[Ward]

During the early days of OmniFocus (June 2007), I experimented with Curt Clifton's "OmniFocus-Mail Links" scripts. I suspended my experiments when Curt's scripts began requiring MailTags.

With OmniFocus nearing formal 1.0 release, it seemed like a good time to revisit Mail and OmniFocus integration. My exploration so far has uncovered ...

• Preferences Clippings > Mail on Mac OS X 10.5
• Preferences Clippings > Mail with MailTags
• Preferences Clippings > Mail Clip-O-Tron 3000
• Preferences Mail > Add Mail Rule to create OmniFocus actions
• Help > "Processing Mail messages into actions"
• Help > "Clipping material from other applications"
• Curt's OmniFocus-Mail Links, version 0.8.1 (22 Nov 07)

I'd love to find a "Mail and OmniFocus" tutorial that outlines the pros and cons of OmniFocus' built-in Mail features, indev's MailTags, indev's Mail Act-On, and other add-ons.

If the tutorial has not been written, let's use this thread to collect (or link to) Mail-to-OmniFocus experiences.

[curt.clifton]

Ward,

I'll probably retire my OF-Mail links script once I have time to migrate to Leopard, likely in May. My script continues to work well for me, but a baked-in solution seems like the right long-term answer. I can't yet speak to the other options, but hope that others will.

[akelley]

I was pleased to learn that Leopard provides the ability to create a unique mail message id and open the message from an other applications (e.g., ical). Great! - prior to Leopard I believe you had to use MailTags to get this functionality.

My frustration with the the Mail-to-OF clippings script is that you cannot search on the message id in OF because the script turns it into an embedded link labeled Original Message. As a result I continue to use Curt's OF-Mail links (which exposes the raw mail message id in the the task comments) until I can find a way a to do it.

Does anyone know how to search on a message id that's been turned into an embedded link in OF? A snippet of script would be a bonus.

-Alex

[curt.clifton]

Ah, interesting. Perhaps I won't retire my script in Leopard after all. What might be slick is a script in Mail that would show OF actions associated with the currently selected message.

[jenniferp]

I've seen references to the Clip-O-Tron - how does one use it?

[Craig]

Originally Posted by jenniferp

I've seen references to the Clip-O-Tron - how does one use it?

Omnifocus menu > Preferences... > Clippings tab.

It allows for clipping from currently viewed mail message without having to select text first.

[julamoor]

Curt's script (combined with a Mail Act-on keystroke that also sends the message to my @action box in Mail) works wonderfully for me. Every now and then I'll try one of the new options, but I always fall back to the script.

I'm not on Leopard yet, so maybe that will change, but it seems to me to be the best option for Tiger.

Julie

[Lizard]

OmniFocus' help (available from the Help menu in OmniFocus) now has nearly-final topics for each of the built-in mail-grabbing features. If you haven't looked at the help lately, they might get you going in the right direction.

(And if you have looked at them and feel something's missing, please let us know so we can improve!)

[Ward]

Originally Posted by Lizard

OmniFocus' help (available from the Help menu in OmniFocus) now has nearly-final topics for each of the built-in mail-grabbing features. If you haven't looked at the help lately, they might get you going in the right direction.

(And if you have looked at them and feel something's missing, please let us know so we can improve!)

I checked the Help before opening this thread and didn't find what I was looking for.

I just did another search for "Mail" and found only one topic with "Mail" in the subject line: "Processing Mail messages into actions." That topic has what appears to be a thorough description of sending specially formatted messages to Mail and having them wind up in OmniFocus. I say "appears to be" because the concept is not compatible with my work environment.

The "Clipping material from other applications" topic introduces some Mail integration concepts. In could use more depth. For example, does the link back to a message work if the message is moved in Mail? What happens when a linked message is deleted?

The discussion so far in this thread goes beyond what I'd expect to find in OmniFocus Help, at least for release 1.0.

It's great to have those who have dug into Mail/OmniFocus integration share their insight and recommendations -- comments like "If you're already using ABC, do this but don't try that," or "It's worth adding XYZ to Mail because ...."

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

[jenniferp]

Shift-F12 seems to work perfectly. Thanks! I wish there was a way to make a message change to 'read' when I send it to OF so it no longer shows up as an unread message. Is there?

Thanks again, Jennifer