CamMail is a stand-alone app that works with mail.app to quickly create and send video and audio clips by email, using AAC and H.264 compression.

The app is universal and works on Mac OS 10.4 or higher. It will only work if Apple Mail is configured to send email.

The interface is well-designed and clean.

Buttons across the top let you record video or audio clips, to register the app and to access its help files and quit the app.

The next row contains buttons to start (and stop) the recording, to change the background colour of the app’s interface, to preview the recording before sending it and, if needs be, to delete the recording as unsendable.

Of course, it is not the most bandwidth-friendly option for communicating. The FAQ on the developer’s web site promises not too much bloat:

Video movies are sized to QVGA (320×240) which provides good detail with low file size when used with H.264 compression. The resulting movies typically require less than 300 KB for every 10 seconds of video.

That seems about right to me. I recorded about three seconds of myself waving (see below) and it came to 94 KB.

It’s simple to use. Click the record button, do your thing, stop it and press the email button. Apple Mail fires up a new message with your video embedded into it, read to send. One quibble: there doesn’t seem to be an option to set which of Mail’s many accounts it should use as the default, but otherwise it does the job nicely:

CamMail is shareware (USD 15), although you can try before you buy. It is available from the developer’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, plugins, video, audio clips

Loki Software has released an updated version of its Mail Attachments Iconizer plugin for Mail.app, an add-on that offers much greater control over the way that attachments are displayed and packaged.

I could type out all the benefits which the plugin offers, but thankfully the developers have knocked up their own chart of improvements:

The new version adds some welcome features — a new option to always display full attachment names, the ability to images in HTML layouts of incoming messages in LEopard Mail, the printing of attachments according to how they are currently displayed on the screen and better recognition of images without filename extension.

It also offers a more reliable fix of interaction with the stationery feature in Leopard Mail.

Mail Attachments Iconizer is shareware (USD 14.99) is available from the developer’s web site .plugins, leopard mail, apple mail, mail.app, attachments, productivity

Relationship Completer is a plugin for Address Book that takes the pain out of creating relationships between your contacts.

Normally, in order to create a relationship between two contacts, say Richard Treloar and Leanne Habeeb, you need to go to Leanne’s card, enter “Richard Treloar” as the spouse of Leanne, and then, go to Richard’s card and repeat the procedure, entering Leanne’s name into his spouse field.

It shouldn’t be that hard, and with this plugin it isn’t.

All you need to do is enter the information once, ⌘-click on the field and the plugin creates the reciprocal relationship (assistant/manager, mother/daughter, friend/friend, etc, etc) in the other card:

Relationship Completer is freeware and available from the developer’s web site .

[Thanks, David!]address book, mail.app, apple mail, contacts, doing it smarter, plugins

Eagle-eyed Hawk Wings reader Dave Foshee emails to say that he has spotted a Leopard-friendly beta version of GrowlMail.

He found the link in a post on the Google Groups Discussion list for Growl.

The poster is offering it as a beta and asking for feedback on how well it works.

It works very well for me, so I encourage you to give it a go yourself, especially if you are looking for a slick, visual notification summary of your email.

Of course, you will need to install Growl first.

[Thanks, Dave!]apple mail, leopard mail, mail.app, growl, growlmail, leopard, notification, plugins

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, plugins

I’ve mentioned it in passing in another post today, but it deserves a post of its own: Aaron Harnly has released MailPluginManager, a clever little plugin manager for Mail.app that can “inspect, enable, disable, install, and remove any plugin”.

Aaron says that he is willing to make the plugin manager available for other developers to include with their plugins, so that, as he hopes, “.mailbundle can become a first-class citizen”.

The plugin does a good job, although for some reason it doesn’t like the look of Mail Act-on:

You can find MailPluginManager in the most recent Letterbox public beta , although you don’t need to use Letterbox to get its benefits. It is a free-standing app.mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, letterbox, plugins, manager, tips

Aaron Harnly has taken an “all-too-welcome distraction from pressing schoolwork” to update his widescreen plugin Letterbox.

He has released the new version as a public beta.

It comes with a stand-alone plugin manager for Mail.app that can inspect, enable, disable, install and remove any Mail plugin:

The new version also features a preference pane with options to tweak the display, by toggling on and off the horizontal lines and/or different coloured backgrounds for items in the middle pane. The preview pane can be set to display on the right or underneath (an option to display the pane on the left has been switched off until some problems are resolved):

It comes with an auto-updater and Aaron promises that a two-line column for the middle pane (à la WideScreenMail, the other Leopard-friendly wide-screen plugin) is on the way.

It is a public beta so can expect a few minor kinks that still to be ironed out. Pick it up from Aaron’s web site.mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, widescreen, entourage, outlook, plugin manager, tips, plugins