#applescripts

Lately I am up for experimentation and changes again. At present I goof around with Cultured Code's Things a bit, because why not. Things is a high quality application, but lagging behind the rest of the market. Some would even say a lot. However, crafted in my city (Stuttgart, Germany) by people with passion and dedication to quality, I always keep an eye on it.

A few days ago I reinstalled Things to see what has changed in the last few minor releases. As I played around I realised that I was missing some of the few AppleScript helpers I use in OmniFocus. Because I am delegating a lot, the one I was missing most was the script that marked an (agenda) item complete and create a new Waiting for item for the same subject.

For example you may have this task for the next conversation with a colleague

Mike: Create summary report for Q3 @agenda

When you sit down with Mike and you tell him that we need a Q3 summary report your part is done. Now you want a new task to be created.

Waiting for Mike: Create summary report for Q3 @waiting

That's pretty much what this very simplistic AppleScript below does: Completing the currently selected task(s) and create a new one(s), due in 2 days from today, by pre-pending "Waiting for" to the original task's title and assigning the waiting tag. If the original task was assigned to a project or area the new task will be created in the same place, otherwise it'll drop into your Inbox.

If you ever put either too much on your plate or collected a lot of possible tasks which you decided against later, this little piece of AppleScript Chris Dzombak is for you.

Microsoft Outlook or its predecessor Entourage have never been the most popular email clients on the Mac, but the folks from Redmond have significantly improved it over the years and some people quite simply have not much of a choice. In particular if you work in a large corporation which historically uses (a locked down version of) Exchange.

While Outlook 2016 for Mac is a huge leap forward, providing nearly feature parity with its Windows twin, Microsoft made some changes to the AppleScript interface and how scripts get executed. Most notably the Script Menu has disappeared which removes the easy and convenient approach of dropping your AppleScript into a defined folder and subsequently trigger it from a menu or even with a keyboard shortcut.

At the beginning people also observed some changes on the Outlook AppleScript interface as well which put some of the existing scripts at risk. However, Justin Lancy's AppleScript to clip Outlook items into OmniFocus' inbox seems to still work perfectly fine. At least for emails which are the only Outlook objects I tested (and need).

Of course you are asking "Why are you not just using the Mac OS X OmniFocus Clipping Service?" Well, Outlook has come a long way, but it is not fully embracing some of Mac OS X's native features yet.

As the script still works the only missing part of the workflow is an easy way to trigger it. If you happen to have FastScripts you are sorted already. Otherwise let's ask a good friend: Alfred.

Building a workflow to trigger a script is relatively easy. In this case you need to make sure you use the "Run Script"-Action as the script won't run as part of the "Run NSAppleScript"-Action. Add a keyword and a keyboard shortcut to trigger it and you are done. I have chosen the same keyboard shortcut I use for OmniFocus' official Mac OS X clipping service and limited its scope to Outlook and therefore overwrite the system default, saving me an additional shortcut to remember.

Feel free to download the Alfred workflow. Use, change and debug it at your own risk and pleasure.

When you are doing things, when you get into the flow you like to have all you need right at your fingertips. Whether these are the minutes from the last project status meeting, the current design draft or the original brief. In good old GTD® terms this would all be called "Support Material". Some keep it neatly inside a folder, others have a system of text files and others prefer Evernote.

If you are part of the Evernote camp then you will like the AppleScript which Danny Smith came up with. You can trigger it straight from Alfred and it will

Create an OmniFocus project (eg. “Wash Car”). This is where my next actions will live.

Create a tag in Evernote, prefixed with a slash (eg. “/Wash Car”). I’ll use this to tag any emails or other stuff that’s related to the project.

Create a new note in Evernote to act as the main project support document (eg. “PROJECT — Wash Car”), tagged with the new project tag. This is where I’ll plan my next actions and keep any thoughts relating to the project.

Add a link to OmniFocus pointing to the Evernote note, and vice versa. I use local links which work on both OSX and iOS.

I defer tasks in OmniFocus a lot. Just to get them out of sight and out of my productive way. I like to see them again when, well, I like to see them again. But when that time comes I need them to come back right into my face.

It is not enough for them to just become "available" again, they need to yell at me: "Here am I again! Look at me!"

The tasks I always look at, that are in front of me nearly the entire day, are the tasks I flagged in OmniFocus as part of my daily planning. They get an over proportional level of attention. Consequently, if I need deferred tasks to pop-up in this list I need to flag them when I defer them.

Now the issue is that I consistently do this — in 60% of all cases. So things fall between the cracks and I hate when that happens.

Luckily there is Colter Reed. Colter has the same problem. Or better: Used to have it. Until he came up with this genius little AppleScript which automatically flags all tasks deferred to today. He also gives you the tools to run the script on a regular schedule like every morning at 6am (or once the computer is wakes up after that time). You can also use Lingon or Keyboard Mastero to run the script on a regular basis.

A very long time ago, I published an Applescript I’ve created that usesMail-Act-On 2 and MailTags by indev.ca to create a task in OmniFocus for messages you send out that you need answer or follow up (“Waiting For’s” in GTD terms). While I haven’t been working on the script ever since, the brave community in the Omnigroup’s OmniFocus forum did.

They refined the script, fixed some issues and when Scott Morrison from indev.ca got involved himself, the script evolved to utilise most of MailTags incredible power, e.g. using the project field of MailTags to add the task to the right project in OmniFocus if there is a matching one or even add a due date to the task based on the Tickler Date (if set) of MailTags.

Awesome community development: Make sure you check out the thread in the OmniFocus forum for more variations and further enhancements.

I believe the latest version has a bit of an issue and isn’t adding the task to OmniFocus, if the Tickler Date isn’t set. It still triggers the Growl notification, but the task never appears in OmniFocus. Hopefully I’ll have time to look into this and provide an update.

If you happen to work in a large corporation like I do, chances are high that you need to integrate with a Microsoft Exchange environment. Dependent on how flexible and open your IT department is you can do this using IMAP or you need to go native Microsoft. In the latter case you’ll hopefully be using Outlook for Mac 2011. If you still want to integrate with your trusted OmniFocus task management, Veritrope’s new AppleScript for Outlook 2011 to OmniFocus has you covered.

This script will send any type of Outlook item/items (messages, tasks, notes, calendar items, and contacts) directly to OmniFocus’s Inbox — and even will make a new task item from a highlighted bit of text. If there is existing due date information associated with the item, that should also make the jump as well. And if you have Growl installed, you’ll receive notifications that give you status updates as Items are added.

There are many relying on Evernote to keep all their notes, snippets, drafts and documents in sync across their devices. Having an application for nearly every (mobile) platform, build-in OCR and seamless cloud sync, Evernote is certainly leading the pack. While I personally dislike the closed system it provides, I can totally understand everyone that is in love it. If you are and you keep your tasks and projects in OmniFocus you’ll be interested in these two AppleScript which have been posted on Veritrope

Copy OmniFocus Item URI to Evernote ”This script will copy a link to the currently selected task/project/folder in OmniFocus to a new note item in Evernote. If the item is a part of a OmniFocus Project, the script will add the Project name as a tag — creating one if none currently exists!”

Search Evernote for Notes Containing Link To Selected OmniFocus Item: “This script will search through your Evernote note collection for a link to the currently selected task/project/folder in OmniFocus. Once the items are found, the script will display the results of the search in a separate Note Collection window.”