e-mail address and I'll send you over an executable. I'll even be so nice as to include an MD5 hash so you know its secure.
from Claria. Nothing makes a Windows PC do random shit faster.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In Outlook, press ALT-F11
Write your macro that plays your sound file.
Go to your Rules & Alerts
Create a rule for receiving emails - to play your Macro.
Bonus point.
Make your macro play a random sound.
I think the whole effort should take about 5 minutes.
This is better than the Ask Slashdot I submitted, where I wanted to find out a way for thunderbird to play a random sound every time my RSS feed picks up a new Slashdot story.
I settled for comic book guy saying "Worst. Slashdot. Story. EVER."
Surprisingly its true every time!
1. Write a simple application/script that plays a random sound file
- Read directory and store files in a list/array
- Use a random function to pick a wav file
- Load and play the selected audio file
2. Disable e-mail sound notifications (Tools->Options->Email options->Advanced email options->uncheck 'play a sound'
3. Set up a rule for incoming email: (Tools->Rules wizard->New.
Start from a blank rule. Check messages when they arrive (next).
(Next) and confirm to apply to all rules.
Check 'start application'. Click the underlined 'application'. Choose your custom app (open).
(next)(next).
Name the rule 'sound script'
(finish)(ok).
To prevent your script from playing sounds for every email received, put a delay counter on it to prevent multiple instances of the same application, or some form of lock preventing concurrent running.