Closed Bug 11056 Opened 25 years ago Closed 4 years ago

Implement new mail check standalone app (nsnotify)

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Backend
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX
Milestone:
Future

People

(Reporter: sspitzer, Unassigned)

References

(Depends on 1 open bug, Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: helpwanted) 

NSNotify - NSNotify is the small standalone app which checks for new mail.
Whiteboard: HELP WANTED
Target Milestone: M15
nsnotify (from 4.x) only works on Win32.  Would like this to be across all
platforms, if it is to be implemented.
Summary: [HELP WANTED] implement a small standalone app which checks for new mail → [HELP WANTED] implement new mail check standalone app
Shorten summary
Bulk-resolving requests for enhancement as "later" to get them off the Seamonkey
bug tracking radar. Even though these bugs are not "open" in bugzilla, we
welcome fixes and improvements in these areas at any time. Mail/news RFEs
continue to be tracked on http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/jobs.html
Reopen mail/news HELP WANTED bugs and reassign to nobody@mozilla.org
I just found that biff app for GTK: GBuffy
<http://www.fiction.net/blong/programs/gbuffy/>. It supports, IMAP, nntp and
MBOX, MMDF, Maildir and MH mailboxes. The best of all: There're no licence
restriction, just a copyright and ask for credit. 71K source. Sounds like a good
base.

How important is the standalone app? How does it realte to the new enhanced
biff?
I took a closer look at the code, and, unfortunately, it includes GPL'd code.

I also don't know, how we could write a small, XP biff. 1. Our XP architecture
is huge and 2. integration into the environment as a biff needs to be, e.g.
integration in the panels (Windows Taskbar icon or GNOME applet), can't be done
XP.
Keywords: helpwanted
Summary: [HELP WANTED] implement new mail check standalone app → Implement new mail check standalone app
Whiteboard: HELP WANTED
Target Milestone: M15
adding nsnotify to the summary
Summary: Implement new mail check standalone app → Implement new mail check standalone app (nsnotify)
reassign to component owner for re-evaluation/consideration.  Users still want
this feature.

Here are the comments from Dale Headrick on 11/16/2000 at
http://www.macintouch.com/netscape6.html:

Where are the prefs to set mail attachment destination and audible or flashing
desktop alert for new mail?
Assignee: nobody → mscott
QA Contact: lchiang → esther
Keywords: nsmac2
QA Contact: esther → fenella
There are individual bugs for the platforms, since this probably has to be
tightly integrated with the platform. Attaching the one I know - for GNOME - as dep.
Depends on: 18732
this is a help wanted bug. We probably won't get to it for the next release if
someone wants to, that would be awesome! re-assigning to nobody@mozilla.org
Assignee: mscott → nobody
Bugs 18729,18730,18731,18732 seem to want the new mail notification to be part 
of Mozilla itself, not a standalone app.  I don't really care how mail 
notification is set up as long as bug 36283 is fixed :P
Adding nsbranch, and nsbeta1 since this has been requested by a distributor.
Keywords: nsbeta1, nsBranch
i have some customers who only prefer netscape(4.x) , because MSIE hasn't this
biff-feature, pleas bring it back with Netscape 6.1!!!
18729 is a duplicate - but since that one has much more comments i recommend
setting 11056 as dupe
Jaime, I don't think your use of nsbranch keyword is appropriate here
considering this feature enhancement for nsnotify is assigned to
nobody@mozilla.org.  nsbranch keyword is used by the manager/triage team for an
area "... to indicate that a bug must be fixed for the next Netscape Branch."  I
don't think this bug qualifies for that.  If you'd like to track distributor
items, pls work with Asa to come up with a plan for tracking.  Thanks.

removing nsbranch.
Keywords: nsBranch
See putterman's 2001-01-06 comment in but 18729.  These actually aren't the same
bug.
QA Contact: fenella → sheelar
So can this be implemented as small, platform specific apps?  I know some peeps
with a bit of experience here, I could possibly convince them to write an
NSNotify app for a few platforms.
reassigning to mscott.
Assignee: nobody → mscott
Priority: P3 → P1
Target Milestone: --- → mozilla0.9.7
Blocks: 102231
Blocks: 104166
Keywords: nsbeta1+
Target Milestone: mozilla0.9.7 → mozilla0.9.9
*** Bug 111193 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 111289 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 111307 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Ian Pottinger said on netscape.public.mozilla.calendar:
> > Alarms
> >
> >     Alarms should occur even without the Mozilla browser being run.
> 
> Combining this with longtime outstanding Bug 11056 [Implement new mail
> check standalone app (nsnotify)] might prove advantageous.
> 
> Alarms notification could piggyback on the coding efforts for nsnotify while
> possibly adding greater scheduling flexibility to new mail notification.

Is it possible to expand NSNotify to do more than just mail checking?
#23: Shouldn't it be rather vice versa, so that we extend QuickLaunch by the
nsnotify features?
Not everyone will use quicklaunch (I certainly don't), we'll still want an
independant program. If someone is using quicklaunch, though, we'd want nsnotify
code to be in Mozilla...

Isn't this what DLLs and their kin are for?
We're not doing a standalone app anymore.  Instead we're hooking into turbo and
fixing a bunch of other mail notification bugs
Keywords: nsbeta1+ → nsbeta1-
Target Milestone: mozilla0.9.9 → Future
uh, did you consider footprint? You need to keep most of Mailnews alive to do
that. Currently, we do that anyways, but it is a bug, not a feature (see bug 95130).

Also, some people do not like turbo mode. Those people will have to startup
Mozilla just to get their biff. IMO, that's unusable for a biff - apps in the
taskbar should be 100KB, not 100MB, in size.

There are so many open-source biffs out there. Why don't you take one, apart it
to read our prefs and ship it with Mozilla?
if we are not doing a "standalone app anymore", should we remove it from
bloacking bug 102231?
If we're not going to do a "standalone app anymore", then what's the point of
this bug? putterman, if "we're hooking into turbo" then change the summary. This
bug is to "Implement new mail check standalone app" as the summary does state.
And that, along with the ability to do alarms, etc. (as per comment 23), is my
only interest in this bug.
Depends on: 18731
Depends on: MailNotification, 18730
No longer blocks: 102231
If will not "standalone app" mark this bug as INVALID and change system
requirments!!!
If will be notification in Turbo, Mozilla on PCs like P233 with 64MB will
decrease performance to unuseable.
It is time to make something with this bug!!!

Damn straight, Jan.

*** Bug 131556 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Original Post from gerald.hopf@nexgo.de in another bug:

Having MoZilla checking mail in the background is a very popular feature.
For example Heise Online, Germany's most popular Newssite and Computer
Magazine Publisher,
wrote at the release of 0.9.9 that "finally a tray icon again notifies you
of new mail like with netscape 4.7".

In addition, i do personally know MANY people who would switch froum Outlook
Express to Mozilla only because of such a feature.

Getting this to work should be a top priority.

The current version of the tray icon functionally is basically a joke.
If the mail client is open anyway there isn't much need checking for mail
with a tray icon, is there ? However when only browsing websites a tray icon
would be a significant advantage - because it could make you start the
messenger when you're not really thinking that you could have mail.

Having this feature also work in Turbo Mode would further improve the
functionality and eliminate the need for third party
mail-checking-and-tray-notification-programs (and there are quite a lot of
them).
But this is not what this bug is about.

I urge all of you to take this feature request seriously and implement it in
the best way possible.
Blocks: 134969
Harald: What this bug is all about, is having a first party
"mail-checking-and-tray-notification-program". And, if I have my way, a
calendar-event-alarm-and-tray-notification-program too.
Depends on: 135247
adding self to cc list
I agree with the voices saying a standalone is important, but a hook in the
quicklaunch tray icon would be cool too. Perhaps a single lib that handles it
all, then have the quicklaunch icon use it, and create a new app that just adds
a tray icon interface to the lib. Best of both worlds.
Yeah, actually, that would probably be the best way to do this.

Since this bug is Platform=All, I do not think that implementing this bug via
the Windows only quick launch feature is going to be sufficient.

Also, since bug 135247 has been marked as a dupe of bug 86553 , someone probably
ought to change dependancies.

Lastly in regards to a standalone nsnotify app for Mac OS X, I would like to see
it implemented where the mail notification appears in the OS X menu bar next to
the volume control, display resolution, clock, etc.
change qa contact
QA Contact: sheelar → stephend
I agree with coment # 33, Why would one have to have mail notification when
mail& news group window is up. I dont check my mail unless I see/hear the
notifications. I would like very much to see this feature added in to the
browser to let me know to check my inbox when I have new mail, as it did in 4.79.
comment #40: fullack
*** Bug 147677 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 160381 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
See also bug 127122. It is about a standalone application for the quicklaunch 
notification icon and not the mail notification. Maybe there can be a generic 
standalone timed notification application created that can be the basis for 
both these functions (either under same or different processes). It obviously 
needs the ability to be lightweight, non-leaking, hopefully transparent to the 
user (as in within a .DLL and not visible from Task Manager), totally a 
separate process from the rest of Mozilla, also stable, yet able to recover if 
it actually did crash for whatever reason. It could do the following functions 
if we concentrate the two bugs:

1) Periodically check for mail.
2) Detect a crash within turbo mode and reload the libraries. What if this 
separate process crashes? :-/ Can you tell windows to reload it automatically? 
(i.e. mark the .DLL persistant). 
3) Be able to be dependable so that the user can always expect it to be 
working in the background. 
3) Be extensible for future *limited* uses (i.e. not be abused).

* Notification should not depend on quicklaunch being active.
* The user should be able to set how often it checks.
On second thought, the standalone DLL or whatever that watched quicklaunch for 
crashes should probably watch this too.
Depends on: 127122
I know it may sound pretty crazy but in my company, back in the days, one of the
reasons that were keeping us tight with Netscape 4 was that NSNotify (..the
other was cut-paste screenshots and images in the mail, but this is another
story). I remember that I also called Netscape to know about NSNotify and I was
told it was discontinued, we then moved to IE.

Now we run with mozilla and I had to install a specific app on all windows
clients... I wonder if it is so hard to implement since you have that small
thing that speeds up mozilla at launch, and people has to check it. 

Well, if you check it, it would be good to have the NSNotify too in sleepy
state, so at least if you don't need you never link it to a POP/IMAP server.
One problem with implementing this with Quicklaunch is that Quicklaunch is only
available for the Windows platform.  
What you mean is called Systray in Windows...
Systray is a notification area for the user...

There are also notification areas in Gnome 2.0 and KDE... So it could be made
working there too...
No, I meant Quicklaunch.
To kill any confusion, most people talking about Quicklaunch here are talking
about Mozilla's load on startup mode, not the Quick Launch toolbar on Windows. 
The icons would in fact go in the tray on Windows.

The other reason Quicklaunch and NSNotify shouldn't be tied is that even on
Windows, people (like me) may want to use NSNotify and not Quicklaunch.
Oh, I'm sorry..
I thought u meant Systray not the Quicklaunch feature of mozilla..
> The other reason Quicklaunch and NSNotify shouldn't be tied is that even on
> Windows, people (like me) may want to use NSNotify and not Quicklaunch.

There are already too many icons in the system tray! The best solution is to
have *both* QuickLaunch and nsNotify share just *one* icon. This is NOT to say
that QL & nsN need to be the same "process", it could mean that two processes
share the same icon (possible?). Obviously, it must be possible to
activate/deactivate either independently of the other. The icon graphic could
reflect this:

State             Icon symbol
------------------------------------------------
only nsnotify     only nsNotify symbol visible     <-- large symbol for clarity
only QuickLaunch  only QuickLauch symbol visible   <-- large symbol for clarity
both              both symbols visible in icon     <-- smaller symbols to fit
neither           no icon visible

If unread mails are present, then a big numer is superimposed on icon (symbols
remain as in table above).

Right-clicking on icon cove menu with useful options (depending on state above?):

+-------------------+
| *Read Mail*       |  <-- if no new mails there, go to inbox with new mail?
+-------------------+
| x QuickLaunch     |
| x nsNotify        |
+-------------------+
| nsNotify Options  |
+-------------------+
Comment #52 might be better directed to bug 115348.
We have Mozilla installed on appr. 100 PCs. We are in urgent need of a
mail-notification without mozilla running. As we use up to 5 different mail
accounts for each profile, using a third party app would result in
configuration-orgies. Furthermore all users would have to specify their
passwords not only in mozilla but in the notification-software as well.
The only solution is a mail-notification that comes with mozilla itself, sharing
prefs.js and all other preferences.
When will this heavily demanded function be incorporated to mozilla?
How about renaming Mozilla's 'Quicklaunch' to 'Mozilla Agent' and let it contain
both NSnotify and the Quicklaunch feature. By right-clicking the agent the user
should be able to enable/disable the following features: 'Start on system
startup', 'Notify when new e-mails' and 'Quicklaunch Mozilla'. The list of
features for the agent could be extended if other TSR features are developed.
FastCheck might be start to a solution to this bug.  http://www.fastcheck.org/ 
Open Source? http://www.fastcheck.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=2114#2114  
What about naming it "nsmailnotify" instead of "nsnotify" ? :)
I agree with roland. However, should the nsnotify application take on more 
features, like notifying when a webpage updates, it should be named nsnotify.

It could also notify of calendar events, when the calendar is built with 
mozilla. Or you could define an nsINotify interface which developers could hook 
into or something. That might be difficult with an external process, not 
dependant on mozilla.. You could also make some sort of registration process, 
where a developer could register with nsnotify to invoke a specific method on 
the application (who has implemented an interface, probably nsINotify), at 
certain time-intervals.

If that didn't make sense, just ignore it :)
Vidar B. Haarr wrote:
> I agree with roland. However, should the nsnotify application take on more 
> features, like notifying when a webpage updates, it should be named nsnotify.
>
> It could also notify of calendar events, when the calendar is built with 
> mozilla.

Well, I hope the idea of this bug/RFE is to create a _lightwheight_ tool to get 
_mail_ _notifications_, not a monster with six heads, twelve arms, two bodies, 
etc. and other cool stuff and extra functionality, resulting in a footprint
beyond usuability.
Smaller is better (and being able to use it in shell scripts on unix/linux would
make it the killer-application... :)
*** Bug 199608 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Adding Bug 11056 to Bug 163993 [META] Mozilla Bugs with Large Community Interest
since I just added the 50th vote.
Blocks: majorbugs
Would it make sense to split off a windows-only bug for this? I don't see all
the depends-on bugs being fixed anytime soon. :-\
I won't get into the footprint debate, but I felt that I wanted to add extra
commentary about a nice 7th head to have ;)

I currently use a program called tkbiff as my mail checker.  Here are the
features of it that I really like:
 * Customized e-mail alerts... not all e-mails cause an alert.
 ** The subject line of e-mails you are alerted about are shown.
 *** clicking on an e-mail opens a very lightweight viewer
     (no HTML, no MIME, no attachments, no reply feature, etc...)
 ** Right clicking on a mail summary will hide it from the overall new mail list
 * Customized sounds for different kinds of mail

The display of a few select e-mails is a wonderful thing to have... I wouldn't
ever want to go back to a boolean new mail indicator (or even a count)... I
would really like to see the the option to provide filters of what mail to display.
Please keep it as simple as possible! There are dozens other mail checking
utilities that can brew you coffee and play your favourite song, but that's not
the point. The point is to keep it small and interlinked with Mozilla Mail, ie.
when I get new messages in Mozilla Mail, the mail checker should be aware of
this and show "no new messages" instantly. This was the beauty of the plain old
nsnotify (in my eyes), no third-party application is able to do this.
No longer blocks: 134969
Not adding anything new here, but it seems to me that in the short (and I mean
immediate) term, a lot of people would be satisfied if they could just get the
same taskbar new mail notifications without having Mail, or QuickLaunch,
running.  Other features, like brewing coffee, can be postponed for future
feature requests.  

I'm currently using nsnotify.exe for this, the only problem being that it won't
let me specify options in the command line, so when I have mail I either have to
go through the profile dialog, or open Mail via another shortcut.  Sorry, now
I'm making feature requests...
Blocks: biff
*** Bug 239723 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I agree with the last two comments, and I'm adding some arguments. Most of the
people who participate in this discussion are either mozilla developers or
advanced users, and are likely to use more advanced notification systems than
nsnotify. This is probably why this takes so long to fix. I'm an admin, and
whenever I upgrade a user from ns4 to thunderbird, the next day they tell me
"Thanks, it works fine, it's awesome. Now just get the silly icon I had here
back to work and we're done." It is only when you miss it that you realize how
great it was. Very simple, very easy to configure; very discreet animation,
which would not disturb you but would eventually catch your eye; and
bidirectional communication with the mail app: you could double-click it and
launch/activate netscape, and if you read your email in netscape the icon got
notified and stopped waving.

I'm not missing it (I use mutt and bash's notification features); my users do.
Keeping thunderbird open is not an option: their way of working is "I want to
read my mail, I open the mail app; I've read my mail, I close the mail app". For
many users, the concept of application minimizing is hard to grasp, and even
when they do grasp it, they probably not want to have many minimized apps on
their task bar. Neither do such users use multiple mailboxes. nsnotify is
_exactly_ what they need, nothing more, nothing less.
*** Bug 261768 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Product: MailNews → Core
*** Bug 278360 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
No longer blocks: majorbugs
Here is a free one that comes with source and seems to work well.  NSNotify will not work with a username such as "user@domain.tld".  This one does.  It is written in visual basic which may cause some to snub their noses but like I said it's free and it work.  BTW - It's not my project and I don't know the person who wrote it and I don't benefit in any way from people downloading or using it.

http://www.cox-internet.com/marshes/ZenTechnics/
VB != cross-platform. Besides, wouldn't we want something more easily maintainable (my experience is that VB isn't) and extendable (ditto)?
I am not advocating this for a solution to the bug.  It is just a stop-gap measure for those running windows.
(In reply to comment #72)
> I am not advocating this for a solution to the bug.  It is just a stop-gap
> measure for those running windows.
> 

...because if you got here looking for nsnotify you were obviously running windows.  

Ok... I'll shut up now.
Assignee: mscott → nobody
QA Contact: stephend → backend
Product: Core → MailNews Core
I noticed vbnotify has a new link when I went looking for the latest version...

http://www.zentechnics.com/

Not going to do this.

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 4 years ago
Priority: P1 → --
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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