Event Maker 0.4: iCal events from Mail.app
My very favourite app for integrating Mail with iCal has been updated.
Event Maker allows you to create normal and all-day events and To Dos from a selected message in Mail.app or from scratch. The quick launch scripts mean that the whole process can be accomplished without touching the mouse once.
Event Maker 0.4 sports a redesigned interface to allow for alternate methods of setting dates, including a pop-up calendar, and an alarm drawer which supports full keyboard access.
The interface is cleaner:
It also now has full undo and redo functions and improved error-checking when creating events. The internal update feature has also been improved.
The app’s preferences offer good control over the creation process, allowing you to set default durations, to tell the app how to create events and what to do next:
Mike emails to say that he hasn’t put the new version up on MacUpdate or VersionTracker yet, but if you already have it installed, the auto-update feature will fetch it.
If you don’t yet use it, but want to try it out, download version 0.3 
from MacUpdate and then internally update to the newest version.
Event Maker is donation-ware.
Tags: Apple Mail, events, iCal, keyboard shortcuts, mail.app, messages, Productivity, todosRelated posts
June 24th, 2006 at 12:37 am
Nice utility - thanks for pointing it out.
I think it would be a useful addition to Event Maker if a file:// URL for the original mail file could be added to the URL property in the newly-created event - that way you could click on that URL in the event inspector in iCal and it would open the actual email file in Mail for reference, or to make it easy to reply to the person who initiated the event when it is finally completed.
June 24th, 2006 at 12:55 am
MailTags does this already for ToDos (but you probably knew that).
I agree that would be a neat feature.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:10 am
I had forgotten I knew that because I uninstalled MailTags a few weeks ago. I wasn’t using it very much and had a hunch it was contributing to some instability I was seeing in Mail. Thanks for the reminder - indeed I probably got the idea from playing around with MailTags.
I probably wouldn’t re-install MailTags for the URL-adding feature for Todos, but I’m liking Mail Events and I think it makes sense for the feature to be included in that program.
June 25th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Thanks for the comments on the URL idea. It’s something I’ve been wanting to achieve for a while, but couldn’t see how. However, you’ve prompted me to go back and have a look at it and I think I now have a solution that might be better than the MailTags one.
I’ve also updated the MacUpdate listing to the new version now, so you don’t have to worry about downloading and then updating (although I do think the Software Update mechanism is pretty neat).
Oh, and to the poster from a prior version of Event Maker. Yes, I know I have only listed the app on MacUpdate and not VersionTracker. I do intend to put it on VT, but only once I reach version 1.0
June 26th, 2006 at 12:15 am
Wow, Mike - thanks for being so responsive to your users. The only complicating thing I see about this feature would be the essential problem with file:// URLs - they point to the file at a static location. If the user later moves the email to another folder the URL link in the iCal item will no longer work. Unavoidable, I suppose, unless you implemented a much more complicated scheme involving URLs which point to old-style HFS+ aliases for the original mail files. Aliases maintain their links to the original files no matter where the original files are located.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Event Maker sounds neat - I’m gonna try it out. Great job, Mike. This e-mail linking stuff would be impossible for us IMAP users, or am I way off base?
Great site, by the way — I only just discovered it. I got a lot of catching up to do, obviously. Good thing it’s the holiday season, and things are pretty slow at work..
June 26th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Mike, I’m looking forward very much to your URL solution. That would be fantastic.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Gibbon
You are right about the URLs being static and that if you move a message, the Url linkback is effectively broken. However, MailTags, because of its deep integration into Mail can deal with this by keeping a link to the ical item associated with the message. When you move a message, MailTags will go back to iCal (by its uid) and update the URL to point to the new location.
I am going to include event linking in a future version. Right now I am working on getting 1.2.2 out (hopefully in less than 2 weeks) that will fix some stability problems and add some new small features that I have been working with. I am also working hard on MT 2.0 which will deal with IMAP and add a whole slew of nice new things. :)
June 29th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Hi guys, I have been continuing work on my solution and I can fairly safely say:
1. It’s viable
2. It definitely works just fine with IMAP
3. It can handle you moving messages around
Hopefully I’ll have it out in about a week. Scott, if you’re interested in using the solution with MailTags at some point once I’ve finished it, I’ll be happy to open source the code.