Macro Mail Alert

[Atch]

Hey, I've got a little problem with always missing important mails. Tried the Ablebits plugin but it's not quite what I'm looking for.

Is it possible to do the following with a macro:
1. Open a small alert window in the middle of the screen, preferably one that always stays in the foreground no matter where you click unless you close it.
2. Sound a system alert (specified wav file) on repeat every X seconds/minutes until Alert Window is closed

The following code successfully sounds an alarm for me, but not sure how to do the rest.

#If VBA7 Then ' 64-bit MS Office
    Private Declare PtrSafe Function sndPlaySound32bit Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As LongPtr) As LongPtr
#Else ' 32-bit MS Office
    Private Declare Function sndPlaySound32bit Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As LongPtr) As LongPtr
#End If


Public Sub PlaySound()
    sndPlaySound32bit "C:\Windows\Media\Alarm01.wav", &H1
End Sub

 

[Diane Poremsky]

The new Item desktop alert action in rules does the window - but its not modal or always on top.

A simple msgbox would be modal and lock you out of Outlook until you responded. Other apps, but not Outlook, could take focus from a msgbox but Outlook is basically locked until you respond.

 

[Atch]

So playing a system sound or beep on a loop until msgbox or UserForm is closed is not possible? Tried playing around with SetTimer but didn't get anything to work here.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

The player would need to loop - according this link, its SND_LOOP, SND_ASYNC

sndPlaySound

learn.microsoft.com

I only found C++ samples - I think it would be like this in vba. It plays until you run the macro again to stop it (could do this using a counter)
sndPlaySound32bit "C:\Windows\Media\Alarm01.wav", &H1, SND_LOOP, SND_ASYNC

Using PlaySound to Loop Sounds - Win32 apps

Using PlaySound to Loop Sounds

learn.microsoft.com

 

[Atch]

Why did I even bother with SetTimer... Your solution seems much easier. I kinda got it to work with this:

Option Explicit

#If VBA7 Then 'make it 64bit office compatible
    Public Declare PtrSafe Function sndPlaySound32 Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long
#Else
    Public Declare Function sndPlaySound32 Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "sndPlaySoundA" (ByVal lpszSoundName As String, ByVal uFlags As Long) As Long
#End If

'  flag values for uFlags parameter
Const SND_SYNC = &H0            '  play synchronously (default)
Const SND_ASYNC = &H1           '  play asynchronously

Const SND_NODEFAULT = &H2       '  silence not default, if sound not found

Const SND_MEMORY = &H4          '  lpszSoundName points to a memory file
Const SND_ALIAS = &H10000       '  name is a WIN.INI [sounds] entry
Const SND_FILENAME = &H20000    '  name is a file name
Const SND_RESOURCE = &H40004    '  name is a resource name or atom
Const SND_ALIAS_ID = &H110000   '  name is a WIN.INI [sounds] entry identifier

Const SND_ALIAS_START = 0       '  must be > 4096 to keep strings in same section of resource file

Const SND_LOOP = &H8            '  loop the sound until next sndPlaySound
Const SND_NOSTOP = &H10         '  don't stop any currently playing sound
Const SND_VALID = &H1F          '  valid flags          / ;Internal /

Const SND_NOWAIT = &H2000       '  don't wait if the driver is busy

Const SND_VALIDFLAGS = &H17201F '  Set of valid flag bits.  Anything outside
                                '  this range will raise an error
Const SND_RESERVED = &HFF000000 '  In particular these flags are reserved

Const SND_TYPE_MASK = &H170007


Sub play(Item As Outlook.MailItem)
    sndPlaySound32 "C:\Windows\Media\Alarm01.wav", SND_ASYNC + SND_LOOP
    UserForm1.Show
End Sub

Private Sub halt()
    sndPlaySound32 vbNullString, SND_ASYNC
End Sub

Sub ShowUserForm()
    UserForm1.Show
End Sub

Private Sub ToggleButton1_Click()
    sndPlaySound32 vbNullString, SND_ASYNC
    Unload Me
End Sub

Private Sub UserForm_Click()
    
End Sub

Private Sub UserForm_QueryClose(Cancel As Integer, CloseMode As Integer)
    sndPlaySound32 vbNullString, SND_ASYNC
End Sub

Though I Indeed get locked out until I close the UserForm, but that's not really an issue. I hope a certain someone will finally stop missing important mails now.