Mailplane email support update
With the newest version of Mailplane the ProfitTrain AppleScript to send email seems to have broke. If you install a custom AppleScript and use the code from the following gist it should work again. Will have this fix as part of an upcoming release.
Sorry for the trouble.
http://help.clickablebliss.com/profittrain/custom_email_applescript.html
Australia GST Support
We are in the process of trying to implement support for Australia GST taxes and would appreciate some support from the community on how it works and how it should appear on invoices. If you have any feedback or sample invoices to share please send them to
Help Wanted with Microsoft Outlook AppleScript
ProfitTrain uses AppleScript to make new emails with recipients pre-filed and PDFs pre-attached.
With the new release of Microsoft Office for Mac they have dropped Entourage and are now using Outlook. Apparently the AppleScript dictionary has changed as well. Working with a user I had them change the app name in the script from “Entourage” to “Microsoft Office” but this change alone doesn’t seem to make a working script. I’d do the testing myself but I don’t have a copy of the new Office yet, nor is there a demo available for me to try.
If anyone has the new Office and wants to help, please download ProfitTrain and use the custom script hook so that you can use a custom AppleScript in place of the built-in one. If you get something that works please share and I’ll pass on to the users who are asking for it. Thanks again.
Mail.app black background issue
I’ve gotten a few emails from ProfitTrain / Billable users complaining about black email screens while trying to email invoices. This seems to be a Safari 5 issue as described by this Apple Support article.
They don’t have a fix but suggest toggling the plain/rich text to clear the formatting using the command shortcut Command-Shift-T.
Wish I could help but this bug seems to be on Apple’s end. :(
Thanks to @apricotstudios for the help article link.
UPDATE: This seems to be fixed with Safari 5.0.1. Use system preferences to update.
How-to store the ProfitTrain data folder in Dropbox.
New help article walks you through setting up symlinks to store the ProfitTrain data folder on Dropbox.
Using the Web Inspector in ProfitTrain (or any WebKit-based application)
This is a little technical, but for those extreme CSS crafters potentially useful.
ProfitTrain like many apps on Mac OS X utilizes the WebKit framework to render web pages. This is the same engine that powers Safari.
WebKit has a thing called the Web Inspector:
The Web Inspector is useful to debug CSS code and figure out which elements are getting which styles.
If you are a ProfitTrain invoice template designer and would like access to the Web Inspector while editing a template design follow these steps:
Make sure ProfitTrain is not running, and then via terminal execute the command:
defaults write com.clickablebliss.ProfitTrain WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool trueLaunch ProfitTrain and highlight an invoice. Traditionally you’ll be viewing the PDF representation in the view pane. Use the menu bar to switch this view to use the WebView.
Right click inside of the WebView and choose the Inspect Element menu. This will open the Web Inspector inside of the WebView. To detach the inspector click on the little button in the bottom left.
And now you can use the inspector to debug the CSS as well as other things.
Thanks to forum user fabiopigi for bringing up this need and getting me to figure out how to turn it on.
Using JavaScript to customize currency in invoice templates.
Forum user fabiopigi wanted more control over the currency formats in his invoice and is using some custom javascript to make it happen.
MacNN Review of ProfitTrain
Thanks to the fine folks over at MaNN for their positive review of ProfitTrain.
ProfitTrain does what it says it will do and it does it very well. I have already transitioned my small business over from Billable and I’m very happy. I’ve searched for years for a simple Mac application for small businesses and this is the best one I’ve found.
The review does point out the inelegance of the New Client experience and I agree that the current workflow is a bit clunky and hope to improve it over time.
Email Customization
There is no way to compose an email that includes an attachment using the mailto: protocol. Therefore in ProfitTrain when we want to send an email with the PDF invoice attached we use a series of AppleScripts to support Mail.app, Entourage, Mailsmith, Eudora and Mailplane (Gmail front end).
If you want to run your own AppleScript when ProfitTrain wants to send an email you can do that as well. As we say in the help book article:
Under the application menu “ProfitTrain”, in the main menu, you’ll find a command labeled “Install Custom Email AppleScript…”. Using this you can copy a customizable AppleScript into place at:
[HardDisk]/Users/[you]/Library/Application Support/ProfitTrain/email_invoice_using_user_script.scptWhen ProfitTrain sees an AppleScript at this location, with this filename, it will use it when you use the Email publish action instead of the default built-in script.
ProfitTrain user Jankees van Woezik is using this feature to customize the subject line as well as archive the PDF invoices as he mails them. Cool stuff.
Double Click Love
Did you know you could double click on a client in the source list to open the Client Inspector? Or how about double clicking a report in the source list to run it? You can also double click an invoice row to open the edit invoice sheet.
We are striving to make sure little things like this work well in ProfitTrain. If you have any suggestions for a user interaction that you’d like to see, please let us know.
