Now call me old fashioned but I use Things for my GTD stuff and so don’t use todos or topics in Postbox.

“Not a problem really is it?” I hear you yell. Well no until you look at the amount of space the topic row of Message View takes up. Believe me on a small screen this matters:

postbox topics

Lucky Thunderbird (and therefore Postbox) has a way to edit the Chrome (or look and feel) using CSS.
Even better it’s done on a profile level, so you don’t have to worry about losing your changes when you upgrade.

1) Add a new folder and call it ‘chrome’ into your profile folder. On a mac you profile folder can be found in either systems Library/Application Support/ folder or your own user version of the Library/Application Support/

~/Library/Application Support/Postbox

2) Add a file into that folder called userChrome.css

3) Edit that file and add the following:

#tagsBox.mailheader {
	display:none;
}

4) Restart Postbox.

postbox no topics

First if you are just looking for the command it’s:

sudo chown -R _new_owner /root/to/file.txt

Where _new_owner is the name of the new owner you want to assign to the file

Now the steps:

1. Open Terminal, which you will find in Applications -> Utilities
2. Type in sudo chown -R _new_owner
3. Type the file path OR drag the file from finder onto the line after _new_owner to make the path appear.
4. Hit return
5. You may have to type your OSX login password

US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiPzMY4nuE

UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnolmuFgW7w

Funny that because although it’s a good idea, the snap feature has been available on macs for ages under the name of TwoUp which you can get for free by visiting the TwoUp site.

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/twoup/

So do yourselves a favour and instead of buying yourself another pc and facing the fight with spam and virus’ for another 3 years, grab yourself a mac. A little more expensive but worth its weight in gold.

Oh, and if you’re here because you’re begging for a way to turn the snap feature off on window 7 then you’ll want to have a look at the article here.

Mac:
/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Postbox/Profiles

Vista:
Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Postbox

XP:
Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Postbox

And copy the folders named xxxxxx.default to your backup location.
If you have created a new profile then your folder may also be called xxxxx.yourprofilename.

If you just want to backup your email and not your preferences or settings then go into your profile folders and backup the Imap, Mail and sometimes Local Mail folders

Close Postbox. That’s right, shut it down before you carry on.

Backup and then open your prefs.js profile file which can be found here:

Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Postbox
Vista: Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Postbox
WinXP: Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Postbox

You backed it up? No? Do it now and then carry on.

Now search for the string ‘mailnews.reply_header_type’. Found it? Edit it to the following. Not found it? Add the following…

// Change the reply header
// 0 - No Reply-Text
// 1 - "[Author] wrote:"
// 2 - "On [date] [author] wrote:"
// 3 - User-defined reply header. Use the prefs below in conjunction with this:
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_type", 3);
 
// If you set 3 for the pref above then you may set the following prefs.
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote", "%s replied with");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_ondate", "On %s");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_separator", " ");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_colon", ":"); 
// The end result will be [authorwrote][separator][ondate][colon]

Now you can go crazy with funny reply header text whenever you feel the need.

General

These hotkeys usually exist in multiple applications, and if they don’t then I often add them using the option for hotkeys in system preferences.

Next / Previous Tab
⌘-alt-left
⌘-alt-right
Usage: Switch to next or previous tabs in an application.
Applications: Firefox, Coda, Pathfinder + many others

Switch applications
⌘-tab then tab or left or right
Usage: To switch to another running application.
Applications: All

Close focused window
⌘-w
Usage: To close only the topmost window of an application. Good for closing firefox popups.
Applications: All

Quit focused application
⌘-q
Usage: To quit only the topmost application. Can also be used with application switcher above to quit an application without focusing it first.
Applications: All

New…
⌘-n
Usage: Most applications use ⌘-n as the hotkey for a new ‘thing’. In Firefox it’s a new window, in Coda it’s a new document, in Thunderbird it’s a new email.
Applications: Firefox, Coda, Pathfinder, Thunderbird + many others

Applications

Hotkeys for specific applications that I use on a regular basis.

Firefox
⌘-t to open a new tab
⌘-shift-t to reopen the last closed tab (love this one)
⌘-left back in page history
⌘-right forward in page history
⌘-f find something on the page
⌘-g find the next occurrence of a search

Thunderbird
⌘-n create new email
⌘-enter to send the email you are creating
⌘-shift-t to check for new messages for all accounts

I will be sure to come back and add to this if I come up with any new ones.

So you can select to see what tracks, albums or artist you listen to most, or see what are the most popular with others.

As far as the tracks list goes, you can also play it. Choose ‘Tracks’ from the drop down menu on the left, and choose ‘everywhere’ from the drop down menu on the right. You now have a list of Spotify’s top tracks for the whole world. There is no simple ‘play’ button, but these steps aren’t too taxing…

1) Click the first track’s title
2) Hold down shift and click the last track’s title
3) Right click anywhere on the selected area and choose ‘play’

If you are already playing some tunes, you could choose to queue or even save it to a playlist for later.

The steps to creating a simple locally run php Coda plugin:

You must have php installed and running locally.
Start the plugin file with theses lines:

#!/usr/bin/php -q
<?php

(no space between < and ?php)

Where /use/bin/php is the path to you local php install

This is an example of replacing a text string with an imaginary tag ‘harry’ around it.

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
 
/* a coda plugin */
 
$input = "";
 
$fp = fopen("php://stdin", "r");
while ( $line = fgets($fp, 1024) )
{
	$input .= $line;
}
 
fclose($fp);
 
 
// so now we have input text in $input
 
print '<harry>' . $input . '</harry>';
 
?>

For much more information:
http://www.panic.com/coda/developer/howto/plugins.php

Ok, so you can’t currently (June 2009) have Playlist Folders in Spotify, but this is the next best thing. I promise. I will also sprinkle sugar on it by showing you how to make the left column wider than the allowed maximum.

I use empty playlists as separators to create crude containers for my growing number of playlists. When Spotify does introduct playlist folders it will be simple to drag and drop across into the newly created folder.

I have several separators along the lines of:

---- Playlists ----

A selection of self created or discovered playlists that I like. Usually up to 10 of them.

---- To Try ----

Albums and playlists that I haven’t decided to keep yet. A place to put stuff on trial. I can then more it into a permanent place or delete it after a few plays.

---- New ----

Anything I only recently added and want to find easily

---- a ----

through to

---- z ----

A separator for each letter of the alphabet. Helps easy finding of artist / album

---- bucket ----

Always at the bottom, a place to quickly add new playlists that I will file later when I have a minute

Method

To set up your containers, just create a few new playlists using the +New playlist link at the bottom of Spotify’s left column. I always surround the containers text with 4 dashes to make it easy to spot when scrolling.

Once you have your basic containers set up you can quickly drag your existing playlists / albums into the gaps between the container names.

To quick create a playlist with the name Artist – Album, you can drag any link in Spotify over to the +New playlist link. It will be added to the bucket section ready for you to file.

Left column width

Ok. So if you have a screen wider than 13″ you will probably want to make the left column a little wider so you can see all your playlist names in full. You can do this (on a mac) with a little plain text file editing of /application support/spotify/users/yourusername-user/guistate

Just close Spotify, open the file above in a plain text editor, find the text side_bar_width: and change the number to whatever you like. When you start Spotify next time, the left column width should be whatever you set it to.

This change will likely be reset by Spotify when it updates, and will jump back to the set maximum if you try and make it larger or smaller with your mouse. You may have to do these steps every few weeks.

This method is also likely to work in Windows too, although you will have to find the appropriate file to edit yourself. It should contain the text side_bar_width however.

You can add bookmarks or tags to a file that will appear on Coda’s code navigator. Most of the time it’s as simple as an !

CSS:
/* !bookmark */

HTML:
<!-- !bookmark -->

Javascript:
/* !bookmark */ or // !bookmark

PHP:
/* !bookmark */ or // !bookmark

You can of course replace the word bookmark with anything you like.

For a full list:
http://www.panic.com/coda/developer/quicktip/5.php