[X Newbies] Apple's Mail - Insert text

[Florin Alexander Neumann]

On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 05:18 PM, Frank Eves M.D. wrote:

> many people would be happy if a future version of Mail enabled the 
> insertion of a text files content [...]

I, for one, most definitely would not be. I much prefer the way it 
works now, which is entirely predictable and intuitive. Drag a file -- 
any file -- and it becomes an attachment. Drag the contents of a file, 
and it is appended to the text -- if possible. "Text file" is no longer 
a clear definition. OK, so .txt is one kind of text file. What about 
.etx or .utx? What about .html? What about .xml, etc. All these are 
text files too (or are we talking 7-bit only?). How are they going to 
be dealt with?

> Perhaps I should be asking the Apple TextEdit or Bare Bones people if 
> an insert text service is possible.

It's there already. In BBEdit select the text you want to send, then 
choose BBEdit>Services>Mail>Send Selection. Likewise with TextEdit.


On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 05:32 PM, Steven Rogers wrote:

> Might be kind of tricky because of all the various kinds of "text" 
> there are in proprietary formats.

It's not the proprietary formats. It's the fact that these days 'text' 
covers a multitude of sins. Just to begin with, consider line endings: 
Unix is one way, Windows is another, and Mac Classic yet another. How 
is Mail going to handle this issue?


On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 05:34 PM, TheMacintoshLady wrote:

> It won't drag in??? [...]
> I am appalled that you can't just drag stuff around [...]

You can drag-and-drop text from text editors into Mail as much as you 
wish. IMHO, it's a simple paradigm: drag files, they become attachments 
(thus keeping their characteristics); drag contents, whether text or 
picture, it is appended, if possible.

f