iPhoto Mailer Patcher

What is it?

iPhoto Mailer Patcher is a hack for Apple iPhoto. iPhoto 1.1.1 brings the ability to send pictures directly from the application. Unfortunately, it only works with Apple Mail, which is part of Mac OS X. iPhoto Mailer Patcher enables iPhoto to send e-mail with Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, PowerMail or QuickMail Pro.

Sorry Netscape 6 users, the Mail module doesn't seem to be scriptable :-(

Before After

Before After

System requirements

iPhoto Mailer Patcher 1.1.1a requires iPhoto 1.1.1. Versions for iPhoto 2.0 and 4.0 are available here.

How to install it?

Make sure you have iPhoto version 1.1.1 installed. iPhoto Mailer Patcher is only intended to work with iPhoto 1.1.1.

- Launch iPhoto Mailer Patcher from the Finder.

- Select your favorite mailer in the popup menu.

- Click "Patch" to patch iPhoto. iPhoto Mailer Patcher will remind you to quit iPhoto (even if it is not running). You should do so before applying the patch.

You are done. iPhoto will now send e-mail with your favorite mailer.

How to uninstall it?

If you want iPhoto to send e-mail with Apple Mail again, you can restore it to its original state using iPhoto Mailer Patcher.

- Launch iPhoto Mailer Patcher from the Finder.

- Click "Restore" to restore iPhoto to its original state. iPhoto Mailer Patcher will remind you to quit iPhoto (even if it is not running). You should do so before restoring the application.

You are done. iPhoto will now send e-mail with Apple Mail again.

How to select another mailer?

You patched iPhoto to make it send mail with your favorite mailer (say, Entourage) and now want to make it send mail with, say, Eudora? Just restore iPhoto to its original state with iPhoto Mailer Patcher, then run iPhoto Mailer Patcher again and select Eudora.

Important note about future upgrades

Before upgrading to a future version of iPhoto (1.1.2, 1.2 or whatever) you should really restore iPhoto to its original state BEFORE upgrading.

Known problems and limitations

iPhoto Mailer Patcher modifies the iPhoto application, which must be located at YourMacOSXDisk/Applications/ (the default location when you install iPhoto). If you do not have sufficient access privileges on this folder and/or iPhoto itself, you will get an error when iPhoto Mailer Patcher attempts to modify iPhoto. You must run iPhoto Mailer Patcher as an Administrator to patch iPhoto. The default user created for you when you installed Mac OS X is an Administrator.

iPhoto uses AppleScript to send e-mail. Unfortunately, scripting Mail is different from scripting anything else. Using AppleScript, Mail can insert an image as an attachment anywhere in the text. So if you send more than one image, each image will appear in the e-mail body between its title and the title of the next image. This is impossible to do with the other mailers. The titles and comments are displayed all in a row and the images are not visible in the body of your message. However, they will be displayed at the end of your text when you send it (this feature depends on the recipient's e-mail client, though).

Images titles or comments are not passed correctly to the mailer (including Mail) if they contain special characters like "é". This is not a limitation of iPhoto Mailer Patcher.

How much is it?

iPhoto Mailer Patcher is free. It may be distributed to anybody in the original unmodified form.

If you find it useful and want to support the author by making a donation (it's all the rage these days, after all) you can do so via PayPal. Just click on the image below. If you make a donation, you will get access to the Patcher's source code if you are interested.

For the more curious

iPhoto Mailer Patcher replaces two files in the iPhoto bundle:

/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/Mail.scpt
and
/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/mail.tif

The first is the AppleScript which iPhoto uses to send the pictures. It is replaced by a copy modified to work with the selected mailer. The second is the icon displayed in the "Share" toolbar. The modified version shows the selected mailer icon instead of the Mail icon.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher does not delete the old files. It renames them to:

/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/Mail.scpt.old
and
/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/mail.tif.old

So when you use the Restore function, iPhoto Mailer Patcher deletes the "hacked" files and renames the old files back to their original name.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher was made with Project Builder and Interface Builder using Objective-C and Cocoa. The script was modified with the Script Editor.

Sending images by drag and drop

An alternate way to send images by e-mail from iPhoto is to drag and drop your pictures from the iPhoto window to your mailer icon in the Dock. Note that it doesn't work with Mailsmith and QuickMail Pro. You can also drag your images from iPhoto to the "attachments" or "enclosures" window of most of the programs. BUT the huge issue is that your images won't be optimized at all.

Disclaimer

iPhoto Mailer Patcher should be harmless to both your iPhoto installation and your System. It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. The author can not be held responsible for any damage or loss of work which results from the use of this software. You use it at you own risk. As seen above, iPhoto Mailer Patcher does nothing more than renaming and adding/removing two tiny files in an application bundle. If by any chance your copy of iPhoto gets corrupted, simply trash it and reinstall it from the archive available on Apple's website. There is no way for iPhoto Mailer Patcher to harm you iPhoto Library. The Library is stored in another location on the disk which is left completely untouched, even if you reinstall iPhoto.

Credits

iPhoto Mailer Patcher was made by Simon Jacquier.
It was beta-tested by Johann Woringer and Cyril Pavillard.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher has nothing to do with Apple. Neither do the author. Please do not contact Apple for support. Use this e-mail address instead: jacksim@mac.com.

Some ideas and code snippets where borrowed from Frank Vercruesse's ASM Installer.

Special thanks to Adam C. Engst from TidBits and Rich Siegel from Bare Bones Software for the ideas for version 1.1.1a.

Very special thanks to Mike and to Iwan for using my PayPal account ;-)

Version history

May 11 2002 1.1.1a Added support for Eudora, Mailsmith, PowerMail and QuickMail Pro
Changed the name of the program to a more generic one
Some minor changes

May 8 2002 1.1.1 First public release
The version number reflects the compatibility with iPhoto 1.1.1