Hawk Wings » Apple Mail Tips

Fix for Leopard Mail’s broken new mail alert

Tim Gaden — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:25:50 +0000

The new mail alert sound in Mail.app was broken when Leopard was released last year. Three updates later, and it’s still broken.

[UPDATE: In deference to posters in the comments below, I should point out that not everyone experiences this problem. It only affects most/many/some/a few users. Like me.]

Fortunately, there is a work-around which you can use until Apple gets around to fixing the problem. It’s a bit fiddly, but not too forbidding.

First download this zip file from Hawk Wings which contains an applescript and the default “new mail” audio file.

Unzip it, and place the audio file in your ~/Library/Sounds folder (where “~” is shorthand for your user directory).

Then open up the script in place the script in Script Editor. You will see that all it does is execute a shell script — do shell script "afplay /Users/timbo/Library/Sounds/NewMail.aiff > /dev/null 2>&1 &". You will need to edit it to replace the name of my user directory with yours.

Then save it in your ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail folder. If you don’t have such a folder, it’s worth creating one.

Now you need to create a rule in Mail.app that triggers the script whenever a new email arrives.

Open up the Rules pane in Mail’s Preferences:

Create a new rule. Call it something creative like “New Mail Alert Work-around” and fill out the rest as per the screenshot. I like to restrict it to people who are in my list of previous senders–it’s a quick and dirty way to rule out being alerted to the arrival of spam. Obviously, there are other ways to select conditions here which restrict when the alert will be triggered.

Also, in the “Perform the following action” field, you will need to select “Run AppleScript”, then navigate to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail and select the NewMailAlert.scpt that you saved there earlier.

All done. Send yourself a test email, and rejoice. Mail.app is talking to you again.

For extra spice you could use one of the hundreds of mail alert sounds listed at Email Gifs and Sounds (Or perhaps Scully is more your thing?) but have compassion on your work colleagues. That could get really annoying after a while.

[With thanks to the original posters in an Apple Discussion thread ] mail.app, leopard mail, apple mail, bugs, workarounds, tips, new mail alert, applescriptSimilar Posts:

New Mail Stamp Icons: Simpsons, Mario Brothers, UK stamps

Tim Gaden — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:06:54 +0000

During my five months off, some nice new alternative mail stamp icons have appeared.

As everyone knows, changing Mail.app’s Dock icon is easy, and fun.

First up, seven icons from the Simpsons TV show (Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart, Ruprecht, Bobo and a “Simpsonised” Scully):

You can get them from deviantART where westendgirl1984 posted them.

Other nice new icons include a collection of Super Mario Brother icons , a beautifully-made First Class UK postage stamp and a collection of mail stamp icons from the movie Ratatouille

Some of them are image files that need to be run through a converter like img2icns and some are icns files but need to be run through icon.cx’s icns2icon app in order for Finder to recognise them as icons.

I’ve added them to the Hawk Wings Alternative Mail Stamps Icon list, which which now contains 467 mail stamp icons (assuming all the links still work).mail.app, apple mail, icons, dock icon, hack, tips, charlie brown, linus, snoopy, peanuts, woodstockSimilar Posts:

Speed up pasting in Word with scripts

Tim Gaden — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:55:07 +0000

[Although I use it a lot at work, I don't usually post Word tips on Hawk Wings. This one, though, is too good to pass up.]

If you do a lot of cutting and pasting from one document to another in Word (2004 and 2008) and want your pasting to adopt the style of the new document, you will know what a pain in the butt it is.

Word expects you to go to the Edit menu, choose Paste Special and then select Unformatted Text in the next dialog box and click OK.

I couldn’t count the number of hours I’ve spent doing this. I came to accept it as an Office for Mac user’s fate; something that just had to be endured.

Joe Kissell, senior editor at TidBITS, has the shortcut I wish I had discovered years ago. In a TidBITS post he provides the scripts needed to reduce this convoluted process to a single keystroke.

As he points out, I could have automated this with the macro-recorder in Word 2004. Never thought of that!

But Word 2008 has lost its scripting support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and ,along with that, the ability to record macros.

Instead, in Word 2008 you will need to use AppleScript.

Joe provides the steps for setting up the macro in Word 2004 and the applescript Word 2008 users will need to get the same result.

He even unlocks the mysteries of the way a file called Paste Plain Text\smV.scpt is automatically bound to a keystroke shortcut.

Check out his article and other newsy posts and tips at TidBITS. word 2004, word 2008, office for mac, pasting, scripts, VBA, tips, productivity, tidbitsSimilar Posts:

Script to Show/Hide Preview Pane in Mail

Tim Gaden — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:00:57 +0000

After switching to mail.app from Thunderbird, the blogger at 48-Hour Days found that that she (or he) couldn’t live without Thunderbird’s F8 keyboard shortcut for showing and hiding the Preview Pane.

As everyone knows, you can show or hide it in Apple Mail by double-clicking the small dot in the separator between the Mail Viewer and the Preview Pane — Apple’s Technote shows you how.

But if that is not quick enough for you, 48-Hour Days provides an applescript that will automate the process and which can be bound to a Quicksilver trigger or FastScript’s shortcut.

Only hardcore keyboard fanatics will want to use this, but there are people like that out there, and this post is for them. mail.app, apple mail, thunderbird, keyboard shortcuts, applescript, preview pane, tipsSimilar Posts:

Script to reply to multiple emails in Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:54:55 +0000

Aral Balkan has written a clever applescript that makes it possible for mail.app to reply to multiple emails.

By default you can’t do this. If you select multiple emails in the Mail Viewer, the Reply and Reply All buttons in the Toolbar grey out.

Aral’s script, based on a previous example posted on macOSXHints.com, saves time and effort by giving you the power to respond to a bunch of emails about a similar problem in one hit; especially useful if you have been on an extended break at the beach and have returned to an inbox heaving with emails.

Copy the text of Aral’s script , paste it into Script Editor, compile it and save it somewhere clever like ~/Library/Scripts/ Applications/Mail so that it is always at the top of the AppleScript menu when Mail is the active app.

Then select all the emails you received about new cutting edge “Getting Things Done” (GTD) apps that knock every other previous GTD app into a cocked hat, or how frustrating it is that the background of emails in Mail.app can’t be changed or whatever, and run the script.

Mail produces a new message addressed to you with all the senders of the original emails in the BCC field:

Promise to check out all the new GTD apps right away, hit send and suddenly your inbox is fifteen emails smaller.

For extra-speedy multiple replies, you could bind the script to a Quicksilver trigger or use a utility like FastScripts to bind it to a keyboard shortcut of your choosing. mail.app, apple mail, replies, applescript, productivity, time-saving, GTD, tips, Similar Posts:

Killer list of Google Calendar tips

Tim Gaden — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:13:13 +0000

Christina Laun at VirtualHosting.com has posted a killer list of 50 tips, scripts, extensions and hacks to make the most of Google’s Calendar service.

She starts off with some basic tips, keyboard shortcuts, integration with Gmail, reminders and so forth.

Things get more interesting for seasoned users with her collection of 15 (mostly Greasemonkey) scripts that offer skinning, interface streamlining and more, including the Better Gcal script, which combines several of the most useful scripts (Ã la Gina Trapani’s Better Gmail Firefox extension).

Finally, she provides a list of Firefox Extensions, hacks and some syncing utilities that help Outlook users and others get the most of Gcal. She doesn’t mention BusySync’s public beta that offers iCal-Gcal syncing or Spanning Sync , but I guess you knew about those already.

If you use Goolge’s Calendar, you will want to bookmark Christina’s collection of tips for sure.not mail.app, not apple mail, google, calendar, tips, scripts, greasemonkey, web 20, ical, productivity, firefox, syncingSimilar Posts:

Aaron Harnly’s clever Mail.app Plugin Manager

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:52:50 +0000

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, tipsSimilar Posts:

Letterbox (widescreen plugin) for Leopard

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:41:49 +0000

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 (Ã 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, pluginsSimilar Posts:

Hiding to-dos in Leopard Mail

Tim Gaden — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:17:41 +0000

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, the lack of options for displaying to-dos in Leopard Mail is disappointing. And frustrating.

A poster in the macOSXHints forums has come up with a good work-around for avoiding that long list of finished tasks.

He has created a Smart Mailbox called “Not Done” which is set up to display all to-dos that are incomplete:

Simple, really. Why didn’t I think of that? mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, to-dos, tips, productivity, smart mailboxes, workaroundsSimilar Posts:

Leopard Mail’s clever HTML formatting

Tim Gaden — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:42:07 +0000

A poster on macOSXHints points out how much smarter Leopard Mail is at handling content from the web which is pasted into its messages from web browsers.

For example, say you want to share someone’s overall top artists from Last.fm:

Block the content you want to send, and then drag it to a message in Mail.app, and behold:

Mail does a pretty good job of preserving the HTML formatting, even keeping the links and tool tips alive. It even provides a “widget-like” black boundary and cross for quick removal of the HTML block if you change your mind about sending it.

There are two things to note here. First, this works much better if the message is set to Rich Text Format. I live in a Plain Text world, so didn’t notice this at first. But perhaps only fuddy-duddies like me think it is more polite to send a link to the page.

Secondly, it works even better if you apply the “quicker text dragging” hack. Of course, this speeds life up all across Mac OS X, but also in this case.

Cocoa-based apps (Mail.app, Safari, etc) require by default that you hold your mouse down over the selected text for a second before dragging.

You can reduce the built-in delay with a simple Terminal hack. Open Terminal and type (exactly):

defaults write -g NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 100

This will reduce the delay to a tenth of a second in all your Cocoa-based apps (‘-g’ stands for ‘global’).

It modifies a string in the .GlobalPreferences.plist file in your ~/Library/Preferences folder:

You could edit it manually in Plist Editor, as seen here, if you have an aversion to the Terminal, although you will need to use an app like Leopard Cache Cleaner to reveal Leopard’s “hidden files” first.

You will, of course, need to restart the apps for the change to take effect.mail.app, apple mail, productivity, safari, cocoa, text, html, rich text formatting, tipsSimilar Posts: