Hawk Wings » templates

10 new free Mail.app stationery templates

Tim Gaden — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:43:59 +0000

Jumsoft has released a new collection of ten free email stationery templates for mail.app.

Opinions are divided on whether HTML stationery is a good idea, but you will remember from the 2006 WWDC Keynote presentation that Steve Job is a fan. Like he said, “You can drop your own photos in here and move things around. Birthday announcements, dinners, you name it.”

The templates cover a range of possibilities — birthdays, the birth of a boy or girl, party invitations, and so on:

They all contain place-holders for your own photos and text. Creating your own masterpiece is just a few keystrokes away:

The templates are free and easy to install. You can get them from the Downloads section of Apple’s web site.Similar Posts:

More Mail Stationery, for sale and for free

Tim Gaden — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:46:06 +0000

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, pluginsSimilar Posts:

How to boilerplate frequent email replies

Tim Gaden — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:15:47 +0000

Is there a fast way in Mail.app for replying to frequent repetitive requests?

Hawk Wings reader Greg Bentz emails to ask:

I need to be able to save and email with information in it to be resent out repeatedly. I am in real estate and get the same questions over and over. I can do it outlook express but cannot figure out to do in Mail.

I know of two sensible ways to get this done fast and efficiently.

1. Use the MailTemplate plug-in

MailTemplate is a plug-in for Mail.app and Entourage that is designed to do this, and it does it well.

You can quickly access it from the Contextual menu in Mail.app.

It comes with a Template editor in which you can write your frequent replies. For example:

The fields enclosed with double carets (^^) are “smart fields”, that is, they pick up the information from the email to which you are replying.

So, when I get an email that needs one of these quick, repetitive replies, I just right-click on it, and select the right template from the Contextual menu:

And as if by magic, MailTemplate creates the reply:

One keystroke and the email is sent. All done. Productivity gurus like Merlin Mann of 43Folders swear by it.

MailTemplate is shareware (USD 14.95) and a demo is available from the developer’s web site

2. Use a text snippet manager like TextExpander

Snippet managers offer a different way to skin the same cat. There are loads of them around — here’s a list of some from MacUpdate. I prefer TextExpander (Shareware, USD 29.95—but see special offer for Hawk Wings readers in the comments) which, after Quicksilver, is the best thing in my time-saving toolbox.

Snippet Managers allow you to store text and images that you often use and to spit them out again with a few keystrokes. For example, if I type “hwnts” (Hawk Wings is Not Tech Support) into an email I am composing, I get the same text as the MailTempate reply.

Well, almost the same text. The downside here is that TextExpander doesn’t have smart fields. I need to reply to the message, type the person’s first name, and then type “hwnts” to get the same result.

But there are two upsides which make up for this. First, text snippets are available system-wide. If I want to use this boilerplate text in TextMate or in a Safari form or in some other app, it’s just the same few keystrokes away. MailTemplate isn’t. This is a bit plus for me.

Secondly, you will soon find that there are more things that frequent email replies that you want to store.

Typing “tss” produces my work signature with all the bells and whistles (and no mistakes) in Mail.app and anywhere else that I need it. All the HTML in this blog post, written in TextMate, was produced by the same time-saving, error-free text snippets.

I prefer Option 2 but either will do the job. mail.app, apple mail, templates, plugins, productivity, getting things done, text snippets, TextExpander, MailTemplateSimilar Posts:

Photo Cluster: free stationary for Leopard Mail

Tim Gaden — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:32:51 +0000

Someone at the University of Chicago has whipped up a Leopard Mail Stationery template as an exercise in testing the drag-n-drop images wells in the default stationery templates.

It’s nothing revolutionary, but offers a more image rich environment than the standard templates provide.

After installing it (double-click on the downloaded file), you can drag-n-drop away to your heart’s content:

Photo Cluster is freeware and is available from a web page at the University of Chicago.

Along the same lines, those expecting a baby girl and distressed by the lack of a pink Baby Announcement template in Leopard Mail will find relief in the work of Ed Dyer, who has tweaked the existing blue one to offer a pink alternative.

He writes about it on the Apple Discussions and has made the template available for download from his iDisk .eye-candy, mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, stationery, HTML, templates, baby girlsSimilar Posts:

111 extra HTML stationery templates for Leopard Mail

Tim Gaden — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:15:08 +0000

equinux has released a pack of 111 additional HTML stationery templates for Leopard Mail.

The templates comes with a (fairly basic) dedicated browser app which displays them sorted by keyword and allows you to search for particular themes.

Quick Look is integrated into the browser, allowing a quick, more detailed view of each template. It is also possible to launch a new Mail message from the browser.

A Window on the left displays the templates by theme and keyword:

Whatever one’s personal stance on HTML and Mail.app, there is no doubt people will use the new feature a lot. Here they will find templates that are are well-crafted and varied, and do provide clever alternatives to the defaults included in Leopard Mail. Most contain drag and drop image fields.

Here are two examples:

You can buy this stationery pack for 24.95 euros (USD 36) from the equinux web site .

Or you can make your own (see earlier Hawk Wings post ). mail.app, apple mail, templates, stationery, add-ons, html, leopard mailSimilar Posts:

How to edit Leopard Mail’s Stationery

Tim Gaden — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:15:53 +0000

I would rather cut my own heart out with a teaspoon than use Leopard Mail’s HTML stationery.

But I know not everyone shares my view.

If you are a lover of this kind of thing, Josh Pigford at The Apple Blog has a long and detailed post on how to edit or create your own stationery for use with Leopard Mail.

He explains where the HTML files are stored within Mail’s package and how to get at them, as well as what files are required if you are working up a new template from scratch.

He even provides some “walkthrough” files to act as a pattern for your own creations. mail.app, apple mail, html, templates, oh the horror the horror, tips, hacksSimilar Posts:

MailTemplate 1.6: Address Book integration, smarter attachments

Tim Gaden — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:21:19 +0000

MailTemplate, a useful plugin for Mail.app that provides pre-written new message or reply templates for frequently-needed emails, has been updated.

The new version (1.6) brings integration with Mac OS X’s Address Book, adding drag and drop support for Mail’s To:, Cc: and Bcc: fields.

Attachments are handled more cleverly. The update adds drag and drop support to its attachments pane, includes a delete key to remove attachments and has unified the message editor and attachments panes.

MailTemplate is shareware (USD 14.95) and is available from the developer’s web site .mailtemplate, templates, replies, apple mail, mail.app, plugins, productivitySimilar Posts:

Get your hands on Mail 3.0 now

Tim Gaden — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 23:06:36 +0000

You don’t have to wait until next year to get your hands on the new features in Mail 3.0. The third-party apps and plugins that may have inspired the new features are available now.

However odd and unsettling this year’s WWDC keynote was (Leander Kahney has some interesting thoughts ), it was good news for Mail.app fans.

Apple has spent some time and energy working on Mail. With the exception of templates, the other new features previewed by Steve Jobs will make it a better productivity tool.

With notes, to-dos and the ability to manage RSS feeds (See Apple’s new Leopard Mail web page for more), Mail 3.0 really will “help you to do more with your Mail” as Apple suggests.

Oddly, Apple’s press release rather oversold these advances. “Leopardâ€™s Mail includes breakthrough new features that have never been seen before in a Mail application,” it pronounces.

Not true. And not smart either. Why the Apple PR machine didn’t adopt a more honest approach (“Leopard’s Mail takes some great ideas and makes them even better”), I don’t know. It’s as if Thunderbird, MailTags, Event Maker, Note to Self, or the stationery in Outlook Express and other mail clients never existed.

In any case, the good news is that you can take advantage of these new features now (if not always in quite the polished form Leopard promises).

To-dos (not system-wide) — MailTags
Templates (not HTML) — Mail Templates, Roll your own
Notes (not RTF) — Note to Self
RSS feeds (in your Inbox) — FeedMailer, rmail

I can’t make up my mind about the new HTML templates. My inner plain-texter revolts, but I can see how some people will find them tremendous fun.mail.app, productivity, apple mail, leopard, todos, iCal, notes, templates, RSS feeds, appleSimilar Posts:

Really Useful Thunderbird Extensions

Tim Gaden — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:56:21 +0000

Extensions now exist which offer Thunderbird users some of the rich extra functions provided by Mail.app plugins. Paolo Koasmos has written a collection of excellent extensions and Paul Tomlin’s Quick File gets close to the filing magic offered by Mail Act-on.

Paulo’s AttachmentRemember will catch messages to which you have forgotten to add attachments just like James Eagan’s missing attachments plugin.

Quick file by Paul Tomlin gives filing a tremendous speed boost over the “old drag ‘n’ drop”.

Select a message, hit a user-customizable hotkey (âŒƒQ works for me), and a dialog appears. Start to type and it offers a list of matching mailboxes that you can navigate through using the arrow keys. It’s quick.

Lastly, Paulo’s ExternalTemplateLoader brings MailTemplate to Thunderbird. It loads an external HTML file as the template for a message or a reply.thunderbird, extensions, filing, templates, attachments, mail.app, apple mail, plugins

Similar Posts:

MailTemplate goes universal, editor improvements

Tim Gaden — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:05:20 +0000

MacTank has released a beta version of its MailTemplate plugin, which provides pre-written new message or reply templates for frequent emails.

The new version (1.5.0b1) is a universal binary. It also adds support for Shortcuts by Abracode , a utility that assigns hotkeys to Contextual Menu items.

The interface has been improved; it gains a real toolbar interface and the editor has an updated look:

A new Contextual Menu item offers the option to use a template when emailing a file from a Finder window.

MailTemplate is shareware (USD 14.95) and is available from the developer’s web site .mailtemplate, templates, replies, apple mail, mail.app, plugins, productivitySimilar Posts: