A timely question: we've recently covered two tips on our blog that deal with our email service: using an alias or a signature to make adding tasks easier.

See also this past tip about Gmail's Canned Responses Lab.

Hope this helps!

By stealing ideas from many other people, I created a bookmarklet that works in Chrome, FF, and Opera. When I have an email open in GMail, I just click the bookmarklet, which pops up the RTM mobile task add dialog, with the task title prefilled to be the email title, and the URL preset to be the email itself. I also have default presets for list, location, etc.

If you are not logged into the mobile RTM page, the first time you run this, you'll have to log in, and then select the bookmarklet again to get the task to fill in.

Then, when I'm going through my RTM tasks, on this task, I just click the URL and the email pops up. The URL is not just the email, but the version of the email that only brings up that particular email, not the entire GMail interface (saves loading time). You can easily modify the script to put in the regular email URL instead.

One side benefit is that the add-task window stays open, so you can manage many emails, one after the other. Also, this method is completely independent of the version-chasing issue with the GMail RTM gadget (as cool as that gadget is).

To create the bookmarklet, on your bookmarklet bar, just add a bookmarklet (depends on which browser), and the put this script in the URL field. Name the bookmarklet to tell you that it's your GMail RTM button - something like "GRTM".

Obviously, you'll need to modify some of the presets in order to suit your own RTM habits.

You'll need to remove the space between "java" and "script" below - it's just there to keep this RTM forum webpage from executing jscript stuff.

You'll need to replace [YOURLISTNUMBER] with your own list number (without the square brackets). Select your list in RTM - the atom feed link will contain the list number for that list. Just take a peek at that and put it in the script.

OR, just delete that parameter entirely (&list=[YOURLISTNUMBER]), and you'll get whichever list is your RTM default list. (I added that parameter because I need different defaults for different situations.)

java script:(function(){cp='http://m.rememberthemilk.com/add?name='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+' &list=[YOURLISTNUMBER]&due=today&priority=2&repeat=0&estimate=5 minutes&tags=@admin&url='+encodeURIComponent('https://mail.google.com/mail/?fs=1&tf=1&source=atom&view=cv&search=all&shva=1&th=')+escape(location.href.substr(-16));w=window.open(cp,'addwindow','status=no,toolbar=no,width=250,height=660,resizable=yes');setTimeout(function(){w.focus();}, 500);})();

Here's the version that uses your own RTM default list, so you don't have to do anything with list numbers.

You will still need to remove the space between "java" and "script."

java script:(function(){cp='http://m.rememberthemilk.com/add?name='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+' &due=today&priority=2&repeat=0&estimate=5 minutes&tags=@admin&url='+encodeURIComponent('https://mail.google.com/mail/?fs=1&tf=1&source=atom&view=cv&search=all&shva=1&th=')+escape(location.href.substr(-16));w=window.open(cp,'addwindow','status=no,toolbar=no,width=250,height=660,resizable=yes');setTimeout(function(){w.focus();}, 500);})();

Yikes! No sooner did I post this than GMail changed again, rendering this script no longer usable. Oy! Now I'm stuck without a reliable method to have GMail items show up as tasks in RTM. (Forwarding to my RTM inbox doesn't give the the email recall that I need to follow up on a task.)

Yay! Now it works again. Whatever GMail changed, it changed again.

I realize I'm talking to myself, here, but ... I have discovered the problem, and it's not GMail's fault.

The fault is with the Linux version of Chrome. The scripts above work fine in Windows Chrome and in Linux Firefox. Just not Linux Chrome. :-(

They changed something so that java scripts open a new tab, so then trying to grab the URL and title will fail.

cek1227, you're not talking completely to yourself, I'm listening! And this is awesome. I've been evaluating RTM for both personal use and as a possible recommendation for our design team at work. The inability to quickly create tasks from emails (with the automatic link creation) was one of the things holding me back. This seems like something obvious that should be a built-in function.

I've tried this both in Opera and Chrome on WinXP (will try Windows 7 in a couple of days) and it works fine. The only problem is that I initially had to open up http://m.rememberthemilk.com/ separately and log in one time there first, otherwise I wasn't getting the login pop-up on Chrome, it just sat there cranking and thinking about it. After I did that once, though, everything would be fine even if I logged out of the mobile page. The login popup for the RTM mobile page would then pop up correctly within Gmail if I wasn't already logged in to the mobile site.

I briefly tried to get this to work in IE8, just because one person on our team insists on using it. Any thoughts on getting it to work with that? I got it mostly working via a bookmarklet, it will add the task to RTM and everything initially seems OK. But the URL link that is created within the RTM task is wrong. It seems the "https://mail.google.com/mail" part of the URL gets put in twice at two different points in the URL so the gmail link doesn't open properly from within RTM.

Lastly, is there any way to get this to work without logging into the mobile site, i.e. if just logged in to the normal non-mobile RTM site? Sorry for all the questions, I don't know anything about this kind of thing but I'm terribly excited to have this functionality.

Thanks, great work!

Forgot to mention that I initially had the same issue as parf, that is starred messages don't generate tasks, and "add to tasks" option creates a google task, not RTM one. The Gmail Browser add-on in Chrome and it seems pretty broken in general (displaying things on top of other things, etc.) in addition to the "add to tasks" and star message functions not working.

I also don't particularly need to see the RTM task list in gmail, I just need to be able to create tasks from emails easily so cek1227's solution seems a very good one from my point of view.

Loud,

I don't run IE, so I have no idea how to make this work for it. (I'll avoid making evaluative or judgmental statements - I'll just admit to not using IE!)

Once I log into the mobile site, I'm good for several days or weeks. But I always suspend (running Linux), so my login data is always good. I have not experimented with using automatic login features of FF or Chrome, but that might be a way to go (IF the mobile RTM site handles it - I kinda doubt it). I think that cookies are the only solution, so however you manage cookies is likely where your answer lies.

I'll repeat - I stole from a lot of different sources, so your comments really belong to others. I just have a good collection of stolen goods!

Thanks, that's a great feature.

Gotta say, I'm finding the creation of a task in the task list pretty convenient. Say I'm reading the email and go, "Boy, this needs to be a task." I copy the URL for the email, close the email, click in the "Add Task" box, type in a task description (which probably isn't the same as the email subject anyways), paste in the URL (which gets assigned to the tasks URL property), hit enter and I'm done.

In addition, I can type in location, due date, tag, priority, etc.

It's working pretty well for me.

-
Michael

There is something I am doing wrong. But I made a Bookmark with JavaScript in Chrome.
Opens Gmail here I open an email, then click the bookmark to the top
script to open my new window where a new task, but not pre-filled
name and URL. Where am I doing wrong?

Superbobo, I can't see anything offhand that you are doing wrong. The fact that the task window comes up and is already at the add-task screen tells me that the script is in place and that you are already logged into RTM mobile.

The only time I see what you describe is the FIRST time using the script before logging into RTM mobile. It happens for me this way:
* I am NOT logged into RTM mobile.
* I open an email and hit the Bookmark
* The RTM mobile window comes up, asking me to log in
* I log in to RTM
* THEN, I get the screen you describe - a blank Add Task screen
* But if I just hit the Bookmark again, the fields are all filled in perfectly

Are you using a different language than English for GMail or RTM? I have not tried it for anything other than English, but I don't see immediately how that could affect it.

Also, I had some trouble with using this in Chrome in Linux, but that problem seems to have been resolved by an update to Chrome. Is that possibly your situation?

m.sean.kelly,

What you're doing is pretty much what the script is doing, and I agree - I find it to be pretty reliable. The only thing the script buys you that it copies the URL (and other fields) automatically rather than manually, but in effect, both methods are doing the same thing.

Gmail has introduced contextual gadgets can this not be used for the gmail gadget for RTM? That was need not have a browser add on which stops working everytime gmail changes code?

I created a quick and dirty gadget for Gmail so that if you're running it in application mode (i.e. without your shortcuts bar) it creates a link on the left hand side of your screen. It's not very pretty, but it works.

Hope this helps anyone who needs it. To install it, use this URL from the "Add Any Gadget By URL" page of your Gmail settings.

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/102511580180087848012/rtm-task.xml

This is a great step in the right direction, vee.

When I click it, the title and URL are not getting the right data, however. (Chrome and Ubuntu)

Are you getting the right title and URL with this gadget? If so, then I need to figure out why I don't.

But - this is EXACTLY where this needs to go. Nice work. All I need is a little help in getting it to fly right.

cek1227, thank you so much. This is what I have needed.
Is there a way to change your script so that the entire email will be added to the notes in rtm?
When I email to myself I use a (---), but I don't know how to make the necessary changes.
Thanks again!

Good question. I don't know offhand if the mobile RTM URL allows the note to be set, but the two harder problems would be extracting the text of the email and dealing with all the parsing required to fit that into a URL call. If the email is large, then you have a third problem.

I put this script together precisely because forwarding the email to my RTM inbox put the email in the notes, but didn't give me the option to reply to the email.

I am asked to login and password every time using this method than I am getting a blank RTM for. This used to work for me before. Any idea what is wrong?

Do you have cookies enabled?

Which browser? Which OS? Does switching browsers help?

I am not seeing this problem - Linux + Chrome.

cek thank you very much. RTM gmail extension broke again and I'm not sure if it is worth it to try to use it in the future. Your (stolen :D) solution is more than good enough for everyday use.
Thanks.

Little update. It's even better than I thought! Now finally I can add any web page to RTM as reminder to check it out someday.

Brilliant! I altered cek's script slightly to work with my organization's google apps domain, replacing

https://mail.google.com/mail/

with

https://mail.google.com/a/brandeis.edu/.

This seems to work. BTW, I know nothing about java; I just guessed. So who knows why this works/whether it will work for anyone else/whether this will continue to work!

You can't steal from me what I stole from others! ;-)

And dsucevic, you're right - it works with any page. Actually, I use a differently tweaked version for that, but the principles are all the same.

I would LOVE for RTM to steal this from us and make it part of their in-Gmail gadget somehow, but this one doesn't have some of its cool integration. I'd rather be able to hide my bookmark bar.

wish i could get this to work! it just asks for my password overtime and when i put it in takes me to a blank add tasks sheet with no info filled in...

:|

it really is a nightmare for a RMT newbie of limited intelligence to get that which attracted him to RMT in the first place to work (gmail integration)

that should say "every time" not "overtime"
:p

johnklab,

This often happens when 3rd party cookies are disabled in Firefox. You can find more information on the troubleshooting page.

If that's not the case, would it be possible to submit a Gmail issue report via our support system?

Just select your issue from the list on the left, and follow the steps shown. If your issue isn't listed, click on "I'd like to report a new issue".

Your report should provide all the info that we need to investigate further, but we'll be in touch via email if we require any more details.

Thanks!

Brendan, just a friendly poke to you RTM dudes to run with this and make it RTM-slick. ;-)

cek1227
Thanks for taking the trouble to work out this bookmarklet and posting it here for us all to use, it is very, very useful.

One question, in the Task Name it puts the following;
"Company Name Mail - email title - my email address"
Is this what I should expect (I am using Google Apps within a company domain).
If yes, is there anyway of modifying the script to omit the "Company Name Mail" and "my email address" so that the Task Name only contains the email title?

Brendan,
Here's a plus one for cek1227 suggestion about making this an RTM supported feature?
The existing GMail sidebar is really useful but the add a task by Starring it or by Label is a little limited due to lack of customisation, other than choosing a date you can't choose any other parameters such as list or tag etc.
The bookmarklet not only gives you the ability to pre-set any/all parameters, but also to change them at the point of creating a task, which is very user friendly and makes adding a task from an email very quick.
It also gets round the issue of Google updates killing the "Star/Create Task" feature (although you guys work very hard to quickly bring out updates to get round this, so well done and thanks for that).

Regards - Martin.

cek1227 and martingchapman,
Thank you both for your feedback on the add-on. We appreciate it.

The other really good feature of the bookmarklet, which I forgot to mention, is that it adds the url of the email into the url field of the task.
This is really powerful as it means you can access the email either from the task in Gmail or from the task in RTM, the url field is available in either place.

Thanks and I do hope you (RTM) will seriously consider implementing this as a fully supported RTM feature.

Regards - Martin.

BTW so happy with RTM that I have just gone Pro.

martingchapman, yes the script can be modified to do whatever you want with the title. If you are (or know someone who is) familiar with javascript, it should be an easy edit to parse the title and modify however you want. However, that would be something that was specific your situation.

For what it's worth, I usually overwrite the entire title with the task I need to do (e.g. "Respond to Bob T. Monkey"). The title is a decent default.

cek1227, I'm loving this, thanks!

cek1227, this is awesome thanks!

Tnx. Wish I could figure out how to make it work with a Chrome SSA. I've tried using Shortcut Manager, but when in an SSA, GMail uses a different kind of URL that won't work as a standalone URL. I'm open to suggestions.

I'd rather figure out how to make it work as a GMail Add-on like the RTM GMail Add-on. But, no time to figure out how to hook it in.

Bob could probably do it in an afternoon...

Another variation - this brings up the mail in the Android format, which loads faster than the full GMail version. Note that the "..." needs to be removed from the "java...script":

java...script:(function(){cp='http://m.rememberthemilk.com/add?name='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+' due=today&priority=2&repeat=0&estimate=5 minutes&tags=email&url='+encodeURIComponent('https://mail.google.com/mail/mu/#cv/All%20Mail/')+escape(location.href.substr(-16));w=window.open(cp,'addwindow','status=no,toolbar=no,width=250,height=660,resizable=yes');setTimeout(function(){w.focus();}, 500);})();

Ooops. Bug in the previous script. encodeURIComponent posting the URL causes a problem with "All%20Mail." Oddly, putting "Inbox" in its place seems to work, even if the email is no longer in the Inbox.

Interesting idea but I can't get it to work. I tried at least three of the versions of the code you posted, all that happens is my gmail tab goes blank and a blank popup appears. Happens whether I'm logged into m.rmilk.com or not, tested on Chrome on both Win7 and Lion.

Actually, this appears to be a chrome issue, as it worked fine in Firefox. I'm running Chrome 13.0.782.220 m. Can anyone else confirm this?

I can't believe that the default bookmarklet doesn't capture a URL. What an odd oversight

mkny13, I'm working fine in Chrome (Linux and Windows). Send me your bookmarklet to cek1227@gmail.com and I'll have a look at it.