[O] org-capture and org-link-type for Outlook mail messages on Mac OSX

[Christopher J. White]

Hi Folks,

I thought I'd share a bit of hacking I've been doing over the last 
couple days.

I had 2 basic needs:
  * create a TODO entry associated with an email message
  * include a clickable link back to that message in the entry

For work email I use Outlook on a Mac.  After some digging, I managed to 
cobble together an AppleScript with some glue lisp that solves both of 
the above.

Testing is minimal at this point, but it works for me so, I thought I'd 
share it here first, then if folks think appropriate, I can post it up 
on the worg.

I have hopes to extend support to Thunderbird (which I use for personal 
email), but there appears to be very limited AppleScript support, so 
does not look promising.

...cj

-- OutlookToEmacsOrg
--
-- This script uses org-protocol to capture the currently selected 
message in outlook
-- as an Org item.  The item creates a link of type 'mac-outlook' with 
the message ID
-- within Outlook that can later be used by mdfind to find that message.
--
-- If more than one message is selected, only the first message is 
used.  If no message
-- is selected, the script does nothing.
--
-- The Title passed to org-protocol is formatted as "[Sender] Subject", 
but could
-- easily be modifed as below to any text.
--
-- See http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-protocol.html for details 
about
-- how org-protocol works.
--
-- This script assumes emacsclient is available via the Carbon Emacs 
application, but
-- can be changed via the emacsclientBinary below.
--
-- Script Installation for Outlook
--   1. Startup AppleScript Editor
--   2. Paste this script into a new file
--   3. Save as "OutlookToEmacsOrg" of file type "Script Bundle" in the 
directory:
--        /Users/<you>/Library/Application 
Support/Microsoft/Office/Outlook Script Menu Items
--  4. Restart Outlook, and this should show up in the Script menu (the 
squiggly next to Help)
--
-- You probably also assign a shortcut via System Preferences.
--
-- Emacs mac-outlook link support, put the following in your .emacs:
--
-- (org-add-link-type "mac-outlook" 'org-mac-outlook-open)
--
-- (defun org-mac-outlook-open (msgid)
--   "Open a message in outlook"
--   (shell-command (format "open \"`mdfind 
com_microsoft_outlook_recordID==%s`\"" msgid)))
--
-- Tested on Mac OS X 10.7.3, Emacs 23.4.2, Org 7.8.03, Outlook for Mac 2011
--
-- Special thanks to Lutz Meyer / LuMe96(at)gmail.com -- I got the critical
-- pieces of applescript from OutlookToThings.scpt written by Lutz.

property emacsclientBinary : 
"/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/emacsclient"

on urlencode(plaintext)
    set enctext to do shell script "python -c 'import sys, urllib; 
print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])' " & quoted form of plaintext
    return enctext
end urlencode

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
    set msgCount to count current messages
    if (msgCount < 1) then
        return
    end if

    set myMessage to (the first item of (get current messages))
    set myID to id of myMessage as string
    set mySubject to subject of myMessage
    set mySender to sender of myMessage
    set mySenderName to name of mySender

    set myTitle to "[" & mySenderName & "] " & mySubject

    set myCmd to emacsclientBinary & " \"org-protocol:/capture:/eo"
    set myCmd to myCmd & "/mac-outlook:" & myID
    set myCmd to myCmd & "/" & (my urlencode(myTitle))
    set myCmd to myCmd & "\""

    --display dialog myCmd
    tell application "Emacs"
        activate
    end tell
    do shell script myCmd
    set the clipboard to myCmd
end tell