Re: AppleScript and Email clients
Re: AppleScript and Email clients
- Subject: Re: AppleScript and Email clients
- From: Paul Berkowitz <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 09:01:44 -0800
On 1/2/02 8:16 AM, "Dave G" <email@hidden> wrote:
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Hello,
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I am gearing up for much more AppleScript use with my email client.
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And so I am asking about which email clients people use for
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AppleScripting and why they prefer them over others.
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You're going to start something you ma wish you hadn't, Dave, but here goes.
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I just went back and looked at Microsoft Outlook Express, my last
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email client. It really does have some very nice features in it. And
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it does have the option to run an AS with a filter. It lacks some
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text formatting tweaks that Eudora has.
Take a look at the Auto-Text Cleanup on Edit menu, however.
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And it does some things which
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are annoying. No custom sound notification, just the standard OE
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stock (lame) notification sounds.
You can get any number of about 200 sound sets at
<
http://www.soundsetscentral.com> . They're free. Just put them in the Sound
Sets folder in the Microsoft User Data folder in Documents folder, and the
world's your onion. similarly, have a look at
<
http://www.applescriptcentral.com> for abut 200 scripts each for OE and for
Entourage (see below). They go in the appropriate Script menu Items folder,
and are run as compiled by OE, or Entourage, itself, making the very fast.
They are both very well implemented, using a proper object model, and with
'whose' filters for all elements.
.
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And a junk mail filter that doesn't
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tell me what it's criteria for junk is.
That's so spammers can't find out either. It works very well. You can add
your own criteria in junk Rues and also make exclusions for the Junk Filter.
I keep mine one notch above average.
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Does anyone know if Outlook
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Express can be upgraded? I tried a download of the full version of
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Outlook, but it will not run without being set up for several users.
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Does Outlook Express have a more robust version upgrade to Outlook
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for a single user Mac?
The upgrade for Outlook Express is called Entourage. It's the best email
client on the planet. It's also a personal information manager, like the
full Outlook, which on the mac is just for use with Exchange Server, but is
a lot nicer than Outlook. You can only get it as part of the full Office
2001, or now - Office v. X for Office X, which includes Word, Excel and
PowerPoint, so that makes it very expensive, unless you already have an
earlier version of Office. There is a good promotional upgrade deal directly
from MS: check out <
http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/> I urge you to
upgrade to to Office v.X if you are planning to move to OS X. Outlook
Express will not be upgraded to OS X., nor is it likely to upgraded any
further aside from the odd bug fix. Apple have decided to use their own
Mail.app as the default email client in OS X, not OE, so there's no
incentive to MS to upgrade this free app. Entourage is where all their
investment is going. Do NOT be tempted to get the Entourage + Word Special
Edition which is much cheaper but has had applescript and Word macros
stripped out (and also syncing to Palm removed) to justify the price drop.
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And I found a copy of Emailer, but that is getting crusty with age.
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Still good I am sure but I am building my solutions for the next
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couple of years. I am not ready for system 10 yet. Still using 8.6 on
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a G3 upgraded 7300.
Well, Entourage 2001 in Office 2001 if you can afford it then. Or OE 5.0.3
itself offers almost all of the same email and script features. OS 8.6 is
good, but OS 9.1 or 9.2.1 gives you upgraded AppleScript 1.6 . (Maybe wait
until AS 1.8.x and avoid OS 9.2.2 for now.)
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I presume that using AS in a filtered script will give me full
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control over adding records to a database, striping text and
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appending messages to a clients email record in a database file. What
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I want is to track all my conversations in one place. And when I get
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a reply with a specific header in it, I want it added to a project's
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records, also in a database.
A script running from a rule in OE or Entourage can call any other app, such
as FMP, as well. While the script is running, you can't click or type in the
app (to prevent one from interfering with the other.) Aside from all the
different filters offered natively by the rules, the script itself can add
its own filtering, of course, if need be. You can do everything you want
above this way.
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And so, which would folks on this list recommend? Eudora? Microsoft
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Outlook Express? An upgrade (what would it be?) or another client not
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yet mentioned? If AppleScript will make my life easier, what email
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client would make AS easier? We all have our individual preferences.
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Mine is to set it up and forget it. I don't want to pull down script
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menus if I can set it to watch and execute if conditions are met.
OE and Entourage will do all that. You can also add your own keyboard
shortcuts to any script that you need to call directly. And aside from
incoming Mail Rules (filters), there are also Outgoing Rules on messages you
send, and Schedules which can run regularly or on Startup, Quit, etc. They
can all run scripts without your intervention.
--
Paul Berkowitz