Just made an iCal event from "Smart Text" in Mail... wow!

[RumMunkey]

Well, I just made a real-life application of the new smart-text thingy in Mail.

It worked beautifully. For those interested this is what happened:

I got an email that contained the line "Monday around 11 am". That's all it said, notice. Not which Monday, and not a specific time, just "Monday around 11 am".

I clicked on that line to see what might happen, and was pleased to see Mail recognized "Monday around 11 am" as a date. I clicked "Create new iCal event" and was very pleased it let me set the details of the meeting right there in Mail... it didn't just bounce me to iCal. I got a little window right there in Mail to set my options.

Very cool.

I was also very surprised that it took the Subject line of the email and made it the Name of the event and managed to figure out the address of the person who requested the meeting from their signature and added that as the location of the meeting.

Even better is that I could manipulate any of these fields before it put the event in iCal. It still never bounced me to iCal... this was all done in mail.

I went and checked the event in iCal and sure enough, there it is... on the correct Monday, and scheduled for 11 am.

Notice the URL "Show in Mail". It opened the email message from which this event was made, so if there's any details in there you might need it's just one click away.

Wow. This might be one of those sleeper features that doesn't really get attention but really, really works and is really, really helpful.

Nice job with this one Apple.

 

[koobcamuk]

It mimics iCal on the iPhone. I can't wait for this type of integration on the iPhone.

EDIT: Removed stupidly long quote - it was an accident. You can now make your post relevant to the topic

 

[RumMunkey]

Thanks a bunch, koobcamuk.

 

[7302473]

I love this feature

I got an email from my Driving Instructor about dates for my In-Car Training portion of my Drivers Ed and all I did was click on the little arrow that appeared, hit add to iCal and BAM, it was in iCal with no issues.

Very impressed

 

[xUKHCx]

Shame it does fully understand dd/mm

 

[RumMunkey]

Shame it does fully understand dd/mm

Probably because some of us use dd/mm and some use mm/dd.

 

[mkrishnan]

Probably because some of us use dd/mm and some use mm/dd.

Well, it is strange though if it doesn't use the format that's native to your locale...

Still, it sounds like a very nice feature!

 

[RumMunkey]

Well, it is strange though if it doesn't use the format that's native to your locale...

Still, it sounds like a very nice feature!

Yeah, I was thinking about that too, but it still won't work because even though you aren't global, e-mail is.

What if I (in Canada) send you an email (in let's say the UK). Email isn't a local thing, so there's a very good chance you'll receive a message with dd/mm even though in your country you might use mm/dd.

I would like to play with it more though... see how "off" a date can be for it to be recognized. will "Mar 4" work? I heard "next wednesday" is supposed to work. I'll send myself a test message later if I get a chance.

 

[xUKHCx]

So it still should still follow the settings I have. Or allow a preference in mail. I don't want to have to edit it every time because 1 in about 2000 emails i get is from someone who happens to use mm/dd. It should default to the locale.

 

[RumMunkey]

Local for whom? (is my point). MY local and YOUR local may be different.


Anyway, in the name of science I went a did a test e-mail to myself. Here's what it "liked":

Phone numbers formatted as "416.555.1234" as well as emails formatted as "416-555-1234".

Dates that worked: "April 9", "4/9/2008" SHOWED UP in iCal on April 9th, so I don't know if that's because of my settings or what, but it's what i intended, also "Jul 23 1975" AND "last Monday" both showed up on their respective days in the PAST.

An address typed as "145 Dupont Ave' worked, and when hovered over offered to get me a Map as well as the regular options.

The only stuff I tested that didn't do anything (that I guessed *maybe* it might) were names of people in my Address Book (first names, didn't try last names as well..), businesses like "McDonald's" or "Apple" (was hoping for a URL jump or Google Search or even a Map??), and

 

[Phil A.]

That's awesome! I received a mail asking me to do a system upgrade "Next Tuesday Evening" and it picked it up and created an entry with the right date and a start time of 8:00pm

 

[xUKHCx]

Local for whom? (is my point). MY local and YOUR local may be different.

Yes that is why we have set our own locales in system preferences. Ergo it should default to that rather than come up with its own date system that isn't consistent.

 

[puckhead193]

what amazed me more is that your an islander fan

 

[MacinDoc]

Yes that is why we have set our own locales in system preferences. Ergo it should default to that rather than come up with its own date system that isn't consistent.

Problem is that the message sender may be using a different date format from you. Now, if it could detect the default date format from the sender's location, that would be something!

 

[sushi]

You can sure see some aspects to of the Newton OS being rolled into the OS these days. Nice to see.

 

[xUKHCx]

Problem is that the message sender may be using a different date format from you. Now, if it could detect the default date format from the sender's location, that would be something!

Yeah i get that but I have only ever received on email from someone using something different to me. So that is a lot of extra hassle to go through for the slight off chance that they might use the alternative.