Anthony Baker emails to tell me that the new nightly builds of WebKit (which will be used for Safari 3.0) have fixed the WYSIWYG form editing problem that bedevils users of current Safari versions.

This means, he says, that “you can now hit Gmail and get the same kinds of rich-text editing capability provided to IE, FF and other browsers. You can also access Google Docs.”

And it’s true. Using Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) the formatting bar in Gmail’s basic HTML view doesn’t appear:

But WebKit displays the HTML formatting bar in all its glory (as it also does in Google Docs):

Not only that but some basic formatting keyboard shortcuts work too. So ⌘B and ⌘I toggle bold and italic text, making it easier for die-hard keyboard users to format their emails without fingers leaving the keyboard.

Not all the shortcuts work though. Tab+Enter doesn’t send a message and ⌘U doesn’t produce underlined text.

The latest beta of the much-hyped Desktop client for Gmail, MailPlane which I have been fooling around with for a few days also offers the option to use WebKit behind the scenes to give users this added functionality (but that’s a topic for another longer post.)

WebKit scolds you for daring to use extensions, but that’s a small price to pay for a user in love with Gmail’s HTML features.

[Thanks, Anthony!]mail.app, apple mail, gmail, webkit, safari, html, web forms, formatting, mailplane, google

Google has launched a Mac version of its Desktop search app.

Windows users have been able to use this for a while now as a kind of poor man’s Spotlight. Now it comes to Mac and brings with it several tricks that Spotlight can’t do. Hardcore Googlistas will love it.

As you would expect, it is able to search your drives for applications, files, emails and folders. But unlike Spotlight, it is also able to search your Gmail messages and web browsing history at the same time.

Desktop for Mac installs itself as a system-wide Preference Pane, where you can set the app’s options, including whether or not to include Gmail and your web-browsing history in the search results:

Another pane allows you to set the hotkey for Google Desktop (⌘ + ⌘ by default) and to determine how results are displayed.

Hitting the hotkey calls up a nicely-crafted search box. A search for “journo” lists emails from Mail.app and Gmail in one hit which is very handy, complete with a little snippet for each one, something I often wish Spotlight could provide:

In an extra nice touch for MailTags users like me, Google has made sure that the app is compatible with existing mdimporters. That means it recognises MailTags keywords, projects and notes and displays them in the results.

You can download Google Desktop for Mac from Google’s Mac software page .mail.app, apple mail, gmail, google, desktop, searching, web history, productivity

Mac OS X Tips UK has written up a list of tips to wring the most out of the menubar helper for Google services like Gmail and Google Calendar.

It shows you how to set the default number of messages displayed using the hidden Defaults Editor.

You can also set the Notifier to display only email matching a particular label in the same way.

Of course, the Defaults Editor just a fancy GUI to Notifier’s preferences file — com.google.GmailNotifier — stored in your ~/Library/Preferences folder, which you can edit directly with Proprty List Editor or any text editor.

The list also mentions Gmail+Growl , a plugin for Google Notifier that passes notification of new messages to the Growl alert system .Gmail, google, calendar, menubar, notification, not apple mail, not mail.app, email, tips

Spanning Sync has finally released a public beta of its Google Calendar-iCal two-way sync app, only to experience so overwhelming a demand for new signups that the beta was closed again.

Spanning Sync is said to offer reliable bidirectional syncing of user-selected Calendars in iCal and Google’s calendar (see a previous Hawk Wings post).

The interface in the beta looks promising:

In a post that went up on the company’s blog soon after the announcement of the public beta, relief was promised for those eager to try out the service:

We’re thrilled (and a little freaked out) by the literally overwhelming response, but we want to make sure all of our users have the best experience possible. With any luck, the public beta will open again tomorrow, with a lot more capacity to handle the load. Thank you for your patience.

Keep your eyes peeled for the re-opening.

[Via TUAW ]ical, google, calendar, syncing, two-way, beta, spanning sync, not apple mail

Murphy at Murphy Mac has created a few screencasts that walk viewers through the process of using an applescript Folder Action to email files quickly and painlessly to a predetermined email address.

He suggests that it could be used to configure a folder that shoots off any file dragged into it to someone you frequently send files to.

Another option is to configure a Folder Action so that any file dragged onto a particular folder is automatically send to your Gmail address for archiving.

Other possibilities are not hard to imagine — emailing photos to your Backpack account or whatever.

One screencast shows the Folder Action at work , as Murphy emails some iPhone graphics (very topical) to his Gmail account.

After the Folder Action is set up, all you have to do is drag the file over the enabled folder:

Enter a subject line when prompted, and whoosh!–Mail.app sends off the file–which arrives at Gmail, ready for archiving and storage:

A second screencast describes how to edit the applescript he provides so that this will work for you:

It’s a clever solution for people who are always emailing attachments to particular people or who are looking for a simple way to archive files online. mail.app, apple mail, gmail, finder, folder actions, applescript, archiving, storage, productivity, tips, google

I feel a bit sorry for Address Book. It sits in the background, chugging away and serving up contact details, but seldom gets the attention it deserves.

It doesn’t have a special day as iCal does (Wikipedia ). It doesn’t have a blog dedicated to it. Steve Jobs doesn’t wax lyrical about spending his day in it as he does with Mail.app.

To celebrate this quiet achiever, I am having a little Address Book Day of my own today.

First, five tips to help Address Book do its work better:

1. Creating iCal appointments from Address Book vCards. A quick drag and drop tip that saves time and typing. And is a clever example of iApp integration to boot.
2. Setting a default email address in Address Book. Help Address Book to know which email address is your preferred one for a particular contact (in a Group—as Yoram rightly points out in the comments).
3. A fistful of Address Book tips from Scott Kelby’s Mac OS X Tiger Killer Tips.
4. Tips on printing Address Book contacts.
5. Ed Eubank’s LowEndMac article on Supercharging Address Book offers some tips, uncovers ‘hidden features’ and suggests some great plugins to help you maximise Address Book’s usefulness.

The Hawk Wings Plugin and Addon List contains 22 extras, addons and utilities that make Address Book better.

Here are five that I particularly like:

1. BuddyPOP: Quick pop-up access to your Address Book Data. (See also the freeware but less-fully featured TapDex).
2. JABMenu: A menubar quick-access utility for Address Book.
3. Snail Mail: Beautiful envelopes and labels from Address Book.
4. MySync: Sync Address Book to many Macs without .Mac.
5. Plugins to integrate Address Book and Google Calendar.

address book, mail.app, apple mail, google, calendar, ical, contacts, tips, plugins, the little engine that could

Benjamin Harley has updated his applescripted utility ABGMerge which offers true two-way syncing between Address Book and Gmail.

The latest release makes a number of significant improvements.

It has repackaged as an application, and features a ‘Safe Mode’ with the option to restore your Address Book to its initial contents.

User interaction has been streamlined and improved, and the app no longer leaves extraneous data in your Address Book (altough it still leaves “<myABGmerge>” in Gmail notes so you know which ones are synchronized to your Address Book).

It’s also faster: the basic synchronization algorithms are significantly refined.

Benjamin says,

It is still complicated, and probably not for people without some savvy. It doesn’t necessarily handle foreign addresses all that well. And it probably still has some bugs. But it is far more robust now than it was before – and it sure beets doing a one off import / export between the two applications. Address Book is such a good repository for address information, but if you don’t have .mac – Gmail may be the best bet to get at that information when you are at work or away.

You can get ABGMerge from Benjamin’s web site .address book, gmail, google, syncing, contacts, web 2.0, applescript