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Outlook Mail Tasks for Drafts (aka QuickNotes)

What is QuickNotes?

Use Drafts to quickly note down tasks and notes. And if you do a task quickly, mark it done. Do you want to clean up the draft and receive any pending tasks per mail? Invoke QuickNotes action.

QuickNotes is a Drafts action which:

  1. parses current draft looking for tasks and notes
  2. sends each pending task individually per mail, e.g., to allow Outlook users to flag them as a task
  3. archives current draft by appending it into the monthly QuickNotes archive draft
  4. optionally moves current draft to trash

To learn more about Drafts visit https://docs.getdrafts.com.

QuickNotes Input Formatting

QuickNotes action processes current draft. It recognizes the following elements:

  • draft title
  • task - a task can be pending or done
  • note

Draft Title

A draft title is the first line of a draft, in case the line starts with #. A draft can be with or without a draft title.

A draft having draft title starting with # QuickNotes is a QuickNotes draft and it has special processing.

Task

A task starts with a task subject - a line starting with

  • - [ ] or [ ] in case of a pending task or
  • - [x] or [x] in case of a done task

A task ends if

  • next line is empty or
  • next line is a start of another task.

A task can have a task body - one or more task comment lines. A task can be with or without a task body.

Note

A note consist of subsequent non-empty lines, which are not part of any task.

Example Draft

have met Martin

- [ ] buy cola
preferably sugar free

[ ] buy potatoes
- organic please
- not imported
[x] buy newspaper
English or German
- [ ] call John
- [x] call mother

watched a good movie
- The Shawshank Redemption   

QuickNotes Processing

QuickNotes action processes current draft. The processing consists of three steps:

  • mailing pending tasks
  • archiving current draft
  • optionally moving current draft to trash

Mailing Pending Tasks

Processing the example draft above will cause 3 mails to be sent, each containing one pending task.

Note that the task prefix - [ ] or [ ] will be removed.

Mail 1

Subject: buy cola

         preferably sugar free

Mail 2

Subject: buy potatoes

         - organic please
         - not imported

Mail 3

Subject: call John

         -

See also [Configuring QuickNotes Processing] below.

Note, QuickNotes action uses Send in background option. It is used to send the email via web service without the requirement of opening a preview of the message. Because these messages come “From” a generic address, it’s best for action which email to your own email address as a reminder, or similar.

Archiving Current Draft

QuickNotes action creates one archive draft per month. This archive draft is located in the Archive and it has draft title # QuickNotes YYYY/MM. All drafts processed within the month will be appended into it.

Prefix of the pending tasks [ ] will be modified to [>], signalling that the task was forwarded.

Processing the example draft above will append the following text to the archive draft, with the header containing current timestamp.

# QuickNotes 2020/11

## QuickNotes - 2020/11/02 22:32:14

have met Martin

- [>] buy cola             
preferably sugar free      
                           
[>] buy potatoes           
- organic please           
- not imported             
[x] buy newspaper          
English or German          
- [>] call John            
- [x] call mother          
                           
watched a good movie       
- The Shawshank Redemption 

Moving Current Draft to Trash

As the last step, the processed draft will usually be moved to trash. There are three options:

  • A QuickNotes draft will be processed and moved to trash, and afterwards a new QuickNotes draft will be created.

  • Any draft without a draft title will be processed and moved to trash, and afterwards a new blank draft will be created.

  • Any draft with a draft title will be processed, but not moved to trash.

Configuring QuickNotes Processing

When running QuickNotes action for the first time, the user must enter a mail address to receive pending tasks per mail. This information is stored using Credential object. See https://scripting.getdrafts.com/classes/credential.