Hawk Wings » widescreen

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:

WideScreenMail plugin gets two-line preview

Tim Gaden — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:12:33 +0000

Dane Harnett has updated his new WideScreenMail plugin, giving it the much-asked for two-line preview Ã la Entourage.

This was one of the features most requested of Letterbox, the Tiger wide-screen plugin.

Entourage, you will recall, displays mailboxes on the left, and the selected message in a preview pane on the right.

The middle pane offers a listing of the selected mailbox, with each line displaying the sender, subject line and time at which the email arrived:

Now, with WideScreenMail, Mail.app users can have the same layout. The middle column now displays the sender and the subject line in one field and the time of arrival (or whatever other column(s) you select):

And, of course, unlike Entourage, you are seeing Mail’s unified inbox, and don’t need to jump from account to account to answer your email.

Obviously, this reduces by one the number of columns needed in the middle pane and makes for a more efficient use of the available space.

Dane has made the new version of the WideScreenMail plugin available on his web site .

Still no further word on Letterbox progress.mail.app, apple mail, productivity, plugins, hacks, widescreen, entourage, outlookSimilar Posts:

Wide screen plugin for Leopard Mail released

Tim Gaden — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:38:43 +0000

Dane Harnett has released a widescreen plugin for Leopard Mail, which gives Mail.app an “Entourage” or “Outlook” look.

It is not as polished as Letterbox , the first and best of the widescreen plugins developed for Tiger Mail.

Aaron Harnly is working on the Leopard version , but if you really can’t wait, and plenty of people seem to think that this is the bees’ knees of email functionality, WideScreenMailPlugin will do the trick.

In essence it shifts the preview pane from the bottom to the right-hand side of Mail.app’s interface:

WideScreenMailPlugin is freeware and available from the developer’s web site .entourage, mail.app, apple mail, outlook, widescreen, hack, pluginSimilar Posts:

Wide-screen hack for Yojimbo

Tim Gaden — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:20:22 +0000

Fans of Aaron Hanly’s Letterbox plugin, which redraws Mail.app’s interface to provide an “Outlook-style” preview pane on the right, will love a hack for Yojimbo that does the same thing.

Jon Hicks has created a modified nib file for Yojimbo’s interface that moves the preview pane to the right.

The shift involves some contraction of the Listview in the middle, but looks good:

This is Jon’s screenshot, ripped off with thanks

Jon provides some instructions for installing the new nib file. The involve digging around inside the app itself, but are not too daunting.

As Jon points out, it is a good idea to backup the existing OGMainWindow.nib file, in case you tire of the new look.

You can get the modified file and read the instructions on Jon’s web site . mail.app, apple mail, widescreen, letterbox, plugin, hack, outlook, yojimboSimilar Posts:

Three-pane hack for Panther Mail

Tim Gaden — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:21:43 +0000

The poster at Apathy Online has developed a quick hack for Panther Mail users that will give them the “Outlook-like” three-pane layout.

Tiger Mail users can use Aaron Harnly’s excellent Letterbox plugin . However, despite a few positive reports, Aaron doesn’t promise seamless operation in Panther Mail.

If Letterbox fails you in Panther, this could be the fall-back you are looking for.

The end result looks like this:

Image from ApathyOnline

Installing it is easier than you might think.

First, quit Mail. Then navigate to it in your Applications folder and right-click on Mail’s icon. Select the “Show Package Contents” option:

Then navigate through the Contents and Resources folders to the English.lproj folder. (Or the lproj folder for the language you use.)

Open it. Find the MessageViewer.nib file:

Back-up the original file before you do anything, either making a duplicate in the same place or copying it to the Desktop.

Then right-click on the MessageViewer.nib icon, choose the “Show Package Contents” option again and replace the files inside with the three modified files from ApathyOnline.

Restart Mail.app and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I have not tested this myself, no longer having a Mac with Panther installed. Also, since I can’t remember that far back, I have simply assumed the layout of the Mail package is the same. If it isn’t, I hope that someone will tell me. mail.app, apple mail, hacks, three pane, outlook, panther, tiger, widescreenSimilar Posts:

Leopard and Mail 3.0 rumours

Tim Gaden — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:15:15 +0000

It’s the season to sacrifice all discretion and fact-checking reserve to the excitement of unrestrained rumour-mongering.

Jason O’Grady at Powerpage helps the process along with a list of “leaked” 10.5 features , which may or may nor be true, but are interesting to read either way.

He offers details of Spotlight 2.0, Dashboard 2.0, Safari 3.0, iChat 4.0, Automator 2.0, QuickTime 7.2, Mail 3.0, iCal 3.0, Address Book 5.0.

For Mail, his source suggests:

- New server protocols
- Widescreen version
- Different views, drop down
- Gmail-like thread system
- Ability to send proper HTML email
- Able to import pages documents as email
- iChat integration and new collaboration integration
- iCal calendar integration

Who knows?mail.app, apple mail, leopard, apple, widescreen, gmail, ichat, icalSimilar Posts:

Letterbox 0.16: Installer, visual enhancements

Tim Gaden — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:57:15 +0000

The developer of the widescreen, 3-pane plugin for Mail.app, Letterbox, has been busy.

He has just released version 0.16, which offers an installer, a new icon, some visual enhancements and some minor bugfixes.

Running the installer a second time offers an “uninstall” option, which is handy for people who don’t like digging around in their Mail folder.

He has also written a FAQ, a future features list and a list of known bugs.

You can get the updated plugin from the developer’s web site .letterbox, mail.app, apple mail, plugins, widescreen, GUI, hack Similar Posts:

Hacking the hack: MailWideScreen tweaks

Tim Gaden — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:35:18 +0000

Oliver, another Ars Technica reader, has taken Mithras’ MailWideScreen bundle and tweaked it some more, following the advice of Malacoda.

He added alternating background colours for the rows in Message Viewer, vertical lines and small scrollbars.

He has posted screenshots of the result in the Ars Technica thread .

These tweaks are done by editing the nib files in Mail.app’s Resources Package with an app called Interface Builder, which is part of the Mac OS X Developer Tools.

These tools are not installed by default, but you can find them on your installation discs, where they live in a folder called “Xcode Tools”. After installation you will find them in a folder called “Developer” in the root directory (this may not be the right word, but a hangover from pre-Mac days) of your harddrive.

If you have them installed, you can navigate to the MessageViewerContents.nib file in your Contents/Resources/English.lproj/ folder of Mail.app’s package, click on it and it will open in Interface Builder.

At this point, I should confess that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing in Interface Builder, so if you want to read on and fool around with the way Mail looks (as I did), it’s at your own risk.

I recommend backing up Mail.app at the very least, or creating a duplicate of Mail.app and dragging it to the Desktop for safe keeping. Closing Mail first seems like a prudent step too.

It’s easy enough to create Oliver’s extra tweaks. When the nib file opens, click once on the Column view of the main window to select it:

Then bring up the Inspector, pictured above on the left, by pressing Shift-Command-I or Window > Show Inspector. All the options are there. Save your changes, quit and you’re done.

But once you start, it’s hard to stop. There’s lots more MailWideScreen-independent fun to be had. You can slim down the scrollbars whether you use the hack or not:

Or you can give the message viewer a once-over all your own. Here it is with alternating colours and horizontal lines:

I decided to stop before I busted something. But you don’t have to.

UPDATE: The MailWideScreen plugin has a new name: Letterbox Apple GUI, mail.app, apple mail, hacks, widescreen, bundles, nib, interface builder, modsSimilar Posts:

Feedback on widescreen plugin? Apple is watching.

Tim Gaden — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:34:10 +0000

Yesterday, I sent off an email with a link to my post on Mithras’ three-paned plugin for Mail.app to a shadowy figure within the Mail Development Team at Apple.

I got a reply, something I wasn’t expecting.

From the email, I learnt two things.

First, they had already seen the post. Hawk Wings’ RSS feed (along with many others, no doubt) is read by someone in the Development Team. That surprised me and obviously signals the end of any future cranky posts about what is universally acknowledged to be a most excellent app :)

Secondly, “Deep Throat” implied that there might be some level of interest in user feedback on the widescreen plugin.

So, if you have a view, positive or negative or both, post it in the comments (the screen resolution you are using and some comment on whether it feels “squashed” or not to you would be great too).apple, mail.app, apple mail, plugins, widescreen
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Three-pane Mail.app hack that works

Tim Gaden — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:08:35 +0000

Screenshots have been floating around for a while with mockups of a three-paned Mail.app Ã la Outlook.

But now there is a hack that actually works.

A member of the Ars Technica Open Forum, Mithras, has posted a hacked binary of Mail.app, which displays the preview screen on the right, giving Mail a “widescreen” form factor.

And it actually works:

Click image for a full-sized view

Mithras’ binary has a different name (MailWidescreen) so you can copy it into your Applications folder without fear of overwriting your default copy (although backing up is always, always wise. UPDATE: Always!). Then just open the one you want each time.

Unfortunately, you cannot yet manually resize the middle column, although Mithras promises a fix for this within the week.

There is however a work-around. The middle pane of the hack takes its size from the depth of the Message List in your normal copy of Mail.

So, if the middle column is too small, open your default copy of Mail.app and increase the depth of the Message List. Then the middle screen in MailWidescreen will be correspondingly wider. Make it wider than you want. Then it will reduce to the width you actually want as you resize the whole window from the bottom right.

You can read the whole thread on the Ars Technica Openforum or cut to the chase and… ~~download the binary~~.

UPDATE: Mithras works fast. He has now packaged it in the form of a classic Mail.app bundle , which you can drop into your ~/Library/Mail/Bundles folder where MailTags, Mail Act-on, Mail.appetizer and the rest live. And just as easily take it out again. Extra bonus: the middle column can now be manually re-sized as normal.

[Thanks, Nick]mail.app, apple mail, hacks, three panes, Outlook, preview pane, widescreen, Apple GUI, tipsSimilar Posts: