Why are there extra fields in the content of an alert e-mail?

Question

I've got an immediate alert set up on a custom list, the list has multiple content types attached. If I create a new item on the list for a specific content type, the alert e-mail contains fields from other content types, the values for which are always empty. How does SharePoint determine which fields to include in the content of the alert e-mail?

Environment is MOSS 2007 Post SP1 Hotfix (12.0.0.6303) on Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2.

Update: Looking at the extra fields being displayed, they are all Lookup fields, so the alert contains all the correct fields from the content type plus all the lookup fields within the list.

Answer 1

There are alert templates that can be modified in the 12 hive to change the layout, I believe by default it grabs everything associated in the list, which is why after 2 content types, alerts are useless. If you want to persue that route, I can dig up some links.

In most cases, I opt for emails via on creation workflow instead. This allows you to specify exactly what you want to send in the format you want.