Apple has changed the way that Mail.app interacts with plugins in Snow Leopard.

As Ken Aspelagh describes it on the Mac Observer:

“Each new version of Mail and the associated Message framework includes a unique code. Plug-ins have to explicitly declare themselves compatible with each new version,” Mr. Aspeslagh told The Mac Observer. “There is some sense to this as plug-ins are closely tied to the inner working of Mail, and stand the chance of breaking when Mail.app updates. Apple didn’t want to take this chance, so now they automatically disable all plug-ins with each update.”

So today’s 10.6.2 update is likely to break some plugins.

Most developers are only too aware of this issue, and will get updated plugins out fast.

Greg Welch, who develops the MailRecent and MailFollowUp plugins, has already got new, 10.6.2-compatible versions out the door.

Eric Hinterbichler has done the same with his new Herald Notification utility.

Other developers are sure to follow quickly. Some acted weeks before the update appeared, like Aaron Harnly who pushed out a compatible version of his Letterbox plugin three weeks ago.

10.6.2 broke the Mail clipping plugin from Omnifocus, but fortunately this can be restored simply by reinstalling it.

Other plugins, especially those not so actively or quickly supported, might be more difficult.

langui.sh has published some Terminal commands that will (potentially) revive other busted plugins. He has written them for GrowlMail but they could easily be adapted for other plugins, and “trick” them into working again.

It’s worth a shot, especially if you are in love with a plugin that’s not so well supported. However, maybe make a backup of the plugin’s bundle first. You know, just in case.apple mail, snow leopard, mail.app, plugins, UUID, Apple

Scott Morrison of Indev Software (producers of the MailTags and Mail Act-on plugins) has released a souped-up version of the miniMail plugin, which he recently acquired from Olive Toast Software.

miniMail 2.0 retains all the goodness of the original–the ability to minimize Mail.app’s interface like you can in iTunes–but adds more features and flexibility.

The minimised interface is elegant and efficient, as you would expect from the developer of MailTags:

It is also fully integrated with Mail Act-on, allowing you to use the same keystrokes to file messages away quickly.

The plugin’s Preference pane offers options to control which mailboxes it monitors, text size inside the minimized interface itself and how it should expand again when double-clicked (to the mail mail.app window or a single message window):

The Preference pane also controls miniMail 2.0′s new feature–multiple mini viewers.

You can now open a Message Viewer for a number of individual mailboxes and minimize them to keep track of new messages in particular accounts or even RSS feeds.

Here I am monitoring my work email in one miniMail window, my Hawk Wings email in another (one canny doctoral student sends his emails to both!) and the network status RSS feed of my ISP:

Very handy for keeping focus on important things whilst filtering out the rest.

miniMail is shareware (USD 12.95) and is available from Indev’s web site . Registered users of MailTags and Mail Act-on qualify for a USD 4 discount.mail.app, apple mail, mailtags, mail act-on, minimail, plugins, productivity

equinux, purveyors of fine HTML stationary for Mail.app, has released a new collection of Christmas stationery templates in plenty of time for the festive season.

“Season’s Greetings Vol. 2″ contains templates offering Christmas greetings, invitations, wishlists for your kids to send to Santa, templates for one of those much-loved “annual news-roundup” emails.

Kwanzaa and Hanukkah are not forgotten. Templates are included for those festivals too.

For those not in the know, Apple Mail’s stationery feature allows the app to send pre-made HTML emails, often quite fancy. Many of the equinux templates allow for customization by the insertion of your own photos and user-definable fonts:

The pack costs €7,95 (c. USD 11.80) and is available from equinux’s web site where you can also see the company’s other stationery packs.

If you are keen on this kind of thing, and know that your friends don’t mind receiving them, but you don’t want to shell out money for the option, you will find some freeware seasonal stationery templates listed in the following, previous Hawk Wings posts:

1. Plugin List adds 122 Leopard Mail Templates.

2. More Mail Stationery, for sale and for free.

[via macnews.de ]stationery, mail.app, apple mail, plugins, addons, Christmas, hanukkah, Kwanzaa, festive season, more bandwidth-sucking tomfoolery

Erik Hinterbichler has created a plugin, inspired by the well-loved MailAppetizer, that offers the same polished notifications when new mail arrives, and adds the option to perform some quick actions from the notification pane itself.

As an added bonus it’s ready to run in Snow Leopard now, while MailAppetizer is still being made Snow Leopard friendly.

It offers a customisable notification pane, with four icons on the bottom which allow you to delete, reply, open the message in amil.app or simply mark it read:

Herald comes in an installer package, but installs itself as standard plugin bundle in the Bundles folder of your Mail folder. It adds an additional pane to Mail’s Preferences.

The first tab allows you to specify whether the notification pane should be permanent or dismiss itself after a user-defined number of seconds. It also offers the option of opening the message in Mail’s main window or in a separate window of its own.

The second tab control the background and font colours and the level of transparency in the notification:

The third pane provides the ability to specify which mailboxes it polls for incoming emails, providing you with good control over just how bothered you want to be, and by what kind of emails:

If you like having your email in your face all the time, a utility like this will do the job very well.

Herald is donation-ware and is available from Erik’s web site . notification, mail.app, apple mail, plugins, mailappetizer, productivity

Jumsoft has released a pack of additional mail stationery templates for Leopard Mail.

The pack contains 50 “high-quality and exclusive design options for every occasion”, covering Family, Congratulations, Invitations, Emotions, Vacations and Seasons themes.

An additional group are described as “Neutral”, or multi-purpose.

You can view small thumbnails of all the templates on the Jumsoft web site, but some examples of the “Neutral” category are displayed below:

    

The pack costs USD 39 and is available from Jumsoft’s web site .

Value-conscious readers will want to compare this pack of 50 with the pack of 111 templates from equinix (reviewed in an earlier Hawk Wings post). The equinix pack retails for 24.95 euros (c. USD 40), twice as many template choices for almost the same price.

Of course, really value-conscious readers will want to make their own (see earlier Hawk Wings post ) or look at the increasing number of stationery templates offered for free.

Novcon.net has started a collection of free stationery templates, which now contains sixteen examples. Users can rate the ones they like best. The current winner is an attractive “parchment” template.

The Novcon site also contains instructions on how to install the stationery.

Templates in the Jumsoft pack and on the Novcon.net site are now listed in the Templates section of the comprehensive Hawk Wings Plug-in and Add-on List.templates, stationery, html, leopard mail, mail.app, apple mail, plugins

MailFX is a new notification utility for Mail.app that displays a Quartz Composer animated graphic on the Desktop when new mail arrives.

This is the sort of thing that will please people looking for a notification utility between the complete pop-up MailAppetizer offers and the minimal approach of menubar utilities like MailUnreadStatusBar.

It installs itself as a classic bundle in your Mail Directory, with its own preference Pane in Mail.app’s Preferences:

Here you can select which of the included graphics you want it to display, how long it should display and how transparently. It can also play a sound when the notification is shown (Nostalgic readers should check out the Eudora new mail sound in the dropdown box).

You can also opt to reveal Mail.app when you click on the notification.

The plugin crates a rule that controls which emails will trigger a notification. By default it is set to trigger for all new mail:

Obviously, tweaking the rule can reduce this and make the alerts more useful (for example, set the rule to trigger only on emails from your work account and not emails from your blog, or only from your boss, or whatever).

In addition, it claims to restore the ability to hide Mail.app on start-up, a feature broken in Leopard (and Tiger too, IIRC).

MailFX is freeware and only works with Leopard Mail. It’s available from the developer’s web site

Excursus: An Ethical Blogging Dilemma

Every now and then an app or plugin comes along that sharpens the difference between being a journalist and a blogger. The bouncy, bouncy notification madness of NotifX was just such an app. This one is another.

When you are a journalist, you just write what your editor tells you to, and don’t ask (too many) questions. And then you get a paycheck in the mail.

When you’re a blogger, it’s more complicated (for one thing, there are no paychecks).

On the one hand, you want to be comprehensive. That’s the point of the blog. On the other hand, there’s the question of good taste. The blog is “mine” in a way that the IT articles I once wrote are not. To be honest, this utility offends my aesthetic sensibilities. I would rather cut my heart out with a teaspoon than use it.

To post or not to post?

I resolve this dilemma as follows: Smack myself on the back of the head for being a snob, and post. notification, mail.app, apple mail, quartz composer, animation, anti-productivity applications, notifX, plugins, a question of good taste

Ever felt that the red flag in Mail.app doesn’t offer you enough flexibility?

Flagit! is a plug-in that offers Mail.app users customisable flags of as many different colours as you like, as well as question and exclamation marks.

It is packaged as a plug-in for SIMBL , an Input Manager that allows application-specific hacks for Cocoa apps (like Mail.app).

It is not heavy on documentation. Pay close attention to the installer screen, because it offers you all the information you will get on how to use its new features:

Once installed, you can access its features through the “Mark” option in the contextual menu. Highlight the email you want to flag, Control-click (or right-click) on the email and choose the flag you want:

The Customize option opens a preference pane with room to edit the default flags and create as many new ones as you need:

It also provides the option to colourise the text of the email that you have flagged. Combined with the option to colourise the backgrounds of emails (which I do through Mail Act-on — Leopard users this way ), it can produce a riot of colour in your inbox.

If I wasn’t very happy about marking emails done or needing attention or waiting for a response with the keywords feature of MailTags , I could imagine using this, and benefitting from the additional visual help of coloured flags.

Flagit! works with Tiger and Leopard and is shareware (USD 8). You can download a 15-day free demo from the developer’s web site .

UPDATE: Users report in the comments that Flagit! doesn’t play nicely with the WideMail plugin. The comments also contain some tips on uninstalling Flagit! mail.app, apple mail, flags, productivity, hacks, simbl, plugins