MailURL

Description:

"MailURL" offers a quick and easy way to tell a friend (or enemy ;)) about the page you're currently watching in your web browser (iCab, Opera, Internet Explorer, or Netscape's Navigator/Communicator). It creates a new message in Eudora, Claris Emailer or Outlook Express, placing the title of the page in the "Subject: " header, and the URL of it in the body. All you need to do then is fill in the "To: " header and send it.

Support for other mailclients

I'm not planning to add support for other mailclients myself. It would require downloading, installing and learning how to script them. Way too much work for a freeware product. You get what you pay for ;)

If you would like to have support for other mailclients, and know how to script them, feel free to submit the necessary code snippet. I will add it to MailURL and attribute the code to you. MailURL has been made modular, so that it is quite easy to add support for other mailclients. All that needs to be done is write the code snippet for that particular mailclient. From there, it can be integrated in MailURL in a few seconds.

Many thanks to Christoph Sahm, who provided the code for Claris Emailer, and to Paul F. Heneganwho provided the code for Outlook Express.

System requirements:

  • AppleScript needs to be installed
  • Either
  • In theory this should work under Mac OS 7.0 and up. ('t works fine for me under Mac OS 9.0.4 and I've had users report it works fine under OS 7.5.5)
  • iCab, or Opera, or Internet Explorer, or Netscape Navigator/Communicator
  • Eudora, Claris Emailer or Outlook Express.

Installation and use:

with OSA Menu:

  1. Place a copy (not an alias!) of "MailURL" inside the corresponding folder inside the "Scripts" folder inside your System Folder (see screenshot). (For instance, to use it with iCab, place a copy of "MailURL" in the "iCab Scripts" folder inside the "Scripts" folder inside your System Folder. If such a folder doesn't exist yet, you can easily create it from OSA Menu by selecting it from your web browser (see screenshot). (If you've never used OSA Menu and don't understand this, read the documentation of OSA Menu.)
  2. From now on, when you're in your webbrowser, when you go to OSA Menu's menu, you'll see an entry "MailURL". Select that to activate MailURL (see screenshot).

with FinderPop:

In order to use MailURL with FinderPop, place a copy of "MailURL" in the FinderPop Items folder in your System Folder. That's it, but you can make it nicer:

MailUrl will only work if you launch it when your browser is the frontmost application. You can just remember that, or you can choose to prevent yourself from accidentally selecting it from within another app (nothing bad will happen - MailURL will simply tell it cannot find your browser) through the following procedure:

Make this truly contextual and have "MailURL" pop up in FinderPop's menu only when you're in your browser. To do this, you do the following: In the FinderPop Items folder, rename "MailURL" to

  • "nn)mailURL iCAB!!!!" for iCab
  • "nn)mailURL OPRA!!!!" for Opera
  • "nn)mailURL MOSS!!!!" for Navigator/Communicator), or
  • "nn)mailURL MSIE!!!!" for Explorer.

Without the quotes of course

For "nn" fill in any number you like. FinderPop uses the number to decide where in its pop-up menu menu it will show you the item. Use "00" to have it appear at the top of the menu. For further details, RTFM [that's "Read Turly's Fine Manual" ;)].

FinderPop rocks! :)

with OtherMenu:

I don't use OtherMenu myself so I can't provide a detailed explanation, but someone informed me that MailURL works with it and that setting it up is similar to setting up FinderPop to use MailURL. If you already use OtherMenu you'll probably know how to do this. If not, I imagine it will be explained in its manual.

Preferences:

On first run, MailURL asks which e-mail client you want to use with MailURL. MailURL stores this info in the file "MailURL Preferences" in your Preferences folder. If you want to change to a different mailclient, just trash the "MailURL Preferences" file and run MailURL again - it will ask you which mailclient to use.

Legalese:

This is freeware. Do with it whatever you like, except sell it!

Use at your own risk. I take no responsibility whatsoever for whatever damage "MailURL" may cause to anyone or anything. Hey, it's free OK? ;)

Download:

  • Download "MailURL" 2.1.4(20KB)
  • "MailURL" 1.0 (5KB) is still availble for those who want to run MailURL from the Apple menu Items for example, and who only use iCab anyway. Note that I don't plan on updating this version though.

Known bugs:

  • There are currently no known bugs

Version History:

Version 2.1.4

  • Added support for Outlook Express
  • Minor workaround to avoid conflict with Satimage OSAX

Version 2.1.2

Added support for Opera

Version 2.1.1

Minor bug fix

Version 2.1

Added support for Claris Emailer.
This made it necessary to, on first run, ask which e-mail client you want to use with MailURL. MailURL stores this info in the file "MailURL Preferences" in your Preferences folder. If you want to change to a different mailclient, just trash the "MailURL Preferences" file and run MailURL again - it will ask you which mailclient to use.

Btw, now that MailURL supports more than 1 e-mail client, it's a piece of cake to add support for more. Send in your code and I'll integrate it.

Version 2.0.2b1:

Now chops of that silly "Netscape: " part from titles in Navigator/Communicator.

Version 2.0.1b2:

Made some things a bit more efficient. Should run faster now.

Version 2.0:

  • Now also works with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator/Communicator besides iCab (for those of you who haven't upgraded yet ;))
  • Now should work under older OS versions (OS 7.0 and up)
  • Now more user-friendly: no more problems if you have renamed or moved any of these applications, or were using an older version of Eudora ("MailURL" 1.0 didn't didn't take into account that older versions of Eudora might be called "Eudora Pro"...)
  • Needs OSA Menu or FinderPop or OtherMenu.

Version 1.0:

  • initial release
  • worked only with iCab
  • Not OSA Menu-dependant - can be run from for instance the Apple Menu Items