import mail messages like mhc?

import mail messages like mhc?

[bremner]

Hi All;

I am currently using a Frankenstein-duct-tape-monster made from mhc
and org-mode to track time and manage todos. For various reasons I
would like to switch to just org-mode. One thing I really like about
mhc is the ability to semi-automatically turn a mail message (in
e.g. mew, gnus, wanderlust) into an agenda item/todo.  Partly this is
because mhc agenda items are MH messages, but the thing I would like
to copy is that it reads the message body and surprisingly often
guesses the date and time of an appointment. Before I try to port this
to org-mode, has someone already done something similar?

David

Re: import mail messages like mhc?

[Sebastian Rose]

Hi David,


it has 'something similar', which is more general (thus not restricted
to emails).

In org-mode, you may define remember templates

Pressing 'C-c r' somewhere, automatically adds a link to a file, mail,
bbdb-entry etc. to your remember note, and gives you a chance to add
some more text, timestamps (scheduling....) and even more links.

Pressing 'C-c r' in code you're working on, adds a link to the place
in that file. By clicking the link later on, you may go back to that
place (file, mail, bbdb...).


In case the manual is not enough, don't hesitate to call us back here.

http://orgmode.org/manual/Remember.html#Remember



Best regards,

   Sebastian


bremner@unb.ca wrote:
> Hi All;
> 
> I am currently using a Frankenstein-duct-tape-monster made from mhc
> and org-mode to track time and manage todos. For various reasons I
> would like to switch to just org-mode. One thing I really like about
> mhc is the ability to semi-automatically turn a mail message (in
> e.g. mew, gnus, wanderlust) into an agenda item/todo.  Partly this is
> because mhc agenda items are MH messages, but the thing I would like
> to copy is that it reads the message body and surprisingly often
> guesses the date and time of an appointment. Before I try to port this
> to org-mode, has someone already done something similar?
> 
> David
>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
> 

Re: import mail messages like mhc?

[Ben Alexander]

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On 2008-Oct-25, at 16:39, emacs-orgmode-request@gnu.org wrote:
>
> From: bremner@unb.ca
> Date: 25 October 2008 13:10:27 BST
> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> Subject: [Orgmode] import mail messages like mhc?
>
>
>
> Hi All;
>
> I am currently using a Frankenstein-duct-tape-monster made from mhc
> and org-mode to track time and manage todos. For various reasons I
> would like to switch to just org-mode. One thing I really like about
> mhc is the ability to semi-automatically turn a mail message (in
> e.g. mew, gnus, wanderlust) into an agenda item/todo.  Partly this is
> because mhc agenda items are MH messages, but the thing I would like
> to copy is that it reads the message body and surprisingly often
> guesses the date and time of an appointment. Before I try to port this
> to org-mode, has someone already done something similar?
>
> David
>


Completely unrelated to org-mode:
I would love to move my email to Emacs and use something like this,  
but I the only solutions I can understand rely on moving mail from my  
IMAP based inbox onto the local system.  This is good; I want offline  
access.  But this is bad: I want to refile email entries and move the  
messages on IMAP server into folders.  Everything I've read indicates  
that once the mail has been downloaded to my laptop, any organization  
is only local, and not synced back to the IMAP folders.  (And no,  
unfortunately I don't have login access to my IMAP server -- I do have  
ftp access though)

Does anyone have some cheap advice on mixing email and org-mode?


Back to org-mode:
Since I haven't gotten any further than wishing Emacs could read my  
mail, I haven't looked to see if the (org-store-link) does the right  
magic thing in Rmail and/or Gnus.  According the org-mode manual,  
there is all kinds of support for linking from your org-mode buffer  
back to the original email.  And in terms of finding the right date  
from your mail message, I think the date parsing routine that C-. (org- 
time-stamp) uses absolutely rocks.

For example, I just tried pasting the header from your email into the  
minibuffer after a 'C-.'.  Org-mode didn't recognize the date because  
of the cruft of the To: field and the Subject: field.  But within the  
minibuffer, I could hit C-p to get the the line with the date and  
*poof* like magic it found the date.  And the minibuffer shows you  
what  date it has computed.

It did have a bit more trouble finding things like 'See you next  
Monday', But since C-k C-a and C-e work in the minibuffer, you might  
be able to yank the entire message into the buffer and then kill the  
text that doesn't have the date you want.  Well, for short emails  
anyway.

-Ben

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Re: import mail messages like mhc?

[David Bremner]

At Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:30:18 +0100,
Ben Alexander wrote:

> Completely unrelated to org-mode: I would love to move my email to
> Emacs and use something like this, but I the only solutions I can
> understand rely on moving mail from my IMAP based inbox onto the
> local system.

[snip]
> Does anyone have some cheap advice on mixing email and org-mode?

Wanderlust has good support for disconnected operation with IMAP,
including refiling, deleting, replying...

> Since I haven't gotten any further than wishing Emacs could read my
> mail, I haven't looked to see if the (org-store-link) does the right
> magic thing in Rmail and/or Gnus.  According the org-mode manual,
> there is all kinds of support for linking from your org-mode buffer
> back to the original email.

The linking to mail messages is good (at least in Wanderlust, where I
tested it), but it grabs only the subject header by default.

[snip]
> of the cruft of the To: field and the Subject: field.  But within the
> minibuffer, I could hit C-p to get the the line with the date and
> *poof* like magic it found the date.  And the minibuffer shows you
> what  date it has computed.

I'll have to play with that a bit, I'm hoping for something relatively
automatic.  For example, MHC grabbed the 'next monday' out of your
message and turned that into 2008/10/27.

Re: import mail messages like mhc?

[Robert Goldman]

> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:30:18 +0100
> From: Ben Alexander <bva@alexanderonline.org>
> Subject: Re: [Orgmode] import mail messages like mhc?
> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> Cc: bremner@unb.ca
> Message-ID: <DBE523AC-B6FC-4B4C-88C2-2E6A9A328AAB@alexanderonline.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> On 2008-Oct-25, at 16:39, emacs-orgmode-request@gnu.org wrote:
>> From: bremner@unb.ca
>> Date: 25 October 2008 13:10:27 BST
>> To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
>> Subject: [Orgmode] import mail messages like mhc?
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi All;
>>
>> I am currently using a Frankenstein-duct-tape-monster made from mhc
>> and org-mode to track time and manage todos. For various reasons I
>> would like to switch to just org-mode. One thing I really like about
>> mhc is the ability to semi-automatically turn a mail message (in
>> e.g. mew, gnus, wanderlust) into an agenda item/todo.  Partly this is
>> because mhc agenda items are MH messages, but the thing I would like
>> to copy is that it reads the message body and surprisingly often
>> guesses the date and time of an appointment. Before I try to port this
>> to org-mode, has someone already done something similar?
>>
>> David
>>
> 
> 
> Completely unrelated to org-mode:
> I would love to move my email to Emacs and use something like this,  
> but I the only solutions I can understand rely on moving mail from my  
> IMAP based inbox onto the local system.  This is good; I want offline  
> access.  But this is bad: I want to refile email entries and move the  
> messages on IMAP server into folders.  Everything I've read indicates  
> that once the mail has been downloaded to my laptop, any organization  
> is only local, and not synced back to the IMAP folders.  (And no,  
> unfortunately I don't have login access to my IMAP server -- I do have  
> ftp access though)
> 
> Does anyone have some cheap advice on mixing email and org-mode?

I am afraid my results are mostly negative.  For reasons like yours, I
use IMAP, and keep my myriad folders on the server.  I have settled on
thunderbird as the best client for my purposes.

Some alternatives I considered:  I could never get my head around gnus
as a client --- I guess for me, reading email is fundamentally UNlike
reading news.  VM does not have a fully functional IMAP client, so I
reluctantly gave it up two or so years ago.  mutt seems too primitive,
and why would I want to learn another extension language?  Perhaps if I
could have programmed it in some language with which I was familiar...

Note that thunderbird provides offline function of the sort you want ---
just click "work offline."

Alas, I have not been able to make thunderbird provide me with links
into emails so that I could click on an email link in org and jump
thunderbird to that point.  Perhaps some serious examination of the
javascript api into thunderbird could provide an extension that would do
this.

For now, I have been saving emails and putting them in as attachments.
Not fully satisfactory.

Robert