FM Pro 13 using 3rd party email client/ how to?

[FileDumb]

Hi everyone and my apologies if I have posted in the wrong place - I couldn't see where else I could post this and I am totally stuck and wasting time trying to fix an issue which means I no longer want to use Mac Mail as default with FM Pro 13 (non server version) at present so was seeking some direction here if someone could be so kind as to help:

Factors:

• I like to use Postbox as my default email client

• Mac Mail on my El Capitan OSX is simply not working properly but Postbox is so I don't want to waste time fixing Mac Mail when Postbox works fine

• FM Pro 13 will not use Postbox as it's email client

• I would prefer to avoid using MS Outlook as my email client but I understand that may work (haven't tried that yet)

Questions:

• How do I get FM Pro 13 to send mail via Postbox?

• Is this even possible?

• Is there a plugin I can install to make it work with nay 3rd party email client such as Postbox?

Any help gratefully appreciated - my apologies once again if I am in the wrong place.

Pete

[comment]

Did you change the default mail application on your system?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201607

[FileDumb]

I did yes - and when I changed it to Postbox it wouldn't send the email - it says :

"Some of the files that are needed are either damaged or have not been installed. Please run the installer to correct this problem."

But when I change it to the Mac OS mail it doesn't (but my Mac mail app is playing up/running ultra slow and I cannot fix it - it's older software I guess but that's where I am at unfortunately).

Many thanks for looking at this for me.

[comment]

32 minutes ago, FileDumb said:

when I changed it to Postbox it wouldn't send the email - it says :

"Some of the files that are needed are either damaged or have not been installed. Please run the installer to correct this problem."

is this message coming from Filemaker? Are you able to send mail from other applications - for example, from a browser using a mailto: link?

 

[ggt667]

6 hours ago, FileDumb said:

Hi everyone and my apologies if I have posted in the wrong place - I couldn't see where else I could post this and I am totally stuck and wasting time trying to fix an issue which means I no longer want to use Mac Mail as default with FM Pro 13 (non server version) at present so was seeking some direction here if someone could be so kind as to help:

Factors:

• I like to use Postbox as my default email client

• Mac Mail on my El Capitan OSX is simply not working properly but Postbox is so I don't want to waste time fixing Mac Mail when Postbox works fine

• FM Pro 13 will not use Postbox as it's email client

• I would prefer to avoid using MS Outlook as my email client but I understand that may work (haven't tried that yet)

Questions:

• How do I get FM Pro 13 to send mail via Postbox?

• Is this even possible?

• Is there a plugin I can install to make it work with nay 3rd party email client such as Postbox?

Any help gratefully appreciated - my apologies once again if I am in the wrong place.

Pete

On a Mac for `FileMaker 13 Pro` if I recall correctly you can copy the `AppleScript` that sends the parameters to the mail application via `AppleEvents`, there should be 2 of them 1 for `mail app` and some flavour of `outlook`. Those are both compiled and supposedly are not editable, however you can reverse the sequence of the input parameters and generate your own `postbox`-launch script using `Automator`, `XCode`, or `Apple Script Editor`.

Perhaps `mailbox` works just by changing default mail browser. However the one I had to work with way back when did not so I had to create a separate sequence and / or set of parameters to send to the mail application in order to be able to have FileMaker issue email messages for me.

And if there is any doubt to which files I'm talking about, the files are still in the application for version 18

exa -lT ./FileMaker\ Pro\ 18\ Advanced.app/Contents/Resources/
.rwxrwxr-x@ 3.6k root  5 Sep  2019 com.apple.mail.scpt
.rwxrwxr-x  3.8k root  5 Sep  2019 com.microsoft.Entourage.scpt
.rwxrwxr-x@ 5.1k root  5 Sep  2019 com.microsoft.Outlook.scpt
.rwxrwxr-x@ 3.6k root  5 Sep  2019 com.postbox.mail.scpt

These `scpt` files are saved as run-only, in which means you will have to find out a way to find out how those work in order to create your own. Duplicating one of them and trying to open the copy in `Apple Script Editor` as pr example left me with a dialog box saying that the file is run-only as pr attached image

Edited August 21, 2020 by ggt667

[FileDumb]

On 8/21/2020 at 4:08 PM, comment said:

is this message coming from Filemaker? Are you able to send mail from other applications - for example, from a browser using a mailto: link?

 

yes - it's coming from Filemaker itself.

I don't know what you mean by sending mail from another application but maybe you mean that if I use Postbox, then yes, I can send a mail ok from the same account I want to use with Filemaker. The other way is to use Outigoes which is a a web based app which you are perhaps familiar with.

Neither of those two can send me a mail with an attachment via the 'send mail' script in FM13 that used to work fine until Mac Mail decided one day for no apparent reason to not send anymore/send slowly etc

ggt667: I will take a look at that - if I can get an Applescript to send the mail using a script trigger and allows me freedom to use what I want to send mail then that's a way out of the 'Apple straitjacket' that's the real issue here.

[ggt667]

The core functionality for my ops team in this scenario is to have the email autogenarated by FileMaker, and for them to have the possibility to edit mail body or add / remove attachments.

There is an AppleScript disassembler written in Python https://github.com/Jinmo/applescript-disassembler it's not brand new, however neither are the *.scpt files mentioned in FileMaker 13 Pro.

Note that the only thing you will need to learn from the .scpt file is the sequence or pattern of the parameters sent from FileMaker to the mail application.

Edited August 25, 2020 by ggt667

[comment]

1 hour ago, FileDumb said:

maybe you mean that if I use Postbox, then yes, I can send a mail ok from the same account I want to use with Filemaker.

No, I meant can you get another application - not Filemaker and not Postbox - to send mail using PostBox as the default mail application.

 

1 hour ago, FileDumb said:

if I can get an Applescript to send the mail

That's worth a shot - and according to the Postbox documentation should be MUCH simpler than what is being proposed here.

 

[ggt667]

Unless the purpose of this excercise is to enable whoever sends the message the possibility to edit the autogenerated message prior to pushing send; I would send emails using SMTP; not sure if FileMaker can do this on its own by now? Or if you still need a plugin like SMTP-it( https://www.cnsplug-ins.com/Plug-ins/SMTPit_Pro ) or similar, I would guess Monkeybread plugin also has SMTP option( https://monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Guides/Sending emails in FileMaker with MBS Plugin.pdf )

2 hours ago, comment said:

That's worth a shot - and according to the Postbox documentation should be MUCH simpler than what is being proposed here.

The amount of work would be the same; apart from the source data having specific variable names and sequence as dictated by FileMaker's current setup for sending email. In particular the following

aRecipientAddress, aSubject, aMessageBodyText, aAttachmentPath, aCcRecipients, aBccRecipients

would be dictated by FileMaker's send mail script step; The rest would be the same.

The question is if there should be user interaction or not as this

send message subject aSubject recipient aRecipientAddress cc recipients aCcRecipients bcc recipients aBccRecipients body aMessageBodyText 

will send the message before any possibility of human interaction, and then sending by SMTP would serve the same purpose, no?

Edited August 25, 2020 by ggt667

[FileDumb]

Hi everyone, I did try SMTP but that also seemed slow in getting through when I tested it. The crazy thing is it all worked fine until one day when it didn't - no reason - no new software. What is with Macs lately? Anyway, it seems from the replies that it's not at all easy to use an Applescript to send via a 3rd party email app - please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm out of my depth here I don't know.

[comment]

33 minutes ago, FileDumb said:

it seems from the replies that it's not at all easy to use an Applescript to send via a 3rd party email app - please correct me if I'm wrong.

Allow me to correct you. It depends entirely on how easy or difficult the 3rd party application makes it. My impression from what I read in the link in my previous post is that it is VERY easy; but I do not have Postbox installed and haven't tried it myself.

 

[ggt667]

4 hours ago, FileDumb said:

Hi everyone, I did try SMTP but that also seemed slow in getting through when I tested it. The crazy thing is it all worked fine until one day when it didn't - no reason - no new software. What is with Macs lately? Anyway, it seems from the replies that it's not at all easy to use an Applescript to send via a 3rd party email app - please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe I'm out of my depth here I don't know.

My 2 cents worth; if SMTP is slow, please start looking into other options than your email client. My advice: How about checking the ping to your SMTP server? Check for limits on your SMTP server, and so on.

As I have already pointed out the only reason I can see to want to go through an email client is if you'd like the person sending the email to potentially amend some of the email messages. Unless you do need to edit the email text or add/remove attachments, I believe using SMTP is the right choice for you.

3 hours ago, comment said:

Allow me to correct you. It depends entirely on how easy or difficult the 3rd party application makes it. My impression from what I read in the link in my previous post is that it is VERY easy; but I do not have Postbox installed and haven't tried it myself.

 

That said, using the script linked does not harvest any benefits from Filemaker when it comes to ease of use.

Edited September 7, 2020 by ggt667