608278 - (thunderbird-unity) Changes to make Thunderbird fit in with Ubuntu's Unity

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[David Ascher (:davida)]

Ubuntu is switching the default shell to Unity in desktop editions in 11.04 (Natty).  Talking to Ubuntu folks at UDS-N, we discussed what changes need to happen in Thunderbird to fit in to the new shell.

This is a meta bug.  We'll file dependent bugs for each bit.  For context though, the broad strokes are:

 - Unity has a global menu rather than in-window menu (similar to what OS X does).  Thunderbird should use that menu when run under Unity.  Note that the shell can be chosen at runtime, so compile time decisions aren't appropriater here (unlike the mac).

 - Unity includes a task list for each app that registers in the dock.  Thunderbird should register tasks (and there are different tasks possible when the app is running and not).  This is likely related from the TB point of view to Windows 7 jump lists.

 - Unity includes a single messaging menu in the top right (in LTR locales), which all messaging apps should use to communicate things like number of new messages, etc.  Thunderbird should integrate there as well.

Note that AFAICT the way to do this is to talk via DBUS, which will likely require changes in mozilla-central, such as integration in the gtk event loop, etc.  (We should find whatever bug currently tracks that work).

(this meta-bug does not attempt to address non-Unity related Ubuntu integration issues like integration with contacts, etc., which should be tracked in other bugs).

Comment 1

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Note that AFAICT the way to do this is to talk via DBUS, which will likely
> require changes in mozilla-central, such as integration in the gtk event loop,
> etc.  (We should find whatever bug currently tracks that work).

toolkit/system/dbus has nsDBusService.h which appears to be all we would really need, except it's not exported.

> (this meta-bug does not attempt to address non-Unity related Ubuntu integration
> issues like integration with contacts, etc., which should be tracked in other
> bugs).

While this is somewhat tangential, do you know which API(s) would effectively be Ubuntu integration issues?

Comment 2

[Andreas Nilsson (:andreasn)]

URL for the Ubuntu blueprint:
https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/packageselection-desktop-n-thunderbird-on-ubuntu

Comment 3

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thunderbird is now the default e-mail client for Ubuntu.  Huzzah!