1398590 - Add option to run a program when a reminder is due

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Alarms, enhancement)

Description

[Zachary Palmer]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
Build ID: 20170808215255

Steps to reproduce:

Opened Thunderbird Preferences dialog and navigated to Reminders.


Actual results:

The options for "When a Reminder is Due" include "play a sound", "show the reminder dialog", and "show missed reminders".


Expected results:

I am interested in customizing the behavior which occurs when a reminder is due.  It would be valuable to me if there were a fourth checkbox: "run a program".  This option would receive a command string to be used in the creation of a subprocess.  Once the subprocess starts, Thunderbird would no longer be responsible for the reminder (although it'd be great if the subprocess could somehow return a result indicating whether the alarm should be "snoozed").  Fixed substitutions in the command string could permit the transmission of the title, due date, etc. of the reminder.

I'm eager for this enhancement because the current pop-up dialog model for reminders is fairly invasive -- the reminder dialog steals my window focus -- but simply playing a sound is a problem in that it could be missed.  A toast (in the style of notify-send) which hangs around in the corner of my desktop but which does not steal window focus would be less distracting but persistent in a fashion similar to the current dialog window.

Thank you!

Comment 1

[[:MakeMyDay]]

Marking an enhancement request. But to manege expectations, it's quirew unlikely that this will get implemented.

Comment 2

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

It was previously decided that such a feature will not be implemented in Lightning, see e.g. Bug 337906.