This method lets you use one keystroke to edit a mail in gvim and when you close gvim, it’s put back into the Outlook compose mail window.

You will need:

• AutoHotkey, a keystroke mapping/scripting application
• My script (below)
• gvim for Windows

Method:

1. Install AutoHotKey
2. Install gvim
3. Install my script into AutoHotKey (it appears at the end of this post). Note that my script has the gvim path hard-coded in and you may well need to change it.
4. Configure your Outlook to use plain text for composing mail.
5. Press Win-V with an Outlook compose window open and when the cursor is in the message pane

Serving suggestion:

• Goes really well with Outlook QuoteFix
• gvim will be opened with the contents of the message window
• Edit your mail in gvim and when done, save and quit
• Your edited message is put back into the Outlook message window.

Additional notes:

• At the moment, this only works with one mail at a time, as the file for the mail is statically named. If you try Win-V in a mail while you have another already opened, Bad Things will Happen.
• You may want to adjust your vimrc file so that it uses the “mail” filetype for editing; I also have a mail.vim file with macros and things in it which I tell it to load for this. I pinched it off the web, I’m sure you can find it. The required vimrc lines are below.
• If the cursor isn’t in the message pane of the Outlook compose window when you press Win-V (or if it moves there before you close the gvim window), things will probably go wrong.
• I’ve tested this with Outlook 2003, gvim 7.2 and AutoHotkey 1.0.47.06.

Here’s the optional vimrc line:

autocmd BufRead */outlook.txt :source $HOME/vimfiles/mail.vim

Here’s the script itself:

#v::
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
IfWinActive, Message (Plain Text)
{
    WinGet, ActiveWindow, ID
    SendInput ^a
    Send ^c

    clipboard = %clipboard%

    FileDelete, %TEMP%\outlook.txt
    FileAppend, %Clipboard%, %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    RunWait, C:\Program Files\vim\vim72a\gvim.exe %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    FileRead, Clipboard, %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    WinActivate, ActiveWindow
    Send ^a^v^{HOME}
}