Speaking of using OS X’s Services menu in Apple Mail to work smarter, two new things deserve a mention.

HotService has been updated. This bundle moves the Services out of the File menu onto the Statusbar for easier access. The new version replaces the “Services” text with a bullet to conserve Statusbar real estate and initialises the Service Menu more quickly on start-up.

InstantLinks is another Services bundle that offers quick and easy shortcuts to various useful “look-ups” on selected text:

Select an address that someone has emailed you, and Google Maps via InstantLinks gives you a handy map. Or highlight a word in a Mail.app message and InstantLinks can take you straight to its Wikipedia entry.

Command-= takes you to the dictionary definition or thesaurus on Answers.com. And so on.

Of course, while these tools help you work better in Apple Mail, by their very nature they are there to help you in any other Cocoa-based app you use.

Both bundles are freeware.

Tags: Apple Mail, HotService, mail.app, Services, Wikipedia

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 12:15 am and is filed under Apple Mail, Apple Mail Plug-ins, Apple Mail Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.