Support
Snow Leopard Users
MailTemplate will work with the tip here:
See MailTemplate on Snow Leopard on our blog.
How to Install
MailTemplate for Mail.app
Please double click “MailTemplate Installer.pkg” and follow the instructions. After successful installation you need to quit Mail.app and start it again to use the contextual menu plug-in. In order to see extra contextual menu items in other applications you need to quit those applications. Log out is recommended.
MailTemplate for Entourage
Please double click “EntourageTemplate Installer.pkg” and follow the instructions. After successful installation you need to quit Entourage and start it again to use the contextual menu plug-in. In order to see extra contextual menu items in other applications you need to quit those applications. Log out is recommended.
What is installed?
MailTemplate for Mail.app
The package consists of contextual menu plug-in for Mail.app: “MailTemplateCM.plugin” and template editor: “MailTemplateEditor”.
MailTemplate for Entourage
The package consists of contextual menu plug-in for Entourage: “EntourageTemplateCM.plugin” and template editor: “EntourageTemplateEditor”.
If you use Mac OS 10.2.x a helper component “MailTemplateHelper.mailbundle” is installed. It works around the problem of first control-click after lunch (the message: MailTemplate: “Mail” is not responding, please click again). If you use Mac OS 10.3 or higher the helper package is not installed because it is no longer needed.
How do I create a new template?
MailTemplateEditor is an application for creating and managing templates. To create a new template, click on the green pencil icon in the toolbar. To remove a template, click on the delete icon. You may also insert a menu item separator by clicking on the “==” icon. The list of templates is shown in the column on the left. You may reorder items by dragging selected rows in the table. You may rename an item by double clicking on it. When you select one item in the column on the left, the actual template content appears on the right side. There are two checkboxes on the top for setting if the currently edited template is supposed to be used for new messages or for reply messages. If both checkboxes are unselected, the template is inactive and will not show in the contextual menu in Mail.app. For each template you can fill available fields as if you were composing a message in Mail.app. You can leave some fields empty if not needed (as “CC” or “BCC”). “Account” popup menu is populated by reading Mail.app preferences.
Reply messages may be more sophisticated and contain special words starting and ending with ^^ (for example: ^^RE_SUBJECT^^). These special objects are resolved at runtime by querying the original message to which you are replying. This gives you the flexibility to pre-populate given fields with logical text and save you even more typing and more time. Try the sample template to see how it works. “Insert Special Object” popup menu contains the list of all available special words.
You may specify attachments in your template which will be added to outgoing message. MailTemplate does not make a copy of specified file, only keeps an alias to it. This means that if you delete the original file there is no way to add it as attachment. Also, if you modify the content of the original file the new, modified version will be attached next time you create a new message with MailTemplate.
Where are my templates stored?
All templates you create with the editor are saved in preferences file “com.mactank.MailTemplate.plist” in your /Users/You/Library/Preferences/ folder.
How to create an e-mail messages
There are two methods of creating an e-mail message:
Start new message from scratch
When you click in Mail.app window while holding a control key (or right clicking if you use two button mouse) you should see new items at the end of contextual menu that pops up. The first item is a submenu named “New Message With Template” containing templates you created with the editor. When you select one of your templates, a new message with pre-defined content will be created.
Version 1.4 adds integration with other applications. You can ctrl-click on an e-mail address in any application and you will see a menu: “New Mail Message with Template to someone@somewhere.com”. The menu will contain a list of your “new message” templates. You can turn this feature ON or OFF in TemplateEditor preferences. It is ON by default.
Reply to a message you received
When you control click on a selected message(s) in Mail.app a new submenu will appear: “Reply With Template” with a list of templates created for response messages. Templates for replies can be more sophisticated than templates for new messages. For example, a response template can logically populate “To” and “Subject” fields just as you would get it by pressing the “Reply” button in Mail.app.
The third submenu appearing when you control click in Mail.app is titled MailTemplate. It contains the following items:
Open TemplateEditor for quick access to the editing application. Mark Message as Replied/Not Replied (free feature, Mac OS 10.3 or higher, see below under “Extras”) Copy Sender’s First Name/Last Name/Full Name (free feature, see below under “Extras”)
Frequently asked questions
Adding attachments caused my messages to show up blank
On Mac OS X 10.5, sometimes a template with attachments will not work correctly. We are aware of this issue and hope to fix it in an upcoming release.
Does MailTemplate work with Entourage 2008?
It does not at this time. We are investigating the issue with Entourage 2008 and hope to fix the issue in an upcoming release.
Can’t create a new message or reply from template in Entourage.
If you are using an Exchange account in Entourage, MailTemplate’s commands do not work in the latest release. We are working on a fix for this issue.
MailTemplate Installer fails with the message, “Can’t find MailTemplateCM.plugin”
This can occur when FileVault is active. To install MailTemplate, simply copy the Installer to /Users/Shared and run it again.
MailTemplate is not displaying my template in Mail.app?
Most likely you are using PGP Desktop with the Mail plugin. We have discovered an incompatibility with PGP Desktop, which breaks AppleEvent functionality in Mail. MailTemplate requires this functionality to interact with Mail.
Currently, the only solution is to remove the PGP bundle from ~/Library/Mail/Bundles. We have contacted PGP.com, the developers, to see if they can resolve the issue inside their plugin.
Is my existing license for MailTemplate/EntourageTemplate still good?
We are honoring all existing licenses for MailTemplate and EntourageTemplate. They will work with version 1.4.2 from Mactank.
Is MailTemplate compatible with Mac OS X 10.4?
With the release of 1.4.2 MailTemplate is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).
What happened to EntourageTemplate?
EntourageTemplate is now called MailTemplate for Entourage. All features of MailTemplate work across the supported e-mail clients. Entourage being one of them.
This is why we have unified the products under the MailTemplate brand. We are changing all relevant documentation, branding and other information to reflect this.
Can I use both versions MailTemplate?
Only one version of MailTemplate should be installed. At this time, you can NOT use multiple version of MailTemplate.
Will MailTemplate be available for other e-mail clients?
We are investigating the possibility of supporting additional e-mail clients.
Is MailTemplate be available on Mac OS X for Intel?
As of version 1.5, MailTemplate is a Universal Binary. This means it runs natively on both PPC and Intel Macs.
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