Dragging a folder full of messages to the Desktop has many drawbacks. First, your new document has to include EVERY message in the folder. What if you want to select only certain messages? What if you want to save only a single thread? What if you want no header information except Date: and Sender:?
Saving PowerMail messages as plain text -- even custom text -- has a long and illustrious history. It begins with Apple's wonderful Claris eMailer. David Cortright at Claris wrote the first AppleScript to do this. With only minor modification, it worked on PowerMail right out of the box when PowerMail first shipped (thanks to PowerMail's eMailer roots). Unfortunately, many of the scripts run only on OS 9, because they require a certain scripting addition (Tanaka's OSAX). They could be found at the old http://www.hells-half-acre.com/powermail/, which apparently doesn't exist anymore. During PowerMail's early days, Japanese user Kuribo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote an improved version specifically for PowerMail. That one's not available online anymore, but you can find a newer, more sophisticated version at http://homepage.mac.com/wayneb/powermail.html The difference is that it does not save a file; it opens the selected messages directly in your favorite word processor--as one document. That's why it's named "Open With TextEditer". Also, take a look at W. Eric Tyson's "Convert to XML", which is easily convertible. Based on the work of others, I have made my own custom AppleScript to open the messages I have selected in a new document in OS X's TextEdit and in my favorite word processor Nisus Writer Express. Why NWX? It has a macro menu into which you can place your own AppleScripts, Perl scripts and native Nisus Writer macro scripts. With that combo, you can write an AppleScript that will not only copy your selected messages into new text, but automatically massage that text into perfect a perfect document. That is to say, stripped of all garbage found in messages on popular lists, with nicely formed paragraphs stripped of all but single blank lines. All with one click. Richard Hart
