GTD with Mutt

X-Labels are nice to add comments to mails in your inbox. If you keep track of your TODO stuff in a GTD-way ("Getting things done") X-Labels can be even more useful. Here's a little script I'm using to comfortably label and save incoming mails with Mutt.

You can get the whole package here: http://footils.org/pkg/mutt-gtd.tgz

Installation

If you downloaded the tarfile you can follow these instructions:

  • Put "editlabel" somewhere into your path and make it executable ("chmod +x /path/to/editlabel")
  • Put "label-wide" and "label-narrow" into ~/.mutt/ (or adapt the paths)
  • add muttrc-gtd into your ~/.muttrc (or source it from there)

editlabel is actually a dumbed-down version of the Mutt X-Labeller written by Alberto Bertogli. I didn't want to insert prefabricated labels, but free-form labels, so I just removed all the stuff dealing with that.

While I was at it, I also removed the menu to specify actions like "clean" from it. To delete an X-Label, just insert a label wih just "x". (Of course if your NextAction for something is "x", you're fsck'd.)

The labeller then was married with the GTD/Mutt ideas of koweycode: Two keyboard macros, Alt-a and Alt-w (rsp. Esc-a or Esc-w) were added to edit a label and then save to the ACTION- rsp. WAITFOR-folder in your maildir.

There still seems to be a bug in this somewhere (or a bug in Mutt) because somehow the wrong message is selected for saving after a label was edited. I tried both with the <next-undeleted>-command after syncing, and without it, but on both versions it sometimes works correctly, and sometimes it doesn't.

Using a Config-trick from the Mutt-Wiki I also added a mapping to expand and (almost) hide the X-Label in the index view. As default it is mapped to <esc>x (Alt-x).

Here are the files included in the tarfile:

editlabel:

 #!/bin/bash
# $1 is the filename

FNAME="$1"
NFNAME="/tmp/editlabels-`basename "$1"`.$$"

function asklabel() {
    read -e -p "Label ('x' to del) [$2]: " $1
    CVAL=${!1}
}

ACT=`formail -c -X X-Label < "$FNAME"`
asklabel LNAME "`echo $ACT | sed -e 's/^X-Label: //'`"

if [ "$LNAME" ]; then
    if [ "$LNAME" == "x" ]; then
        # label "x" means remove label:
        formail -I "X-Label:" < "$FNAME" > "$NFNAME"
    else
        # set label to new label:
        NEW="X-Label: $LNAME"
        formail -I "$NEW" < "$FNAME" > "$NFNAME"
    fi
fi

# if we created a new file, step over the old one
if [ -f "$NFNAME" ]; then
    mv "$NFNAME" "$FNAME"
fi

muttrc-gtd:

# put this at the end of your muttrc:

# store editor to be able to restore it after label editing:
set my_default_editor=$editor

# labels, inspired by: http://auriga.wearlab.de/~alb/other/mutt-labels/
macro index,pager y "<enter-command>set editor=\"editlabel\"<enter>\
<edit><sync-mailbox><next-undeleted>\
<enter-command>set editor=\"$my_default_editor\"<enter>" "Add/remove label"

# write label, save to action file:
macro index,pager <esc>a "<enter-command>set editor=\"editlabel\"<enter>\
<edit><sync-mailbox><next-undeleted>\
<enter-command>set editor=\"$my_default_editor\"<enter><save-message>=ACTION" "Add label and save to ACTION"

# write label, save to waitfor file:
macro index,pager <esc>w "<enter-command>set editor=\"editlabel\"<enter>\
<edit><sync-mailbox><next-undeleted>\
<enter-command>set editor=\"$my_default_editor\"<enter><save-message>=WAITFOR" "Add label and save to WAITFOR"

# save message that need a response to the RESPOND mbox:
macro index,pager <esc>q "<save-message>=RESPOND" "Save message to RESPOND"
macro index,pager <esc>s "<save-message>=inbox-archive" "Save message to inbox-archive"

# start with a narrow label-display (this also maps <esc>x to toggle label width)
set my_default_index_format="%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15F (%4l) [%?Y?%-3.3y&---?] %s"
set my_label_index_format="%4C %Z %{%b %d} %-15.15F (%4l) [%?Y?%-45.45y&---------------------------------------------?] %s"
set index_format=$my_default_index_format

source ~/.mutt/label-narrow

label-wide:

set index_format="$my_label_index_format"
macro index <esc>x "<enter-command>source ~/.mutt/label-narrow<enter>" "Switch Label Width"

label-narrow:

set index_format="$my_default_index_format"
macro index <esc>x "<enter-command>source ~/.mutt/label-wide<enter>" "Switch Label Width"
comments
  • kowey wrote:
    Great! (I haven't actually tried it, but I like it in principle)
  • kowey wrote:
    I've finally given it a try moving to a new machine. Works like a charm. Especially pleased about not having to re-save the message to keep the label. Only downside wrt the on-board label editor is that I can't see the message as I am labeling it. But no big deal. Good work! Btw, Vincent Danen's later post looks suspiciously similar to yours, without any credit given... in case you cared about that kind of thing... maybe it's just a lucky coincidence, but I'm doubtful ;-)
  • kowey wrote:
    One minor flaw in your muttrc sample: it does not account for people whose mutts are configured to confirm before purging messages. This gets annoying because it manifests in your editor not being reset after you invoke edit-label. To fix it, throw in an extra "enter" command after sync-mailbox.
  • fbar wrote:
    Hi kowey, thanks for your comments. That techrepublic post indeed looks similar - especially with the =RESPOND saving ;) - but I don't really mind. I'm more proud of the index-format changing I managed to achieve. Oh, and actually I now use a slightly different approach: I now keep all my GTD stuff in a single mailbox =GTD. The various sections are seperated by different label tags: "A some action", "W I'm waiting" and "S maybe someday". Then I use limiting in Mutt to show only the messages, starting with A, W or S using: macro index,pager <esc>a "<limit>~y \^[aA]<enter>" and so on. This is faster than opening separate mailboxes, and faster is better. ;) --fbar
  • SKK wrote:
    Just wanted to say that I like what you have done and i have implemented it i also used your comment above "Oh, and actually I now use a slightly different approach: I now keep all my GTD stuff in a single mailbox =GTD. ...." - i use 1 2 3 4 5 as the labels based on http://sifter.org/~simon/journal/20080425.2.html too. Thanks for the good work Have in mind that it does not work with older versions of mutt due to my_default_editor being an "unknown variable" and possible for other reasons too - i had to install my own version of latest mutt to get it to work (i use a shared machnie and have no root access).
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