I have been using plain text files (.txt) for storing my notes since the arrival of Notational Velocity a while ago. When I saw that Mountain Lion will have a dedicated Notes app, I decided it would be great to switch over to Mail's notes system in preparation for the new OS.
I couldn't find a suitable method for rapidly importing my text notes into apple mail, so I combined a script found on MacRumors with some python, which can then be packaged into a Service using Automator ("Service receives selected files and folders").
import sys
import os
print sys.argv
for filename in sys.argv[1:]:
print filename
text = open(filename,'r').readlines()
title = os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(filename))[0]
text = title +'\n'+' '.join(text)
# Store file contents in clipboard
outf = os.popen("pbcopy", "w")
outf.write(text)
outf.close()
cmd = """osascript< < END
tell application "Mail"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Mail"
click the menu item "New Note" of the menu "File" of menu bar 1
click the menu item "Paste" of the menu "Edit" of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
END"""
os.system(cmd)
[kirkmc adds: I haven't tested this. But I do agree that it will be practical to use Apple's Notes app on Mountain Lion. However, I'm not prepared to use Mail for notes; I don't like the display options.]
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120224235738709