Services and Apple Mail
Services, or System Services, is a technology built into OS X that allows you to access the features of one application from within another one. Apple describes this little-used feature as
“an open-ended way to extend each other’s functionality by allowing applications to (i) provide services to other applications, and (ii) access functionality provided by other applications”
The developer section of Apple’s web site has a whole section on Services and how they work, but this entry is more practical. Here you will only find (after the jump) three ways that Services can help you work faster and smarter with Apple Mail.
The Services menu lives in the main or application menu of each app that can access them. Almost all Cocoa-based applications like Mail, Safari, Preview, TextEdit, ecto, Mellel, Sticky Brain (and so on) can use it.
You can find the Services menu in Mail under the Mail menu right next to the Apple menu. It’s a bit hard to get at there, so if the idea of Services appeals to you, you might want to get hold of HotService, a Cocoa bundle that brings the Services out into the open, placing it the top level of the Menubar next to the Windows menu.
I use three Services all the time, in Mail and elsewhere:
As you would expect Mail has its own Services which it offers to other apps. When I am reading a pdf or text document or a web page and want to send a chunk of it to someone, I highlight it and select “Send Selection” in the Mail submenu of the
Devon Technology’s WordService
This collection of third-party Services provides 34 text manipulation and formatting functions from the Services menu. If I cut and paste some text with line breaks into an email, highlighting it and selecting Reformat from the Format Services sub-menu strips out the breaks and gives me properly flowing text again. This is also useful when word processing in other apps, of course.
You can get WordService for free from Devon Technology’s web site.
CalendarCreator
This is a new Service that I’ve been playing around with for a few days. Highlight some text and select either Add Calendar Event or Add To Do from the CalendarCreator Services submenu and it will attempt to parse the text and enter it into iCal as either an event or a To Do item.
This works in
There are many more built-in Services and some of your apps will add their own. Pull the Services menu out of its hiding place with HotService and explore them.
Tags: Address Book, Apple Mail, Apple Mail Tips, iCal, mail.app, Productivity, ServicesRelated posts
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:54 am
Those using Quicksilver will be happy to know they can also easily create meetings and task in iCal. I have covered it a bit in this post http://www.nik.ca/online/?q=node/52 Furthermore, a services plugin is available allowing access to installed services from Quicksilver. As always, thanks for the great tips Tim.
November 3rd, 2005 at 9:55 am
Very cool. I am a great Quicksilver fan. It never stops surprising me by what it can do.
I esp. like the To Do one, but the Event one involves too much typing for me.
It’s quicker for me (I took metalwork instead of typing at school - big mistake!) to hightlight existing text and run an AppleScript or Service to get it into iCal.
November 15th, 2005 at 9:08 am
[...] I’ve blogged before about how I use OS X’s Services to make life easier in Apple Mail, especially about Devon’s Word Services. [...]
November 28th, 2005 at 12:19 am
[...] Speaking of using OS X’s Services menu in Apple Mail to work smarter, two new things deserve a mention. [...]
November 28th, 2005 at 3:55 am
In my opinion, the Service Manager preference pane is absolutely critical for anyone using Services extensively. It’s from Blacktree (makers of QuickSilver), and it allows you to disable services you don’t use (and re-enable them later). A clean Services menu brightens any day.
November 28th, 2005 at 6:59 am
Hi Dan. Thanks for the tip about the Services Manager. I’d not heard about that before. Excellent!
December 22nd, 2005 at 3:20 am
[...] Mac OS X’s built-in Services can help you work smarter and faster in Mail.app (and elsewhere). [...]
December 31st, 2005 at 2:56 am
[...] Services and Apple Mail. A small contribution to a much neglected aspect of Mac OS X and of working smarter in Apple Mail. [...]
January 20th, 2006 at 10:17 am
[...] Service Scrubber is a utility for managing your Services menu, making it easier to use Services in Mail.app (and elsewhere). [...]