Clippings Not Working: SP1.8 on 10.6.4
 

I know there are a couple of threads on this already, but none seem to resolve into a working solution that fits my situation. Basically, clippings doesn't work at all. Not in Safari, not in Mail, not in TextEdit...

I set a clippings shortcut (which in and of itself is terribly finicky) and verify that the shortcut shows up under System Preferences->Keyboard->Services->Text. I then restart Safari, Mail, etc. When I try and use the shortcut I assigned (CTRL-SPACE), either nothing happens, or the system beeps. In either case, the Quick Entry dialog never appears, and a new action is never created in OmniFocus. When I check the Services menu, there is no entry for OmniFocus (or whatever it is supposed to say for my clippings shortcut). I have no idea what's going on or why it won't work.

I have tried restarting OmniFocus. That doesn't help. I have tried assigning a different shortcut, but that doesn't help, and sometimes the shortcut refuses to be accepted anyway. I have tried everything I can think of, but clippings doesn't work anywhere.

What am I doing wrong? What is the magic dance that I have to do to get this to work?

OmniFocus SP 1.8 v77.61 r137279
Mac OS X 10.6.4
Safari 5.0.1 (6533.17.8)
Mail 4.3 (1081)

Thanks.

[QUOTE=ifonline;83499]I know there are a couple of threads on this already, but none seem to resolve into a working solution that fits my situation. Basically, clippings doesn't work at all. Not in Safari, not in Mail, not in TextEdit...

I set a clippings shortcut (which in and of itself is terribly finicky) and verify that the shortcut shows up under System Preferences->Keyboard->Services->Text. I then restart Safari, Mail, etc. When I try and use the shortcut I assigned (CTRL-SPACE), either nothing happens, or the system beeps. In either case, the Quick Entry dialog never appears, and a new action is never created in OmniFocus. When I check the Services menu, there is no entry for OmniFocus (or whatever it is supposed to say for my clippings shortcut). I have no idea what's going on or why it won't work.

I have tried restarting OmniFocus. That doesn't help. I have tried assigning a different shortcut, but that doesn't help, and sometimes the shortcut refuses to be accepted anyway. I have tried everything I can think of, but clippings doesn't work anywhere.

What am I doing wrong? What is the magic dance that I have to do to get this to work?

OmniFocus SP 1.8 v77.61 r137279
Mac OS X 10.6.4
Safari 5.0.1 (6533.17.8)
Mail 4.3 (1081)

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

It appears that what you are doing wrong is using control-space as your clipping shortcut :-) I'm not 100% convinced that it does actually get entered properly, judging from a close look at how it shows up in the Services menu. If I configure it on my system, it doesn't work, but if I configure something else, it does, which leads me to believe that there's an issue with that particular combination (I also believe that there have been some people who haven't been able to get anything to work, which suggests something else is wrong with their setup).

cmd-shift-, or cmd-< works well for me and makes a nice complement to the cmd-shift-. or cmd-> hardwired into OmniOutliner for its clipping service. Try it and see if it works for you, and then we'll at least know if the issue on your system is just with this particular combination.

I have actually tried other shortcuts (and sometimes OmniFocus won't let me enter anything), but they didn't work either. I will try the ones you suggested in the morning to see what happens.

When I used CTRL-SPACE, the System Preferences does show that shortcut linked to the clipping entry, for what that is worth.

One thing to note: Things (the enemy) has a shortcut already built in, and it works flawlessly. Is it possibly something in the OmniFocus code that is a bit screwy? Otherwise, how does Things make it happen without frustration, but OmniFocus is so difficult to get going (at least for some)?

Well, I went on ahead and fired up the Mac at home and tried SHIFT-CMD-, but unfortunately it didn't work either. System Preferences shows the shortcut registered, but when I fire up Mail or Safari, nothing happens. When I check the services menu in those applications, the only thing listed is No Services Apply and Services Preferences.

Frustrating. I have no idea why this is so difficult.

Okay, forgive my asking, but you are selecting something first before trying to clip, right? If you are, what happens if you select some text and invoke the Send to OmniFocus service from the Services menu?

Nope. That was the crux of the problem: I mistakenly assumed that the Quick Entry would be populated even if text wasn't selected. For example, if I am browsing a webpage and invoke the Quick Entry, I would expect OmniFocus to enter the title and URL of the webpage in the note when I don't have any text specifically selected. Or if I am looking at an e-mail in Mail, I would expect OmniFocus to enter the subject of and a link to the e-mail in the note when I don't have any text specifically selected.

So, all in all, it works, just not like I was expecting (or hoping for).

Thanks for your help though.

Ian,

If you install the clip-o-tron from the OF Clippings preferences, then Mail will work like you want. In Safari, cmd-L will select the URL, which is handy before invoking the shortcut.

Thanks for the tips. The Clip-O-Tron seems to put the entire e-mail message in the note field, unless I'm missing a setting somewhere. That's something I don't really want.

I think at this point I'll just continue to drag and drop into the notes field when I want to link to an e-mail or a webpage.

I'm having the same problem - just a small beep when trying to use my mail shortcut (Control-Z-Command). Have tried reinstalling clip-o-tron but no joy.

Looks like another update to mail as killed this short-term?

[QUOTE=adrianwi;83657]Looks like another update to mail as killed this short-term?[/QUOTE]

Uninstall the Clip-O-Tron and then reinstall it.

I think Mail is doing some kind of version checking to disable plug-ins after updating. When you reinstall the Clip-O-Tron, the plug-in automatically updates its version identification so Mail won't disable it.

-Dennis