November 14, 2011

Lucatec MASK 4.0.0 released!

We are very happy to announce the immediate availability of our latest major release!

Lucatec® Mask 4.0

You can now download and purchase or upgrade it from the usual places.

As for what’s new, we have once again pushed the Signature functionality to a new level, specifically the ability to use dynamic placeholders a.k.a. Signature Macros. With this release we give you…

Active Directory Integration

$$UserDetail$$ Signature Macro in Action

Using the two new macros UserDetail and SenderDetail you can now make signatures even more versatile, essentially enabling you to use a single, centrally stored set of signature files for all employees in your organization. Instead of hardcoding things like department name, phone numbers, job title, etc. you can now simply refer to the corresponding attributes of the Active Directory user object associated with the current user or the sender used for the current message respectively.

Of course that’s not all. Besides numerous minor fixes and improvements we’ve also added a couple of subtle usability enhancements.

Lucatec MASK Message Options showing the Target History dropdown list in action

“Alternative Target History”

If you occasionally need to save sent messages to a different folder than the one that is defined as the default for the relevant context so far, you had to browse for that folder every time. With Lucatec® Mask 4.0 you only have to do this once: The next time you send a message from the same context (i.e. using the same sender) you will be able to simply pick the previously used alternative folder(s) from a dropdown list.

Enterprise-oriented Enhancements

We’ve also made some improvements that should benefit users who keep their Outlook sessions open for multiple days, weeks or even months, which is quite common for example when Outlook is actually running on a server rather than a physical workstation (e.g. Citrix/Terminal Server or VMware ESX Server). To this end, we’ve implemented an internal task scheduler: Tasks which the addin so far only performed on Outlook startup, most notably Signature Synchronization, will now be run in the background periodically (daily by default).

Furthermore, customers of the special Enterprise Edition will be happy to hear that it is now possible to enforce the contents of message signatures via a new option to always overwrite the local signatures with the external ones on synchronisation. Previously, this only happened when the external signatures were newer than the local ones, thus allowing users to individually customize their signatures.

October 28, 2010

Lucatec® MASK 3.0 and 2.3.8 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , , , — gieseno @ 16:42

It’s been an eventful month for us here at Lucatec: We started by publishing Lucatec® Mask 2.3.8, another Minor Service Release that fixes a number of minor issues as well as one major issue that a small number of customers had been experiencing for a while now: Error messages on Outlook startup like “Cannot set allocations” or “Failed to load core – Invalid access to memory location” should hopefully be a thing of the past with this release. (Lucatec® Mask 2.3.8 Release Notes)

The really big news however is that we also have a brandnew major release!

Lucatec® Mask 3.0

Effective immediately, Lucatec® Mask 3.0.0 is available for download and purchase and it sports the following big new features:

Signature Enhancements

We’ve seriously tuned the signature insertion feature:

External Signature Synchronization

You can now put your team’s signature files on a network share and let Lucatec® Mask automatically synchronize your local Outlook signatures with the external ones, thus allowing you to easily manage your team’s signatures in a central location.

Expandable Macros

To make those signatures even more versatile and resuable you can now also use expandable placeholders, e.g. to dynamically insert the name and address of the current user or even to include content from an external file, for instance a common legal disclaimer or rotating ads.

Default Naming Rules

Rather than adjusting the Folder Options of every single mailbox and Public Folder, you can now simply define a simple rule to determine the name of the signature to use. This can massively reduce the configuration effort: All you have to do is consistently name your signatures: For instance, inside a mailbox called “Support”, Lucatec® Mask will by default try to insert a signature named “Support Signature”.

Screenshot of Lucatec® MASK 3.0 running in Outlook 2010

Enhanced integration with Outlook 2010

As already glimpsed in the previous blog entry Lucatec® Mask 3.0.0 now fully integrates with Outlook 2010′s new Backstage View, thus allowing you quicker access to Lucatec® Mask‘s configuration. So far we are quite happy with the new experience. How about you?

Lucatec® MASK configuration in German

Multi-language user interface

The language of the user interface can now be switched at runtime. Also, multiple languages are supported by a single installation. This is especially useful in multi-user environments like Citrix- or Terminal Server.

We’ve also already prepared the system for integrating user-supplied translations. If you’re interested in translating Lucatec® Mask into your language: Get in touch!

Stay tuned as we update the site with more details about the new version in the coming weeks.

April 9, 2009

Lucatec® MASK 2.3.0 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , , — gieseno @ 22:35

We are happy to inform you that we have released version 2.3.0 of Lucatec® Mask. This is a major technology release with significant changes to the way the addin works “under the hood” as well as major updates to our development stack. It also adds a couple of minor new features, such as improvements to the installer and improved handling of multi-user environments like Citrix or Terminal Server.

New Options dialog in Lucatec MASK 2.3.0

The most visible change however is a redesigned configuration interface. As the regular tab on Outlook’s Options dialog was already getting a little crowded and as we are fully intending to add more features in the future we decided to move the options to their own sub-dialog that could more easily be adjusted to additional configuration options.

Oh yes, and Lucatec® Mask 2.3.0 has been fully tested under Microsoft® Windows 7 Beta 1! ;)

Please refer to the Release Notes for a more detailed list of changes.

To install the update,  just download the installer from our Download page, login as Administrator and run the setup program. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Besides the new release we have also begun adding new content to the Lucatec® Mask product pages. There is now a Feature Matrix available, allowing you to easily compare changes between different versions of Lucatec® Mask. We have also set up a Blog which should allow us to publish new information, tutorials, best-practices, etc. in a more ad-hoc fashion than the existing pages allowed. This will also eventually replace our old News page.

Kind regards,

Oliver Giesen
Chief Software Developer

August 29, 2008

Lucatec® MASK 2.2.1 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , — gieseno @ 13:48

We are happy to inform you that we have released version 2.2.1 of our Outlook Team Tool, Lucatec® Mask. This is mainly a service release fixing a number of rarely encountered issues.

Furthermore, it is now possible to add an additional column to your folder views to display the name of the person who actually sent a message (rather than the account that it was sent on behalf of). In order to start recording and displaying this information bring up any folder’s Properties dialog and look out for the button labelled “Add Sender Column” on the Lucatec® Mask tab.

Please refer to the Release Notes for a more detailed list of changes and possible upgrade issues.

To install the update, just download the installer from our Download page, login as Administrator and run the setup program. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Kind regards,

Oliver Giesen,
Chief Software Developer

December 14, 2007

Lucatec® MASK 2.2.0 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , , , , — gieseno @ 17:30

We are happy to inform you that we have released version 2.2.0 of our Outlook Team Tool, Lucatec® Mask. This is mainly a compatibility release finally adding support for Outlook 2007, Windows Vista and WordMail (i.e. the option to use Word to edit e-mail messages in Outlook 2003 and earlier). As a side-effect of the changes it is now also possible to use embedded images in signatures. Furthermore there have been lots of subtle improvements all over.

Please refer to the Release Notes for a more detailed list of changes and possible upgrade issues.

To install the update, just download the installer from our Download page, login as Administrator and run the setup program. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Kind regards and happy holidays!

Oliver Giesen
Chief Software Developer

July 18, 2007

Lucatec® MASK 2.1.1 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , , , , — gieseno @ 16:58

We are happy to inform you that we have released version 2.1.1 of our Outlook Team Tool, Lucatec® Mask. This is a feature release containing several new features and optimizations, such as Valid Sender Options and a Message Options Dialog. Furthermore, we are now offering a German localized version of the program as well.

To install the update, just download the installer from our Download page, login as Administrator and run the setup program. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Kind regards,

Oliver Giesen,
Chief Software Developer

May 23, 2006

Lucatec® MASK 2.0 released!

We are more than happy to announce that after months of hard work we have finally released the all new version 2.0 of our Outlook Team Tool, Lucatec® Mask. This is a major feature release with many exciting new features, such as Recursive Folder Options, per-folder Signatures and improved Reply handling, most of which are the direct result of customer feedback we received over the course of the almost one and a half years since the initial online release of the product.

To install the upgrade, just download the trial from our Download page, login as Administrator and run the setup program. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Kind regards,

Oliver Giesen

July 22, 2005

Lucatec® MASK 1.2.1 released!

Filed under: Lucatec MASK,Releases — Tags: , , , , — gieseno @ 12:00

We are happy to inform you that we have released version 1.2.1 of our Outlook Team Tool, Lucatec® Mask. This is a major feature release containing many enhancements and optimizations. Specifically, you may now define sender addresses and target locations for sent items for individual folders (Owner privileges required!) or even globally for all sent messages. Additionally, besides a major UI overhaul, the installer has been enhanced to allow specifying default add-in options for all users at install time. You could download the updated installer from the following link:

LucatecMask-1.2.1-setup.zip

The release history with a few more details on the changes in this version is available by following this link:

The History of Lucatec Mask

To install the update, just login as Administrator and run the setup program contained in the above download archive. You do not need to uninstall the previous version. Please make sure that Outlook is not running while you install the update.

Kind Regards,

Oliver Giesen