A few days ago a Hawk Wings reader kindly emailed me about his search for a template to create Mail Stamp icons.

I skimmed it, thought it was very interesting and then — somehow — lost it. Not even a mailbox rebuild brought it back.

If that person could email again, I’d be very grateful. Sorry about that. mail.app, apple mail, stamp icons, hacks, mail stamps, how embarrassing, template

As the arrival of each major new version of Mac OS X draws near, I start to dread the reappearance of those lozenge-shaped icons in my Mail.app interface.

Some people, more adaptable than I am, don’t mind them at all. For me, it always the first tweak I apply, using the excellent Mail Stamps utility.

Fortunately Mail Stamps developer Andrew Escobar is already working on the Leopard Mail version, which will be Mail Stamps 3.0.

In reply to my nervous email, he replies that,

Under the hood, Mail has not changed a great deal. I have been able to get full size toolbar items, so it should not be a problem. I fully plan to release a new version of Mail Stamps for both Leopard and Tiger.

Yippee! mail.app, apple mail, tiger mail, lozenge buttons, mail stamps, hacks, hideously ugly, panther mail icons, good news

Not everyone likes the new lozenge buttons in Tiger Mail. John Siracusa at Ars Technica calls them “hideously ugly”. Giles Turnbull at MacDevCenter finds that “Euw…” sums it all up. And Leopard doesn’t remove them.

In fact, the lozenges are spreading. It looks like Preview will feature them in Leopard:

Foad Afshari has posted a disk image containing the “de-lozenged” icons from Tristan O’Tierney’s Cage Fighter , a utility (broken since 10.4.6) that removes the bubble from the buttons. A before and after shot gives you an idea of the transformation:

The disk image also contains the buttons from Panther Mail and instructions on how to manually install them into Mail.app’s package.

However, there is an easier way. Andrew Escobar’s Mail Stamps still works nicely. It does all the hack work for you, replacing the Tiger lozenges with bold and brassy Panther icons:

Mail Stamps includes an uninstaller so you can return to the Tiger look if the mood takes you.

The change will not bust or damage Mail in any way. It only replaces some images deep inside Mail’s application package. You can banish those lozenges with 100% confidence.

Hopefully, someone is already working on “Preview Stamps”.mail.app, apple mail, mail stamps, icons, tiger, lozenges, hacks, panther, buttons

The 10.4.6 update has been released.

According to the release notes , the only improvement for Mail.app “resolves an issue in which Mail could unexpectedly quit when lowering the quote level within a reply message”, something I’ve never noticed.

A user in the Apple Discussions reports that the update breaks GPGMail, so that Mail crashes when an encrypted message is selected.

On my PowerBook, it also overwrote the Panther Mail icons inserted by Mail Stamps, which gave me a fright.

Fortunately, running Mail Stamps after the update has removed the lozenge-shaped buttons again.mac osx, apple, mail.app, apple mail, mail stamps, GPGMail, update, 10.4.6

Andrew Escobar, the developer of Mail Stamps and Front Row Enabler (a hack to install Front Row on any Mac running 10.4.5) has received a letter from Apple alleging that he is violating Apple’s trademarks and copyright.

According to MacNN , the letter says in part:

Your use of Apple’s trademarks and copyrighted materials violates Apple’s intellectual property rights, which Apple has an affirmative obligation to protect. Apple therefore must insist that you cease use of Apple’s trademarks and copyrighted images and that you stop offering the unauthorized downloads of Apple’s Front Row software.

It is not clear to me from this or from the post on Andrew’s site (currently down), whether Mail Stamps is really in the firing line, or whether Apple’s concerns are restricted to Front Row Enabler.mail stamps, Andrew Escobar, front row, apple, legal demands, plugins, mail.app, apple mail

Andrew Escobar is an undergraduate student studying Finance and the developer of Mail Stamps (a utility that removes the bizarre lozenge-shaped buttons in Tiger Mail) and Front Row Enabler .

His first Mac was a Macintosh Classic, but he was primarily raised on a PC.

He switched to the Mac in 2001, using a trusty 700Mhz Power Mac Quicksilver. He now uses a 1.25Ghz PowerBook, which is to be replaced by a MacBook Pro in September.

HW: How long have you been using Mail.app?

AE: I began to use Mail when I switched to the Mac platform, after falling in love with the PowerBook G4 and Mac OS X.

I used Mail in conjunction with the web-based Yahoo Mail until my account began being inundated with spam. I’ve been using Mail exclusively since I purchased my PowerBook in September 2003. I’ve been very happy with Mail since, and it’s yet to really give me a reason to look elsewhere for another email client.

In my PC years I put up with Outlook and Outlook Express out of pure ignorance.

HW: What plugins and extensions do you use to make your email experience better?

(more…)

So, you’re thinking about buying one of the new Intel Macs announced this week in San Francisco?

I am. There’s a shiny new MacBook Pro with my name on it out there somewhere. Or there will be.

The big question for me is not whether I’ll miss the FW800 port as much as I think I will (probably not), or whether I will kick myself for not waiting for the Rev B (probably), but whether Mail.app with all my favourite things bolted-on will run natively.

So I asked the developers of all the plugins and addons on the Top Ten things every Mail.app user should have list, how ready they were for the Intel Macs. Here’s the good news:

1. MailTags. Scott Morrison says that a universal binary will be available “hopefully” in two weeks. And as Version 1.2 with a killer new feature as well!
2. Mail Act-on. Two weeks will see a universal binary of this plug-in as well.
3. MailAppetizer. This has been a universal binary since July last year. Ready to go.
4. Mail Scripts. This has also been a universal binary since the middle of last year. Andeas Amann says that “the only potential problem might be the “Archive Messages” script since it packages some pre-complied Perl packages as well”. But if any problems exist, they’ll soon be ironed out.
5. Mail Stamps. Version 2.1 was compiled as a universal binary for Intels and PowerPCs. And it worked fine on his developer Intel Mac, Andrew Escobar says.
6. MailUnreadStatusBar. Masaru says that it’s not clear whether this utility will need a recompile or not, “because it isn’t supposed to depend on architecture”. It should work equally well on a PPC or an Intel.
7. JunkMatcher or SpamSieve. Michael Tsai says that at the moment SpamSieve runs in Rosetta with Mail.app and the SpamSieve plug-in running natively. But a recompiled version of SpamSieve is due out in two weeks and will be available as a free upgrade.

   JunkMatcher’s developer Benjamin Han wants to address some issues with his app before recompiling for Intel Macs. Due to time pressures, “it’ll probably be a while”, he says.

8. Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger. It is my understanding that this excellent ebook will be just as helpful on an Intel Mac as it is now.
9. QuickSilver. Quicksilver and all its plug-ins were recompiled earlier this week.
10. Spell Catcher X. Evan Gross says he will post a recompiled beta of Spell Catcher X next week (when he gets back from MacWorld) that will also contain some new features and few minor bugfixes. The final release will be polished up and available long before most people get their hands on one of the new Macs.

Now there is no excuse for restraint.

You can find a longer list of all recompiled applications that are ready to run natively on VersionTracker’s MacIntel Resource Center.