Re: processing pending emails as part of your GTD system

[Christopher League <league@contrapunctus.net>]

On Apr 23, 2008, at 11:34 AM, bva@alexanderonline.org wrote:
> How did you know about this ``message://%3c%3e'' schema syntax!?  Is  
> there anything else I can do to Mail from within Emacs (or from  
> within Quicksilver {see footnote}).  Where can I read more! Is it  
> safe to upgrade Mail (i.e. if I upgrade to OS X 10.666 will this  
> script break?)

Things like this change all the time between OS revisions, so no  
guarantee.  I think the message URLs are new in Leopard (10.5).  You  
can find some details here:

http://daringfireball.net/2007/12/message_urls_leopard_mail

The macosxhints.com site is good too for tricks like that.  I think I  
just modified someone else's "Copy Message URL" script to put it in  
the right format for org-mode.  I'm no apple-script expert either.

> It seems that the message is found even if I move it to another  
> folder within Mail after generating the link; anything I need to be  
> warned about?

Yes, Mail in Leopard indexes all the messages and (usually) follows  
them through refiles.  Once in a while a linked message can't be  
found, but if I revisit the folder or "synchronize with server", then  
it works again.

> I often have two message viewers open (one with mailboxes showing  
> and one without, for easier filing {see footnote}) -- how does your  
> script (or Mail) choose which one is 'selected'?

No idea, likely the last Mail window with focus?

> 1) Why doesn't the applescript work for the messages in the first  
> folder I tried - my GTD folder?  Messages from the org-mode digest  
> are automatically filed to "On My Mac" -> "Reference" -> "GHI" ->  
> "GTD" to help keep my inbox clean.  But any message I try to run  
> your script on gives me blank "id" properties.
>
> Example: [[message://%3c%3e][Emacs-orgmode Digest, Vol 26, Issue 54]]

Hm, that %3c%3e means that there was no message-ID field for that  
message.  If you look at "Long Headers" and there IS a "Message-ID:"  
field (there is on org-mode messages for me), then maybe it has to do  
with Mail's index after auto-filing.  I do my auto-filing on the  
server with procmail, so I never use Mail's facility for that.

> 2) The emacs-lisp code calls (yank) which doesn't grab text from the  
> Apple Clipboard for me.  I am using "GNU Emacs 22.1.50.1 (powerpc- 
> apple-darwin7.9.0, Carbon Version 1.6.0) of 2007-10-02 on  
> applecore.inf.ed.ac.uk - Aquamacs Distribution 1.2a" and org-version  
> 5.23a.  Instead, I modified your code to use (cua-paste).

Okay, simple enough.  Mine is GNU Emacs 22.2.1 (i386-apple-darwin9,  
Carbon Version 1.6.0) [compiled from emacs22-carbon in Fink].

I use Quicksilver, but don't have much in the way of Mail  
integration.  Let me know if you find something.


Chris