Alarms & Mailplane: Schedule Gmail conversations

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Alarms is an extremely handy application I use everyday. It was the main reason why the "Drag Mailplane URL from the title bar" feature was implemented.

Well, what is Alarms anyway? Alarms "sits" in the menu bar and alerts about scheduled events. When an event is due it'll display a Growl notification, flashes its icon, and plays a sound.

The coolest part is how Alarms lets me create an event. I just drag a document, a Safari URL, or in most cases a "Mailplane URL" to the title bar.

Alarms slides the screen down to reveal a calendar (it reminds me of TimeMachine) and allows to drop the URL on the day or hour to schedule it.

When the event is due, I click the "eye" icon to open the URL and work on it. Mailplane will then open the linked conversation and I've all required information to complete the task. When I am done, I just check the mark and the task disappears.

Sounds useful? It is. Check out Alarms

10 tips for using Gmail at work

Friday, May 28, 2010

Google published 10 useful tips for business users.

Tip #2 is "Add a custom signature to the bottom of your email messages." In case you need multiple signatures and you like to add formatting and pictures, check out Mailplane's rich text signatures. Here are some how-to articles:

• Setup your first signature
• Add a signature for another “from” email address
• Insert a different signature

Fast “separate” Gmail windows

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Great news for Mailplane users: "Separate" Gmail windows got much faster! Try the File > New Separate menu item or shift-click a conversation in the Gmail overview list to see the difference.

Here's more info from the official Gmail blog:

One of the lesser-known features of Gmail is its ability to help with multitasking. Frequently, I find that I need to find an old message while I'm composing an email. When this happens, I click on the "new window" icon to pop my compose area into its own window:

There's only one problem — it's been slow! Today, we're rolling out a change that will fix this (reload your account to make sure you get this change). Now, popping out a window is much, much faster. No more "Loading..." progress bar.

There are a number of places you can pop up new windows in Gmail.

• In chat, there's the little upward arrow in the title bar:
  
• When writing a message, hold the "Shift" key while you click on the Compose Mail, Reply, Reply All or Forward links and you'll get a new window for your new message. (Holding the "Shift" key while typing the keyboard shortcut — in other words typing "C" "R" or "F" — has the same effect.)
• When you're reading your mail, hold the "Shift" key while you click on a message to open the conversation in a new window. (Same holds true for the "Shift" key and the "o" or "Enter" shortcuts.)
• If you're reading an email and want to save it for later, you can click the "New window" link in the upper-right hand corner of the conversation view:
  

Things app: Quick Entry Autofill for Mailplane

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Yesterday, Cultured Code released Things 1.2.2. Guess what's in the release notes:

Quick Entry Autofill now works in Microsoft Word 2008 and Mailplane.

Great! Now it's super easy to create a new to-dos based on email conversations. Most importantly, Things creates a to-do that links back to the Gmail conversation.

Here's how it works:

1. In Mailplane: open a Gmail conversation.

2. Select some text inside the conversation, it'll be added as Things to-do note:

3. Select Mailplane > Services > New To-Do containing selection as note or simply press ⌃⌥⇧⌘0. As a result you'll get the Things Quick Entry dialog:

4. Make your changes and press Save to add the to-do. After the dialog closes, the to-do can be found in your Things inbox. Just click the email link and your conversation will magically open inside Mailplane.

Helvetimail - a minimalist Gmail skin

Monday, September 14, 2009

David Klein ported Josef Richter's Helvetimail Gmail stylesheet to Mailplane:

If you are looking for a minimalistic Gmail skin, here's are the links:

• Stylesheet download: http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail.css
• Helvetimail home page: http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail/
• David's home page: http://tehdik.com

Requirements: The stylesheet only works with the latest Mailplane 2.1-beta version.

Installation: Assign the downloaded file to the Mailplane > Preferences > Tweak UI > Custom Stylesheet setting.

Important: Gmail is changing all the time! If the stylesheet stops working, please check the Helvetimail or David's page for a new version.

Tip: As an alternative take a look at Gmail's built-in Themes. They are maintained by Google and will keep up with Gmail's changes.

Thanks David Klein for sharing!

Snow Leopard Tip: Turn on “Text Substitutions”

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Snow Leopard has a great new feature: "Text Substitutions". When turned on, it helps you type your messages:

• Text Replacements: Define short text snippets which are automatically expanded when entered.
• Smart Links: Enter an URL and it automatically is turned into a clickable link.
• Smart Dashes: Replaces the a double dash to a long dash character, which looks better.
• Smart Quotes: Enter book-like quotes.

Here's how you can turn on the feature inside Mailplane:

1. Compose a new message
2. Control-Click the body text
3. Click Substitutions > Show Substitutions to open the "Substitution" utility window.
4. Turn on the substitutions you need, I find the Text Replacement feature most useful.
5. Press the "Text Preferences..." button to define your own text replacements
6. Now test it: Enter (c) or TM followed by space to replace the text with a copyright/trademark sign.

Tip: You can also access the text replacement settings by going to System Preferences > Text/Languages/Text:

One more thing: If you need to manage more text replacements, try Mailplane's text snippet feature. Define text snippets in Preferences > Accounts > Text Snippets and insert into your email by using the ⌘-Option-I keyboard shortcut.

Gmail: Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Contact auto-completion is great, but the new contact chooser makes much sense when you need more control. I just found this news on the Gmail blog:

When composing messages, you probably rely pretty heavily on auto-complete to add recipients. Auto-complete is convenient and fast, and usually does the trick. But sometimes seeing your list of contacts can help you remember all the people you want to include on your email. So, we've added a contact chooser to Gmail. Click the "To:" link (or Cc:/Bcc:) when composing a message and you'll see something like this:

You can click on the contacts you want to add or search for others.

Gmail: Email a task list

Google has improved Gmail Tasks again. You can now email a task list:

Here's a tip I just found on Twitter:

<blockquote>New KB shortcuts: alt (cmd) + enter to complete a task, alt (cmd) + shift + enter to clear completed.</blockquote>

Read official Gmail blog post.

Gmail: Mail and contact import for everyone

Do you old email accounts? Move them over to your beloved Gmail account and use/search them inside Mailplane: The Accounts & Contacts import is now available to everyone. It can import Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, and POP3 accounts.

Read official Gmail blog entry

New Gmail Lab Feature: Remove Labels from Subjects

Do you have a small screen and like to conserve some space? Try the new Gmail lab feature "Remove Labels from Subjects":

Before:

After:

Read official Gmail blog post

Tip: Send mail from another address without “on behalf of”

Monday, August 03, 2009

Google now offers a way to remove the "on behalf of" message your messages.

Here's the problem:

Quite a few of you use Gmail's custom "From:" to send messages with one of your other email addresses listed in place of your Gmail address. Since these messages are sent by Gmail's servers but "from" a non-Gmail address, we have to include your original Gmail username in the "Sender" field of the message header to comply with mail delivery protocols and help prevent your mail from being marked as spam. Most email programs just display the "From" address and not the "Sender" field, but some (including versions of Microsoft Outlook) show these messages as coming "From username@gmail.com On Behalf Of customaddress@mydomain.com" which really annoyed people.

We heard your request for another option that wouldn't show the "on behalf of" text loud and clear, and now there's a new option that does just that. Instead of using Gmail's servers to send the message, we'll use the servers where your other email address lives. Since Gmail isn't the originating domain, we don't have to include "Sender" info in the header. No more "on behalf of."

All custom "From:" addresses used to work like this:

The solution:

<p>Now, if your other email provider supports <strike>POP and/or IMAP access</strike> authenticated SMTP, you can choose to send your message like this instead:</p>
<img src="http://mailplaneapp.com/files/blog/ZZ2F4DEF86.png" width="525" height="138" alt="The new way." />

To switch to this new method, go to the Accounts page under Settings, and click "edit info" from the "Send mail as" section. Then choose the option to "Use your other email provider's SMTP servers."

Read full blog post at the official Gmail blog.

Tip: Recover your password via text message

Afraid of loosing your Gmail password? This tip will make your password recovery much easier and safer:

Even the best of us forget our passwords from time to time. In fact, recovering passwords is one of the top reasons people visit the Gmail Help Center. To help with these situations, we recently added the ability to recover your password via text message.

Read article on the offical Gmail Blog.

Become a Gmail Ninja

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Improve your Gmail skills and become real productive. Google has published a very useful tips and tricks page. It's also available as a nice printable guide.

Gmail Labs goes global

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Hooray! According to the "official Gmail blog" Gmail lab features are now available in all supported Gmail languages - not just English!

Currently, there are 43 different lab features. I love and use these Gmail Lab features:

• Offline Gmail! If you like to try it, you'll need Mailplane 2.1-beta.
• Youtube, Picasa, Flickr previews in mail.
• Quick Links: Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.
• Fixed with font: Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.
• Navbar drag and drop: Allows you to reorder the items in your navbar using drag and drop.
• Forgotten attachment detector: Prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments.
• Vacation Time: Lets you specify starting and ending dates for the vacation autoresponder.
• Custom Label Colors: Lets you create your own combination of colors for labels.
• Search Autocomplete: Provides search suggestions for contacts and operators as you type in the search box.
• Google Calendar gadget: Adds a box in the left column which shows your Google Calendar. See upcoming events, locations, and details.
• Google Docs gadget: Adds a box in the left column which displays your Google Docs. Shows recent docs, starred docs, and has fast search.
• Add any gadget by URL: Adds a "Gadgets" tab to Settings, where you'll be able to specify the URL of any gadget. This gadget will show in a box in the left column.

However, please do not use these lab features with Mailplane (they are not compatible):

• Custom keyboard shortcuts
• Hide Unread Counts
• Any signature feature (if you use Mailplane 2.1-beta HTML signatures).

New Gmail Lab Feature: Send & Archive

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

This feature was requested frequently, and it saves you at least one keystroke or button click per conversation.

From the official Gmail blog:

Having clicked "Send" followed by "Archive" a few million times, I started to wish there was a way to just click once and accomplish both actions at the same time. So I decided to turn this idea to a Gmail Labs experiment. Turn on "Send & Archive" from the Labs tab under Settings, and you'll see a new button in the compose form labeled just that. The button does what it says: it sends your reply and then archives the thread with one click.

Tip: The File->Send menu item or ⌘⇧D keyboard shortcut performs the "Send and & Archive" if you have enabled the lab feature.