Filed under: Software, Productivity
Mail Act-On Adds Shortcuts for Rules
I'd just like to say up front: these guys are getting all my donations for the week. Put simply, Act-On is a plugin that allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to rules in Mail. Anything that's possible with a rule is now just a keystroke away. Read on for an example of how it works and how much power Act-On can give you over your Mail messages.
There's a simple naming process to follow for rules, but once you create one you simply must use the (`) key (above Tab) to invoke Act-On, then use any of your shortcut keys to trigger a rule. To give you an example to get the gears turning: I've now set up 4 separate rules, each to color the background of a message in Mail's list a different color. Coloring messages quickly and easily like this helps out tremendously if I need to find a specific message in a list or search result, but you can do so much more. Any rule you can conceive - say one that colors a message, moves it to a folder and runs an applescript - can be called with a simple Act-On shortcut. Powerful, and best of all: handy. Just like MailTags, Act-On requires Panther or Tiger, and a $20 donation is recommended.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scott Morrison said 3:53PM on 8-29-2005
As the author of both plugins, I just want to say that MailTags dovetails into Act-On. MailTags adds criteria and actions to mailrules based on tags. With the combination, you can set up act-on rules to set the due date of an message 3 days from today, set the project, or set the color of a message to red if it is tagged with a specific project and the due date is less than three days away.
Also - MailTags adds the ability to mark a message unread, or unflagged (something that Act-On doesn't have -- yet!)
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aprodite said 4:55PM on 8-29-2005
On UK keyboards the (`) key is above the ctrl key, well on my ibook at least.
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Scott Gardner said 7:20PM on 8-29-2005
As a user of both Act-On and MailTags, I can tell you that these are indispensible tools that warrant the effort to get to know them and their integrated capabilities. I find it more convenient "`" to use ctrl+[my Act-On shortcut character] vs. ` to launch an Act-On action.
To the developer I ask if you can offer a new smart folder option to the "Due date within X days" to also include past dates. In a perfect world we complete all our daily tasks on time. I can't remember the last time *that* happened. Thanks!
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Scott Morrison said 12:43PM on 8-30-2005
Hello Scott (Gardner)
To get past due, set your smart mailbox to due date before 0 days. (a little obtuse perhaps -- but it works)
-- Scott (the author) :)
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