FuzzyCo

Converting an old sound set

To convert an old-style Entourage sound set, you've first got to get the six sounds out of the single file. If you've still got a machine that can run Classic, you could use ResEdit to export the resources, but I found that FIle Juicer ($18 shareware with a fully-functional free trial) work easiest. Drag your sound set file onto File Juicer's main window and you'll have a folder created on your Desktop with the name '[SoundSetName] Juice'. Inside that folder is a 'sfil' folder with 12 files in it -- the six sounds as .sfil files and as .mov files. File Juicer provides an Automator action that uses iTunes to convert the sounds to AIFF, or if you have QuickTime Pro you can just open the six .mov files and use Export » Sound to AIFF to get six AIFF files. At this point, you're ready to move on the same as if you were starting from scratch ...

Creating a new sound set

The first step in creating a new sound set is to assemble your six sounds -- New Mail, Sent Mail, No Mail, Mail Error, Reminder, and Welcome -- either by converting an old sound set (see above), recording new sounds, or choosing sounds from one of the millions of sound resources available on the net. Entourage 2008 will evidently play anything that QuickTime can, so the sound files can be AIFFs, WAVs, MP3s, etc. Also, they don't have to be named to reflect what event they'll represent, so you can leave them named "swoosh.wav" and "doh.aif" or what have you.

Create a new folder and name it 'MySoundSet.eragesoundset' -- the first part of the name is just for your benefit, so name it as you like, but the '.eragesoundset' part is important. Put the six sound files inside.

Now use the Property List Editor (if you have the Developer Tools installed) or any text editor to create a text file inside the folder called 'soundset.plist'. It needs 9 keys:

• SoundSetFileFormatVersion (integer) - must be 0.
• SoundSetUserString (string) - String to display in the prefs dialog.
• SoundSetURL (string) - Clickable URL to display in the prefs dialog.
• SoundFile_MailError (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the Mail Error event.
• SoundFile_MailSent (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the Mail Sent event.
• SoundFile_NewMail (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the New Mail event.
• SoundFile_NoMail (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the No Mail event.
• SoundFile_Reminder (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the Reminder event.
• SoundFile_Welcome (string) - Name (including extension) of the sound file to play for the Welcome event.

So here's an example for the Microsoft Sound Set that was included with Entourage 2004 but not with 2008:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>SoundSetFileFormatVersion</key>
	<integer>0</integer>
	<key>SoundSetUserString</key>
	<string>Microsoft Sound Set</string>
	<key>SoundSetURL</key>
	<string>http://www.microsoft.com/mac</string>
	<key>SoundFile_MailError</key>
	<string>Error.aif</string>
	<key>SoundFile_MailSent</key>
	<string>Sent Mail.aif</string>
	<key>SoundFile_NewMail</key>
	<string>New Mail.aif</string>
	<key>SoundFile_NoMail</key>
	<string>No Mail.aif</string>
	<key>SoundFile_Reminder</key>
	<string>Reminder.aif</string>
	<key>SoundFile_Welcome</key>
	<string>Welcome.aif</string>
</dict>
</plist>

(Watch out copy-and-pasting the above -- the line '<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">' should all be one line with no line break.)

Then just move that whole folder into [Your Home Folder]/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Sound Sets/. In my tests, the sound sets would then immediately show up in the Entourage Preferences (under Notification) but your mileage may vary and you may need to quit and relaunch Entourage.

As I said above, the Microsoft Sound Set sound set from Entourage 2004 was not included in 2008, so I've converted it and it's a great example set to see how this simple format works. Download a 500 KB zip file here. (Hopefully they won't mind since it's a sound set they used to include, and I figure it's more legal than using, say, a bunch of Simpsons sounds for my example.)

All my information on the structure of the Entourage 2008 sound set format comes from an Ars Technica forum post by Erik Schwiebert of the Microsoft Mac Business Unit.