Well, it’s a new year and a new version of Entourage is on the loose. It only seems fitting that we should update our Entourage GTD Action Scripts as well!

The second release of Action Scripts gave us the ability to create a linked Action Item (a Task or Event) from any other email, task, event or note in Entourage. This served three purposes (1) it gave us an expedient means of processing email (and the like) to our Task List, (2) it enabled the creation of Follow up Tasks (and Events), and (3) it provided us with a facility to move tasks onto the Calendar (without removing them from the Master Task List).

So, what else could we possibly want in Action Scripts 4-D…?

…Why, two additional scripts, of course!

Introducing 4-D

Welcome to Action Scripts 4-D! This update adds two additional scripts:

• Create Note from Selection
• Create Email from Selection

(thus bringing us to 4 total). I’ll leave it up to you to figure out exactly what these do… But (suffice it to say) if you know what the 2.0 scripts are all about, you should have a pretty good idea!

Requirements

These scripts are built to run on OS 10.4 Tiger (or later) with Microsoft Entourage 2004 (or 2008).

Installation

1. Download and extract the Action Scripts 4-D archive.
2. Remove the scripts from their folder and copy these to “~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items” folder (”~” is shorthand for your “home” folder). If you are currently using Action Scripts 2.0, a finder window will appear, asking if you want to replace these. Go ahead and say Yes to All.
3. Restart Entourage.

Usage

1. Select a message, task, event or note in Entourage that you want to create a new Action Item from.
2. Either navigate to the Scripts Menu or use the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl-T to create at task, Ctrl-E for an Event, Ctrl-N to create a Note or Ctrl-M to create a new message.