Comments on: Entourage to Evernote Applescript

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:41:36 +0000

To be very clear about what this is for people just joining the thread (and for those new to AppleScript):

Pete's modified code will create one note for the email message body and and additional note for each attachment to that email. You can then manually merge these items into a single note if you'd like
Pete's modification to the script will remove certain typography from your note body in order to avoid a specific type of error. If keeping the typographical symbols inside your notes unchanged is important to you, you shouldn't use this code.

Thanks for your hard work and for posting this, Pete!

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:17:35 +0000

Upps wrong copy/paste.

1	set myContent to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of myContent & " \| sed -E 's/(\\<[^)/\\1\\2/g'"

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:15:08 +0000

Ar more conservative version would be

1	set myContent to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of myContent & " \| sed 's/\\<[^<]*\\/\\>//g'"

just stripping the / from the closing /> tag

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:58:41 +0000

Hi Justin,

it is not ideal to mess with body of a note, but the following modification of your script gets rid of the error message:

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repeat with thisMessage in theMessages
set myTitle to the subject of thisMessage
set myContent to the content of thisMessage
set myContent to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of myContent & " | sed 's/\\<[^<]*\\/\\>//g'"

At least a workaround until Evernote improves their text parser.

Below the changes incorporated into my initial mods of your script for the lazy people.

Have fun.

Pete

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(*
http://veritrope.com
Entourage to Evernote
Version 1.1
Nov 17, 2009

Modified by Peter Gutbrod to add clipping of email attachments.

Project Status, Latest Updates, and Comments Collected at:
http://veritrope.com/tips/entourage-to-evernote

Some choices inspired by the following scripts/authors:
-- Mike Hall (http://mph.puddingbowl.org/)
-- Ernie Soffronoff
-- Daniel N. Byler's DEVONthink script
-- NetNewsWire To Pukka and Yojimbo
-- Jan Erik Mostrom's script
-- David Nunez scripts
-- MANY, MANY OTHERS!

Installation: A few options....

-- You can highlight the email messages you want to archive into Evernote and double-click this script file;
-- You can save this script to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder or simply drag the script into the Entourage Script Menu Items folder and it is immediately available for use.
-- Keyboard shortcuts can also be assigned to AppleScripts in the script menu using the System Preferences "Keyboard & Mouse Settings".

FastScripts Installation (Optional, but recommended):
-- Download and Install FastScripts from http://www.red-sweater.com/fastscripts/index.html
-- Save this script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Microsoft Entourage
-- Set up your keyboard shortcut in FastScripts Preferences
*)

property successCount : 0
property MailTitle : ""
property EVTag : ""
property myTitle : ""

(* CHECK FOR GROWL *)
tell application "System Events"
set processnames to name of every process
end tell
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
register as application ¬
"Entourage to Evernote" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
icon of application "Evernote"
end tell
end if

tell application "Finder"
set TmpFolder to ((folder "tmp" of home) as text)
end tell

(*MAIN PROGRAM *)
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
try
if (selection is not 0) then
set defaultTag to "Email Message"
set userInput to ¬
text returned of ¬
(display dialog "Enter Tags, separated by colons or commas:" & return & return & ¬
"NOTE: Default Tag is 'Email Message'" default answer defaultTag)
set theDelims to {":", ","}
set EVTag to my Tag_List(userInput, theDelims)
set theMessages to current messages
set EVnotebook to my Notebook_List()
repeat with thisMessage in theMessages
set myTitle to the subject of thisMessage
set myContent to the content of thisMessage
set myContent to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of myContent & " | sed 's/\\<[^<]*\\/\\>//g'"
set ReplyAddr to the sender's address of thisMessage
set EmailDate to the time received of thisMessage
set myText to "Message from mailto:" & ReplyAddr & " on " & EmailDate & ":" & return & return & myContent

tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note with text myText ¬
title myTitle ¬
notebook ¬
EVnotebook tags EVTag
set creation date of n to EmailDate
set source URL of n to ReplyAddr
end tell

set theAttachments to the attachments of thisMessage
repeat with thisAttachment in theAttachments
set theName to name of thisAttachment
set FilePath to TmpFolder & theName
save thisAttachment in FilePath

tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note from file FilePath ¬
notebook EVnotebook tags EVTag
set creation date of n to EmailDate
set source URL of n to ReplyAddr
end tell
tell application "Finder"
delete file FilePath
end tell
end repeat
set successCount to successCount + 1
end repeat

if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL SUCCESS
notify with name ¬
"Success Notification" title ¬
"Import Success" description "Successfully Exported " & successCount & ¬
" Messages to Evernote!" application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell
set successCount to 0
end if

else if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL FAILURE FOR NO SELECTION
notify with name ¬
"Failure Notification" title ¬
"Import Failure" description ¬
"No headline or tab selected!" application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell

else if "GrowlHelperApp" is not in processnames then -- NON-GROWL ERROR MSG. FOR NO SELECTION
display dialog "No headline or tab selected!" with icon 0
end if

(* ERROR HANDLING *)
on error errText number errNum
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL FAILURE FOR ERROR
notify with name ¬
"Failure Notification" title ¬
"Import Failure" description "Failed to export " & return & myTitle & ¬
"\" due to the following error: " & return & errText ¬
application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell
else if "GrowlHelperApp" is not in processnames then -- NON-GROWL ERROR MSG. FOR ERROR
display dialog "Item Failed to Import: " & errNum & return & errText with icon 0
end if
end try
end tell

(* SUBROUTINES *)
--TAG SELECTION SUBROUTINE
on Tag_List(userInput, theDelims)
set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set theList to {userInput}
repeat with aDelim in theDelims
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to aDelim
set newList to {}
repeat with anItem in theList
set newList to newList & text items of anItem
end repeat
set theList to newList
end repeat
return theList
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
end Tag_List

--EVERNOTE NOTEBOOK SELECTION SUBROUTINE
on Notebook_List()
tell application "Evernote"
activate
set listOfNotebooks to {} (*PREPARE TO GET EVERNOTE'S LIST OF NOTEBOOKS *)

(*GET THE NOTEBOOK LIST *)
set EVNotebooks to every notebook
repeat with currentNotebook in EVNotebooks
set currentNotebookName to (the name of currentNotebook)
copy currentNotebookName to the end of listOfNotebooks
end repeat

(*SORT THE LIST *)
set Folders_sorted to my simple_sort(listOfNotebooks)

(*USER SELECTION FROM NOTEBOOK LIST *)
set SelNotebook to choose from list of Folders_sorted with title "Select Evernote Notebook" with prompt ¬
"Current Evernote Notebooks" OK button name "OK" cancel button name "New Notebook"

if (SelNotebook is false) then (*CREATE NEW NOTEBOOK OPTION *)
set userInput to ¬
text returned of (display dialog "Enter New Notebook Name:" default answer "")
set EVnotebook to userInput
else
set EVnotebook to item 1 of SelNotebook
end if

end tell
end Notebook_List

--SORT SUBROUTINE
on simple_sort(my_list)
set the index_list to {}
set the sorted_list to {}
repeat (the number of items in my_list) times
set the low_item to ""
repeat with i from 1 to (number of items in my_list)
if i is not in the index_list then
set this_item to item i of my_list as text
if the low_item is "" then
set the low_item to this_item
set the low_item_index to i
else if this_item comes before the low_item then
set the low_item to this_item
set the low_item_index to i
end if
end if
end repeat
set the end of sorted_list to the low_item
set the end of the index_list to the low_item_index
end repeat

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:56:10 +0000

Yeah — My guess is that the “text parser” chokes on anything that looks like XML/HTML while creating the note.

However, it works fine if you create the note using HTML. Here is a version of your sample code that does this (modified to be valid HTML):

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set myContent to "Veritrope.com"
tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note with html myContent
end tell

The note is successfully created with a clickable URL in the body.

I’ve run into this type of problem with the titles of the notes and put in some code that stripped-out some troublesome typography. Clearly though, this isn’t as workable of a solution for the note body — an AppleScript like this shouldn’t modify people’s content, in my opinion.

I have some ideas to work-around but, really, I’d like to get some sense from the Evernote development team if some changes/bug fixes are coming in the near future. Let’s be sure to ask about it in the AppleScript thread there.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:45:37 +0000

Btw. I’ve ran into the same error message rob cherny mentioned on a few emails.

I’ve tracked it down to:

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set myContent to ""
tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note with text myContent
end tell

Tried to find, what combination of slash and greater/lesser triggers the error in Evernote, but didn’t find a logic.

Post as well on Evernote forum, probably some developers have a clue.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:57:26 +0000

Thanks Justin.

My additions are small in compare to your whole script. Nice to hear you are working on a rewrite. I’m interested to hear, how you work around the limitations of the AppleScript implementation in the current Evernote client. So of cause I’ll subscribe to your beta list.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:42:47 +0000

Hi Peter,

By publishing the source code, I had hoped to encourage people to do what you have done — Great Job!

Your fellow users (including me!) can thank you for an additional option to work with our attachments. (I moved your comment here to the script’s page so that Entourage users would be more likely to find it.)

An update on the script itself: I am in the middle of a pretty substantial rewrite of many of these scripts to include, among other things, moving email attachments into Evernote. Anyone interested in testing them should sign up for the email list on Veritrope and I’ll contact you when a “sneak preview build” is ready.

And in the meantime, anyone who wants to make changes or suggestions is welcome to do so here!

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:23:19 +0000

Hi Justin,

thank you very much for your script Entourage into Evernote. Really a nice piece of work.

Currently I have the need to clip not only the email body but as well the attachements into Evernote. Browsed the AppleScript library for the Evernote Mac Client, but it seems there is currently no support to generate a note containing (several) attachements plus some text.

So decided to do some workaround and patch your AppleScript. It now creates individual notes one with the email body (just like yours) and one for each attachement in the email. I then combine the notes manually into a single note after inspecting and removing any unwanted attachments (aka logos etc.). Not a single click solution, but works for me quite well.

The script temporarily writes the attachements to your disk. I’ve hardcoded the destination to a folder named tmp inside your user folder. You have to create it before you can use the script (or change the script). The saved attachements in tmp are automatically deleted once they are imported into Evernote.

Feel free to add this to your script repository and make changes.

Have fun.

Pete

Here is the source:

(*
http://veritrope.com
Entourage to Evernote
Version 1.1
Nov 17, 2009

Modified by Peter Gutbrod to add clipping of email attachments.

Project Status, Latest Updates, and Comments Collected at:
http://veritrope.com/tips/entourage-to-evernote

Some choices inspired by the following scripts/authors:
-- Mike Hall (http://mph.puddingbowl.org/)
-- Ernie Soffronoff
-- Daniel N. Byler's DEVONthink script
-- NetNewsWire To Pukka and Yojimbo
-- Jan Erik Mostrom's script
-- David Nunez scripts
-- MANY, MANY OTHERS!

Installation: A few options....

-- You can highlight the email messages you want to archive into Evernote and double-click this script file;
-- You can save this script to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder or simply drag the script into the Entourage Script Menu Items folder and it is immediately available for use.
-- Keyboard shortcuts can also be assigned to AppleScripts in the script menu using the System Preferences "Keyboard & Mouse Settings".

FastScripts Installation (Optional, but recommended):
-- Download and Install FastScripts from http://www.red-sweater.com/fastscripts/index.html
-- Save this script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Microsoft Entourage
-- Set up your keyboard shortcut in FastScripts Preferences
*)

property successCount : 0
property MailTitle : ""
property EVTag : ""
property myTitle : ""

(* CHECK FOR GROWL *)
tell application "System Events"
set processnames to name of every process
end tell
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
set the allNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
register as application ¬
"Entourage to Evernote" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
icon of application "Evernote"
end tell
end if

tell application "Finder"
set TmpFolder to ((folder "tmp" of home) as text)
end tell

(*MAIN PROGRAM *)
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
try
if (selection is not 0) then
set defaultTag to "Email Message"
set userInput to ¬
text returned of ¬
(display dialog "Enter Tags, separated by colons or commas:" & return & return & ¬
"NOTE: Default Tag is 'Email Message'" default answer defaultTag)
set theDelims to {":", ","}
set EVTag to my Tag_List(userInput, theDelims)
set theMessages to current messages
set EVnotebook to my Notebook_List()
repeat with thisMessage in theMessages
set myTitle to the subject of thisMessage
set myContent to the content of thisMessage
set ReplyAddr to the sender's address of thisMessage
set EmailDate to the time received of thisMessage
set myText to "Message from mailto:" & ReplyAddr & " on " & EmailDate & ":" & return & return & myContent

tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note with text myText ¬
title myTitle ¬
notebook ¬
EVnotebook tags EVTag
set creation date of n to EmailDate
set source URL of n to ReplyAddr
end tell

set theAttachments to the attachments of thisMessage
repeat with thisAttachment in theAttachments
set theName to name of thisAttachment
set FilePath to TmpFolder & theName
save thisAttachment in FilePath

tell application "Evernote"
set n to create note from file FilePath ¬
notebook EVnotebook tags EVTag
set creation date of n to EmailDate
set source URL of n to ReplyAddr
end tell
tell application "Finder"
delete file FilePath
end tell
end repeat
set successCount to successCount + 1
end repeat

if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL SUCCESS
notify with name ¬
"Success Notification" title ¬
"Import Success" description "Successfully Exported " & successCount & ¬
" Messages to Evernote!" application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell
set successCount to 0
end if

else if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL FAILURE FOR NO SELECTION
notify with name ¬
"Failure Notification" title ¬
"Import Failure" description ¬
"No headline or tab selected!" application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell

else if "GrowlHelperApp" is not in processnames then -- NON-GROWL ERROR MSG. FOR NO SELECTION
display dialog "No headline or tab selected!" with icon 0
end if

(* ERROR HANDLING *)
on error errText number errNum
if "GrowlHelperApp" is in processnames then
tell application "GrowlHelperApp" -- GROWL FAILURE FOR ERROR
notify with name ¬
"Failure Notification" title ¬
"Import Failure" description "Failed to export " & return & myTitle & ¬
"\" due to the following error: " & return & errText ¬
application name "Entourage to Evernote"
end tell
else if "GrowlHelperApp" is not in processnames then -- NON-GROWL ERROR MSG. FOR ERROR
display dialog "Item Failed to Import: " & errNum & return & errText with icon 0
end if
end try
end tell

(* SUBROUTINES *)
--TAG SELECTION SUBROUTINE
on Tag_List(userInput, theDelims)
set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set theList to {userInput}
repeat with aDelim in theDelims
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to aDelim
set newList to {}
repeat with anItem in theList
set newList to newList & text items of anItem
end repeat
set theList to newList
end repeat
return theList
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
end Tag_List

--EVERNOTE NOTEBOOK SELECTION SUBROUTINE
on Notebook_List()
tell application "Evernote"
activate
set listOfNotebooks to {} (*PREPARE TO GET EVERNOTE'S LIST OF NOTEBOOKS *)

(*GET THE NOTEBOOK LIST *)
set EVNotebooks to every notebook
repeat with currentNotebook in EVNotebooks
set currentNotebookName to (the name of currentNotebook)
copy currentNotebookName to the end of listOfNotebooks
end repeat

(*SORT THE LIST *)
set Folders_sorted to my simple_sort(listOfNotebooks)

(*USER SELECTION FROM NOTEBOOK LIST *)
set SelNotebook to choose from list of Folders_sorted with title "Select Evernote Notebook" with prompt ¬
"Current Evernote Notebooks" OK button name "OK" cancel button name "New Notebook"

if (SelNotebook is false) then (*CREATE NEW NOTEBOOK OPTION *)
set userInput to ¬
text returned of (display dialog "Enter New Notebook Name:" default answer "")
set EVnotebook to userInput
else
set EVnotebook to item 1 of SelNotebook
end if

end tell
end Notebook_List

--SORT SUBROUTINE
on simple_sort(my_list)
set the index_list to {}
set the sorted_list to {}
repeat (the number of items in my_list) times
set the low_item to ""
repeat with i from 1 to (number of items in my_list)
if i is not in the index_list then
set this_item to item i of my_list as text
if the low_item is "" then
set the low_item to this_item
set the low_item_index to i
else if this_item comes before the low_item then
set the low_item to this_item
set the low_item_index to i
end if
end if
end repeat
set the end of sorted_list to the low_item
set the end of the index_list to the low_item_index
end repeat
return the sorted_list
end simple_sort

By: rob cherny

rob cherny — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:26:10 +0000

Hey not off hand. But the last couple tests I ran were fine, so I’m not sure if it was just a more complicated message or what. I sent some “Plain Text” and some “Rich Text” versions to myself and they imported just fine, so maybe they’re edge cases?

I’ll keep trying and let you know if I find something more consistent.

thanks again!