Hawk Wings » textmate

Mail.app and Leopard’s ban on Input Managers

Tim Gaden — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 13:15:06 +0000

According to a rumour on the well-respected Ars Technica web site, Mac 10.5 Leopard will not only be later than expected, but it will not provide support for Input Managers.

Input Manager plugins will no longer be allowed, the article claims. It cites “sources” who say that “Apple isn’t really broken up about it since InputManagers were often used for nefarious purposes anyway.”

I’ve had a number of emails from Hawk Wings readers who are worried about the future of one or another of the many, many plugins available for Mail.app.

The good news is that the vast majority of plugins are not constructed as Input Managers and so will not be affected.

The notification utility iAlert will be though, as well as a number of excellent plugins for other apps, like the Inquisitor search plugin for Safari.

The Input Manager that allows TextMate to be used as an external editor for Mail and many other apps (a “nefarious purpose” if ever there was one!) will also sadly disappear, although I very much hope that Allan Odgaard will reinvent it in another format.

UPDATE: Jon Hicks has written more on the impact of this change on Safari and its various plugins.

[Thanks to Geoff, Dan, David et al.]mail.app, apple mail, input managers, leopard, plugins, textmate, osx, appleSimilar Posts:

Making Finder’s Toolbar work for you

Tim Gaden — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:37:48 +0000

Rubin emails to ask:

I was reading your new post on Address Book syncing and backup, and I noticed on the screen capture that you had a little Yojimbo icon on your Finder windows. I’m a Yojimbo user and a big fan too. How did you get this little icon and what does it do?

Fair question.

While the Finder Toolbar can be expanded with many useful pre-defined extras (Control-Click on Finder’s Toolbar and select “Customize Toolbar…”), you can also add your own favourite items:

I dragged some of the apps that I use a lot (TextMate, Terminal, Yojimbo) from the Applications folder onto the Toolbar. That creates a shortcut on the Toolbar. Now I can quickly launch the apps by clicking on these icons and, more importantly, I can drag files onto the icons to open them.

I’ve also added on the right some of the folders into which I often need to file things. When tidying up, I drag the files onto those folders and they’re filed.

Of course, there are other ways to do these things, not least Quicksilver, but another option is always welcome. not apple mail, finder, icons, shortcuts, productivity, yojimbo, terminal, textmate, toolbar, customizeSimilar Posts:

Backpack with TextMate to Get Things Done

Tim Gaden — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 11:42:13 +0000

Brett Terpstra has written a bundle for the cutting-edge text editor TextMate which enables the creation, editing and deleting of Backpack items within the editor.

TextMate won the Apple Design Award for Best Developer Tool at WWDC this year. It shares some interesting design features with Mail.

Like Mail, it is built on a “lean but extendible” philosophy. An array of bundles allow users to extend the app in ways that suit them, rather than loading it up by default with the bloat of every possible feature. For example, this blog is written with TextMate’s blogging bundle , crucial to me, but not important to every TextMate user.

Unlike Mail, TextMate developer Allan Ogaard encourages bundle developers by opening up the guts of the editor so that third-party developers can easily create new bundles. With Mail’s undocumented API, third-party Mail.app bundle developers can only beat their heads against their monitors until the code works. (Although some helpful notes on Mail’s plugin API exist.)

Brett’s Backpack plugin allows access to pages, reminders and lists. (The updated version released yesterday adds list support.)

All the commands are linked to the âŒƒâŒ˜R keyboard shortcut.

This pops up a list of all the options, which can be selected by pressing the required number or with the up and down arrows.

New items are created through a pop-up window:

Editing is done via a list of all the available items on your Backpack pages. Again, items can be quickly selected by number.

Of course, there are other ways to integrate Backpack into your workflow: a Dashboard widget (pictured), a Firefox extension , the stand-alone Packrat app, a plugin for Quicksilver and more.

If you spend a lot of time in TextMate, this bundle is a nifty way to get stuff into Backpack quickly and to edit existing items without switching around.

In other TextMate news, the app has been ported (sort of) to Windows.not apple mail, backpack, textmate, bundle, productivity, reminders, lists, pagesSimilar Posts:

Get extra focus with full-screen TextMate

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:37:08 +0000

Merlin Mann recently posted about a nifty new full-screen word processor called WriteRoom, which by filling the whole screen removes many distractions and helps you to focus on the task at hand.

Very clever and most excellent for plain text work. But sometimes you need the textual grunt, coding smarts, snippets and features of an app like TextMate .

Help is to hand! On the TextMate mailing list , Martin StrÃ¶m posted a note about a utility called Megazoomer , which can zoom many apps including TextMate to near-as-dammit full-screen mode. It requires the SIMBL plugin , also used by PithHelmet and other enhancement apps.

Intel Mac users might want to get a version which has been recompiled as a universal binary .

It adds a menu item to the Window menu. Click in when you are working in TextMate for the extra focus that full-screen mode provides. It doesn’t have the polish of WriteRoom’s layout but it does offer you the full power of TextMate’s features.textmate, productivity, fullscreen, SIMBL, text, hacksSimilar Posts:

Switch to Markdown

Tim Gaden — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:26:46 +0000

I’ve switched Hawk Wings to Markdown, partly because I keep reading how excellent it is, partly because I’m playing with the TextMate Blogging bundle and partly because it’s the weekend, so that if I bugger anything up no one will see.

If you see any messed-up posts as a result, please let me know.hawk wings, personal, textmate, bloggingSimilar Posts:

More TextMate Goodness: HTML emails

Tim Gaden — Thu, 11 May 2006 12:40:59 +0000

As everyone knows. Mail.app does not support the composing of HTML emails. The three work-arounds for this that I know about are all clunky and laborious to some degree.

Today, when I was fooling around with the latest build of TextMate , I discovered that it offers a fourth way to compose HTML emails in Mail.app, which is quicker and neater than any of the others.

Here’s how it works for me.

Compose your message in TextMate. I did mine in Markdown (which I am growing to like more and more) for starters:

You can quickly get the text in HTML using TextMate’s built-in converter, or you could code in HTML to start with if your fingers are younger and more energetic than mine:

Now comes the magic. The “cutting-edge” version of TextMate (build 985) includes a “Send as HTML Email [with Safari]” command in its Mail bundle:

Select it to run the command, and then sit back as your text is piped into a fully-fledged HTML email message in Mail.app.

Address it and change the subject line, which will be the name of the saved text file. Send it. It comes out looking great, bullets, numbered lists, links and all:

Obviously, HTML in email is a bad thing . But if you have to do a bad thing, it is hard to find an easier, slicker way to do it than this.html, email, mail.app, apple mail, textmate, tipsSimilar Posts:

Dreaming of a perfect mail client

Tim Gaden — Mon, 08 May 2006 12:45:38 +0000

Allan Odgaard, creator of the excellent TextMate text editor has posted his wish list for a perfect email client.

His list includes threading, tagging, searching, email address mapping (e.g. switching to a Danish spell-checker when writing to someone with a *.dk address), message display and extensibility.

He sums up:

I know Appleâ€™s Mail does most things for most people, is free, and comes bundled with the operating system. Heck, I mostly enjoy using it myself, despite its delightful quirks…

…But I do think there is a lot of power users out there, like me, who long for an email application which can be a little smarter in handling our email related tasks.

email, dream email client, mail.app, apple mail, textmateSimilar Posts:

Using TextMate to edit emails in Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:19:05 +0000

The text editor TextMate comes bundled with an “Edit in TextMate” input manager which allows you to call Textmate as an external editor in Cocoa apps.

If you select the Install â€œEdit in TextMateâ€â€¦ action located in your TextMate bundle (using the gear menu in the status bar), you will get a full explanation and a button that creates the required symbolic link for you.

Then, when you want to write a reply or compose a new message in Mail.app, just hit the keyboard shortcut and get to work:

When you are done, Command-S saves your work and inserts it in the message:

I have also found this useful when working in other apps. For example, if you are editing a 37Signals Writeboard , Command-Shift-S offers you a quick way to save your work off as a text file on your hard drive.

UPDATE: The TextMate people picked up this post on their own blog and offer some extra nifty tips on how to get the most out of TextMate as an external editor in Mail.

[From the TextMate mailing list and Manual ]textmate, mail.app, apple mail, cocoa, external editor, writeboard, tips Similar Posts: