Hawk Wings » css

Quickly add URLs to Apple Mail Signatures

Tim Gaden — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:24:14 +0000

As everyone knows, it has long been possible to add a very fancy signature to your mail.app emails, using the excellent tutorial provided by Melvin Rivera.

It’s complicated, involving some digging around under the hood. It also requires a measure of HTML and CSS coding ability.

However, when the process is over the result is impressive (provided that you don’t hold a faith position on plain text in Internet communication):

Now a poster on macOSXHints has discovered an easier way. It is possible to add hyperlinks to your signatures in Mail’s Preferences without the pain involved in the first option.

All you need to do is type text into the signature field, highlight it and press Command-K (⌘-K). Up pops a dialog into which you place the URL, and you’re done. In a minute you have a hyperlinked signature, not as polished as Melvin’s, but easier on the eye than a sig full of long URLs:

Rob Griffiths comments that the tip didn’t work for him in 10.5, but it’s working fine for me in 10.6.1 (mail.app 4.1).

Of course, Command-K (⌘-K) also works in the body of any (rich text) email you are composing.

[Via macOSXHints ]Similar Posts:

SignatureProfiler for Leopard Mail

Tim Gaden — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:19:27 +0000

Scott Little has updated his excellent SignatureProfiler plugin for Leopard Mail.

Veteran Hawk Wings readers will remember how many nifty tweaks and new options this plugin brings to Mail.app’s signature feature (see this previous Hawk Wings post if you are not a veteran reader).

The new version adds support for Leopard Mail and removes it for Panther Mail. You can get the update (1.4.4) from Scott’s web site . SignatureProfiler is donation-ware.signatures, mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, html, CSS, Skype, hyperlinks, pluginsSimilar Posts:

Get nicer looking Thunderbird labels

Tim Gaden — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:12:44 +0000

Thomas McMahon has knocked out some styles for the “Stylish” CSS-extension that produce brighter, better looking labels in Thunderbird.

The Stylish extension is a user style manager: “Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript, and unlike other methods of using user styles, most styles take effect immediately.”

When you have installed Stylish, you can follow the instructions on Thomas’s web site to download some pre-made label styles that will turn your Thunderbird labels from this in to this:

And it’s not just a Mac-only solution as Thomas notes:

The new labels code has been tested in Thunderbird 1.5 and 2.0 on Mac and works great. It should work fine under Windows and Linux too.

thunderbird, mozilla, stylish, labels, CSS, hack, extension, not apple mail, not mail.app, emailSimilar Posts:

.Mac webmail interface screws CSS, email marketers

Tim Gaden — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:58:43 +0000

An email marketer tested the new .Mac webmail interface and didn’t like what he found. His “marketing emails” are screwed by the way in which the new web interface handles CSS.

The old interface did a good job, he remembers. It “had amazing support for CSS and standards-based markup”.

But the new client wraps the whole email in a new DIV container:

This process is obviously aimed at foiling any modifications to the .Mac GUI caused by the use of type selectors. And if properly executed it would not impact the appearance of the source email. However, .Mac adds a gratuitous DIV just inside the new #messageCanvas DIV, consequently rendering all CSS uselessâ€¦

As a result, direct marketers are faced with a dilemma:

So the result is that weâ€™re at an impasse with .Mac: either we support other clients or we support .Mac. The former is the obvious choice, leaving us with .Mac emails looking like those rendered in Gmail and Hotmail. Bummer.

Or not.

(Hawk-eyed readers will notice that a coding work-around for this is presented in the comments to the original post.).Mac, dotmac, webmail, interface, CSS, direct marketing, standardsSimilar Posts:

SignatureProfiler 1.3: Skype, HTML, CSS, images, hyperlinks and more

Tim Gaden — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 13:14:43 +0000

Scott Little has released a substantial update to his SignatureProfiler plugin for Apple Mail, which manages signatures and adds extra features like iTunes info and account-specific tail signatures.

The new version (1.3) adds the option to insert a variety of Skype images into your sig, new placeholders for images and hyperlinks in your sigs, greater stability and more.

Most usefully of all, it now allows you to add HTML and CSS to signatures without all the messing around with cryptically-named files like 92768111-8FA1-4572-977D-C94D7A5FDB9A.webarchive that was involved in previous signature hacks like this and this .

Now, creating fancy signatures is much easier. A new contextual menu in SignatureProfiler for Mail’s signature preference pane makes it fast, easy and error-free:

You can drop an HTML file or a webarchive right into the signature you want. Options to add an obscured email address and other fields which SignatureProfiler fills in when constructing the signature means that you can construct great signatures in minutes:

Of course, this will appeal most to fans of Rich Text emails rather than to old fuddy-duddies like me.

Still, the ability to add info about your iTunes habits, account-specific tail signatures and other features of the plugin do not break the sacred bonds of plain text brotherhood, so there is lots for every Mail.app user to enjoy here.

SignatureProfiler is donation-ware and it is available from Scott’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, signatures, CSS, HTML, plugins, iTunesSimilar Posts:

Thunderbird: CSS signatures, random signatures

Tim Gaden — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:43:13 +0000

Martin Koistinen has posted some tips on how to manage signatures in Thunderbird.

He offers some code for a CSS signature. It follows the same principles as CCS signatures for Mail.app posted here in the past, but with all the bells and whistles you could ever want.

It won’t appeal to everyone, but people who have made their peace with HTML in email will be delighted at how comprehensive the code is:

Not content with that, he has also created a randomiser for Thunderbird sigs. The shell script he provides will insert a tag line from a user-created list into this CSS signature or any HTML signature file. Full instructions in the post make it easy to craft your own. Nice.thunderbird, signatures, random, CSS, tips, email, not apple mailSimilar Posts:

Adding a dynamic Skype sig to Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Sat, 13 May 2006 12:35:19 +0000

A post on the Skype blog describes how to add a dynamic Skype icon to a signature in Mail.app, which lets other know whether you are currently available or not.

It basically follows the same method as you use to insert any HTML signature into Mail.app, or a CSS signature or a rotating FeedBurner signature.skype, html, signatures, css, mail.app, apple mail, tips, emailSimilar Posts:

How to make a nice .sig file using CSS

Tim Gaden — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:10:07 +0000

Melvin Rivera has written an excellent illustrated tutorial on how to create a CSS signature in Mail.app.

He provides detailed instructions and a sample template, from which you can quickly create a signature of your own:

Of course, this will only work if you are happy to operate in Rich Text format. If you are an old-fashioned plain texter (like me), this tip is not for you.

UPDATE: Melvin has updated his post with some extra information on how Gmail handles CSS.

[Via TUAW ]HTML, CSS, signatures, mail.app, apple mail, tips, rich text, howto

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Weekly Update

Tim Gaden — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 13:22:09 +0000

Plugins and addons

I’ve added Address-O-Matic (sharing Address Books via Bonjour) to the Address Book section of the Hawk Wings Plug-in and Add-on List.

Event Maker (To dos and events from a Mail.app message) was added to the iCal section.

Backend

I noticed today that something had broken the CSS for Internet Explorer. It should be fixed now, but apologies. I don’t think about Internet Explorer users (6% of Hawk Wings visitors) as much as I should.Address book, ical, mail.app, apple mail, to dos, events, sharing, bonjour, Internet explorer, CSSSimilar Posts: