Using Rules to Automate Organization

Rules can help you automate organization of incoming information and resources. For example, if you have set up your own filing system of Categories, you can create Rules to automatically file incoming resources that meet some criteria into one or more Categories. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can do with Rules.

If you have ever used the rules feature of Microsoft Outlook^®, you’ll find that rules in Omea ReaderOmea Pro work much the same way, except that they can deal with all supported resource types, not just e-mail, and there are more actions that Rules can perform on the resource(s) they match. The technique for defining Rules is also similar. If you are familiar with how it’s done in Outlook, you should be able to create Rules in Omea ReaderOmea Pro without difficulty.

Creating a New Rule

The Rules Manager dialog (Tools | Manage Rules) enables you to create, modify, and delete Rules, and to change the Rule processing order. The process of creating rules is similar to the one of creating Views.

There are 4 kinds of criteria that you can specify for Rules:

• Resource type(s):  The type(s) of resource(s) that the Rule applies to.
• Conditions: Some criteria that must be met in order for the Rule to apply. For example, a Rule might specify that some specific text must appear in the resource(s) to which the Rule applies.
• Exceptions: Any exception(s) to the Condition(s). For example, a Condition might specify that a resource must be from a particular sender. An Exception might specify some text in the resource which, if present, would prevent the Rule from being applied even though the sender condition is matched.
• Actions: What should happen with resources that meet the resource type and Condition criteria, and to which any defined Exception(s) are not applicable. For example, if the resource type is Newsgroup articles, the Conditions specify a particular sender, and the Exception(s) are not applicable, then an Action might file the resource under a particular Category, display a message box, play a sound, or all three.

Process for Creating Rules

There is no single set of steps for creating a Rule, because each one can contain almost any combination of the many criteria. The basic steps are:

1. Specify what resources the Rule applies to. By default, a new Rule applies to all supported resource types. If you want to limit the Rule to just one or two types, you must explicitly specify these.
2. Define one or more Conditions. (Required).
3. Define one or more Exceptions to the Conditions. (Optional)
4. Define one or more Actions that take place if the other defined criteria are met.

Pins

You can now use pins if you want Omea to reuse the conditions which you have once defined in any of the dialogs for defining rules. To pin the condition, just click the Pin button (). Once you pin some condition, it will always appear in the Rules Manager dialog if you click the New button in appropriate tab.

Pined Condition in the New Tray Icon Rule dialog

If you often use some condition or exception , you can easily pin it for later use by pressing the button in order not to specify it again in the future.

E-mail support shown in the video tutorial is available only in Omea Pro.