Skip navigation.

hakre's opera jowjow

(opera) experiences, options, tweaks and tools

Creating a Send To Menu Entry for Opera M2 Email Client

Tuesday, 27. June 2006, 21:53:51

, , , ,

Hint October 2007: You might be intereseted in mapi4opera as well.

The Problem
Ever wondered why you can not use windows-explorer's "Send To" Menu to attach one or multiple files to a new Email message within Opera's great Mailclient M2? Well, I did so and finally yesterday night I throw all the infos and ideas together and wrote a small computer program to extend Opera with this feature. If you missed that feature as well, you can just download and install it now.

Download
Note: my.opera.com has removed the .exe file - I don't know why. You can grab the AHK source code instead and compile it with the AHK compiler.

M2sendto.Setup.exe
204 KB, v 0.4.1, Windows Executable
MD5: b73bb3cc02977ccf297192350d529dfd

M2sendto.ahk
28 KB, v 0.4.1, AHK Source
MD5: 7de771f7570cbe68e71431586966fe08

Setup
Setup is really easy since version 0.2. Just download, execute and follow instructions (basically it's pressing the Install button). Afterwards the only thing left to do is to ensure that opera gets the new CTRL + A hotkey within the compose message window.
If you want to use the AHK file, take a look in the development forums. Right now it is not well supported but this is the aim of the next update.

Setup: Hotkey
You can add it in Operas Preferences. It's the Keyboard section under the Advanced Tab:



Simply add a new shortcut. Afterwards it should look like this:



Now everything is setup and you can enjoy your missed Send To Menu command right away again.

Questions, Comments and Ideas
Are always welcome, feel free to use the Comments here or send me a Message. All this will help improving M2sendto. There is a Forum dedicated to the tool and you can checkout the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

How does it work?
Indeed it's quite easily solved: M2sendto.exe, the small helper tool within this project, listens to your commands in the send to menu. In the event you want to have files attached and you use the send to menu it will take care that opera attaches these files by doing the following:

  1. If Opera is not started it will be started
  2. A new compose message window is opened (shortcut CTRL + E)
  3. Each file will be attached (shortcut CTRL + A)

As you can see, you can add attachments to emails with the send to menu again as with other mailclients like thunderbird, eudora or others.

Additionals

Changelog & Roadmap
Can be found here

Upgrading from 0.3 to 0.3.x and from 0.3.x to 0.3.x
Simply run setup and "say ok" to uninstall first.

Upgrading from 0.2 to 0.3
Simply run 0.3 setup and uninstall previous version at the beginning (first question). That's it.

Upgrading from 0.1 to 0.2
Just delete everything you created since yesterday (well, you can leave AutoHotkey on your computer, but you can delete the script and the one .lnk file within the send to folder) and then install the new version.

Version 0.4 Download
M2sendto.Setup.exe
204 KB, v 0.4, Windows Executable
MD5: 5544b76acc0357bf7600d7447d054d34


Version 0.3.6 Download
M2sendto.Setup.exe
202 KB, v 0.3.6, Windows Executable
MD5: a51d4278c0f1bfb18607833e76c515bf

Version 0.3.5 Download
M2sendto.Setup.exe
201 KB, v 0.3.5, Windows Executable
MD5: b4014c1ea5c864bd4b805666a88e8919

Version 0.3 Download
M2sendto.Setup.exe
201 KB, v 0.3, Windows Executable
MD5: 7be1b1b9956da4061386c7c828e8d549

Version 0.2 Download
M2sendto.v0.2.Setup.exe
200 KB, Windows Executable
MD5: 8558ad24920a5253da647bb6f7ee71d0

Version 0.1 Download
This version is just available for historical reasons. Do not download if you don't know what to do with it.
opera.attach.v0.1.ahk

M2sendto Changelog & Roadmap

Comments

MarcFou 27. June 2006, 23:04

Huge thanks for putting the time into this. I'm going to set this up later since it is the only known work around for Opera's lack of MAPI support. Nice work!

Dv108 1. July 2006, 07:56

the instal didn't work on my machine, winxp: aborting opera.exe could not be found. any idea?

MarcFou 1. July 2006, 08:01

Maybe missing a registry entry? "HKCU\Opera Software\" I'm pretty sure thats the only reg item that contains the path. The above I mentioned was created when I used the windows classic installer on my last Opera install.

moo 1. July 2006, 08:55

But I use Ctrl-A in the Compose window for Select All: can't I choose my own shortcut?

szyk 1. July 2006, 10:43

In Windows ME, when I press Install, it displays error: "Send To" Directory does not exist: [\SendTo], but I have C:\Windows\sendto directory. What's wrong?

Edit: OK, I used File Monitor - I created C:\Sendto directory and I can install M2sendto now.

hakre 1. July 2006, 13:23

Szyk, thanks for reporting. This is because I had not tested this yet on Windows 9x/ME. I'll fix this in the next release.

Details: M2sendto looks for your profiles environment variable (%USERPROFILE%) to locate the SendTo folder. Win9x/ME do not have this value. Because M2sendto does not validate this carefully enough, it will return internally "\Sendto" as SendTo Directory (as displayed within the square brackets in your errormessage) and until c:\SendTo (or X:\SendTo if you execute it on drive X) does not exists the Installation Error is thrown. This is a Bug.

szyk 1. July 2006, 21:12

But when I select file and choose "Send to->E-Mail Recipient (via Opera M2)", then new compose message opens, but file isn't added automatically to attachment... :/

EDIT: it works only when I set english language in Opera. :D

gun 1. July 2006, 21:55

@szyk: Confirmed.

@hakre: Could this be fixed also? Why is it depending on laguage at all? Could you describe in detail what your programm is doing (or make it open source :D)?

Would be great if it doesn't need an additional entry in send to. It would be better to register the programm as a normal MAPI mail-client itself which then acts as a wrapper. Would this be possible?

moo 1. July 2006, 23:00

What it's doing is activating Opera and passing a couple of key-press commands. If the current system language is not set to English, Ctrl-A might be read as Ctrl-ש or something. So the system should at least make sure it is using a capital A as that will get through more keyboard setups.

hakre 2. July 2006, 02:07

@szyk: if the file isn't attached please check you configured CTRL+A as hotkey for "Add attachment" in Opera.

@moo: Both Hotkeys CTRL+A and CTRL+E are hardencoded right now, but this will change in v0.4.

@all: Do hotkeys differ per language?

@gun: A true MAPI extension on top of M2sendto has been planned and already tested. Get more infos in the "M2 goes MAPI" article.

szyk 2. July 2006, 08:47

Originally posted by hakre:

@szyk: if the file isn't attached please check you configured CTRL+A as hotkey for "Add attachment" in Opera.


It is attached for english language. :smile:

Originally posted by hakre:

@all: Do hotkeys differ per language?


No. When you change language in browser to non-english, then M2sendto works?


When M2sendto can't add attachment, it remains in processes. :|

legman 2. July 2006, 10:43

I followed your instructions for insallation and creating the shortcut but it dont work!
If I choose a file through the context menu Opera M2 open a window but without the attachment.
What is wrong?

andreas

hakre 2. July 2006, 11:48

andreas / legman, it looks like the add attachment hotkey problem. what language are you using? have you created the hotkey within opera? anyway, I build in some more checks within the next version which might reveal more infos about these "no attachment" issues.

For upcomming Bugreports and Issues, I thought it's far better to have Issues discussed in a forum rather then in Comments. Feel free to use
http://my.opera.com/m2/forums/tgr.dml?id=1563 right away if the place here seems to be unfitting.

legman 2. July 2006, 22:05

Im german and I have a german version of opera 9. Yes I created the hotkey in opera.
Ok I will use the forum next time. So my problem is already known (add attachment hotkey problem)?

cenebris 8. July 2006, 15:52

Well, did you try to contact Opera to include this to their next release? :smile:

hakre 8. July 2006, 16:33

No, but I added this question to the FAQ :wink:

yarrecco 2. August 2006, 02:14

Would it be possible to make it for KDE Environment in Linux? :smile::smile:
I know, we are minority but as long as people will make and develop small programs supporting Windows as long Bill G will be happy :-)

hakre 30. August 2006, 23:23

Well, I have no KDE here right now, I'm just trying to get Ubuntu running on a Pentium S 166 Mhz right now, so, who knows :wink: I need to get in touch again with the windows project anyway, so hopefully there is an update soon. I'll release this stuff as free software soon.

tatepa 5. September 2006, 14:23

Just installed v0.4 and it works. The only thing is that I get a dialogue box up which I have to click through before the ctrl+A action happens (before the file gets attached).

This is the box...

http://files.myopera.com/tatepa/files/error.GIF

hakre 7. September 2006, 08:32

Tatepa, this is a bug. I encountered it here as well, it's a bit anoying. I need to remove this from code, it was in there for debugging purposes.

colmack 9. September 2006, 21:33

First, thanks for the great work. Now Outlook doesn't open when I want my attachments to be to an M2 email :smile:. Some problems, however:

If I try to add file attachments, Opera won't open if it's not already - I got the impression that it should

I always get a message tatepa describes above. If I click OK, the file(s) are added as attachments correctly, but only sometimes

Otherwise I've found that Ctrl+A will add the files

vorty 25. September 2006, 12:18

I get the same problem as colmack and tatepa - except it says nb.lng instead of english.lng, which is reasonable, since I use the Norwegian language.

Thanks for the trick, though!

Anonymous 18. October 2006, 04:04

Laughing Coyote writes:

I installed it to work with the "reply to" in Poptray. It works fine if Opera is closed, but if Opera is open it merely switches you back to Opera. Is this how it is supposed to work or am I not doing something right?

Shoham 3. November 2006, 08:56

Thanks for the excellent idea.
My problem is, and it may be a problem with Opera and not with M2SendTo is that it will only work if Opera is already open in a mail window. If no tabs are open or a browser tab is active, even if a mail window is open in the background, a compose window will not open. This may have to do with the fact that I cannot compose mail except from the compose button inside the mail viewer window (`unread`). All other compose buttons are not working for me. which is mighty strange. I couldn't find the reason for this. Does anyone have an idea why this could be?

Anonymous 21. January 2007, 19:58

Renča writes:

M2SendTo is great! Thank you! Only we must change our cs.lng file to english.lng.
Does M2SendTo work with Word(2002? Is there any possibility to add documents directly from it? Thanks

tatepa 8. February 2007, 13:46

Just installed the latest version and the dialogue box problem seems to have been fixed.

Great work hakre!

hakre 14. February 2007, 10:45

np tatepa, that's the bugfix made :wink:

Zalex108 2. March 2007, 16:18

Thank u very much!!
Realyy usefull!! :D

Anonymous 11. June 2007, 09:31

Anonymous writes:

It works fine with my language if i add this line to my opera6.ini in profile-folder:

Language File=F:\Programme\Opera\7\locale\de\de.lng

Anonymous 8. October 2007, 19:24

Anonymous writes:

There is another MAPI extension for Opera:

http://www.joonis.de/mapi4opera

anobis_911 23. October 2007, 12:10

Hi,
I can't download M2sendto.Setup.exe.
I'm getting the message "You don't have permission to access /hakre/blog/M2sendto.v0.4.1.Setup.exe on this server".

Please help me.

Bye.

ersi 29. April 2009, 17:18

I'm years late seeing this

mrLobster 26. October 2009, 14:10

Originally posted by ersi:

I'm years late seeing this



I feel you, man.... ;-) One of the million things one just hasn't gotten around to yet...year after year...

Hmmm...perhaps I should try it, and see if it works with Opera 10 and Win7 before commenting, but what the hell...

Anonymous 7. November 2009, 17:47

MPX writes:

Can't download from Opera 10

mrLobster 16. November 2009, 14:06

Nah, but it's on my to-do list of things to fix....don't hold your breath now!

How to use Quote function:

  1. Select some text
  2. Click on the Quote link

Write a comment

Comment
(BBcode and HTML is turned off for anonymous user comments.)

If you can't read the words, press the small reload icon.


Smilies

December 2009
S M T W T F S
November 2009January 2010
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Software

  • OpenOffice.Org

    Open Source Cross Plattform Office Suite - If you're still using MS Office: Free your Office now!

  • AutoHotkey

    Open Source Hotkey, Scripts and Automation Toolkit for Windows.

  • GIMP Shop

    Open Source Digital Image Editor modded for the Photoshopper.

  • Webcow

    Download Tool I'm currently working on better Opera support.

  • IcoFX

    Windows Icon Editor

Opera M2 Send To Menu Entry