953969 - Cross program syncing (e.g. Instantbird / Thunderbird sharing account information)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Instantbird Graveyard :: Other, enhancement)

Description

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 531 by nexxuscommand AT yahoo.com at 2010-09-30 21:42:00 UTC ***

If you have Thunderbird open, though Thunderbird you should be able to access and reply to Instantbird and view the message history.
If you have Instantbird running and not Thunderbird, Instantbird should be able to notify you that you have e-mails waiting to be read.

This could be leveraged even further and allow someone to read incoming e-mail if Instantbird is able to be run on two systems and forwards from your home system i.e. your home system with Thunderbird and Instantbird, Instantbird forwards to your local instants of Instantbird where you are (work) so you can read the e-mail securely with out having setup your home e-mail at work. 

This idea might have to be refined.

Comment 1

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2010-09-30 22:08:25 UTC ***

This would almost definitely fit into the realm of extensions (and you'd need one for both Thunderbird and Instantbird to get them to communicate). Although if you're suggesting actually being able to use the IM protocols through Thunderbird without Instantbird running would be very difficult as I see it.

I believe there already is an extension to notify you if you have unread messages?  I'm not sure if its on AIO or if someone just ported a Firefox extension for it though.

Also, since Instantbird has no affiliation with Mozilla (besides using their platform), any integration out of the box is highly unlikely.

Comment 2

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 531 by nexxuscommand AT yahoo.com at 2010-09-30 22:59:23 UTC ***

Sorry my mistake. Then the request should fall back to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=953505 (bio 54) with the added ability to do, more or less, an instant live sync between two clients if both are on line. At the very least this leaves room for the above integration to be developed, and should not be a limitation of the instantbird. 

The most annoying thing IMO is the most of the IMs will boot you off the oldest connection ungratefully, The only exception to this is gmail's chat client. Ideally there should be a trust between clients where both of them are actively kept in sync.

This could lead to some fun workarounds on IM'ing. In thory you could have a private internal IM server that is not connected to the outside world., however if you also have an account to the outside world, there is the possibility to route the IM through a different connection.

Comment 3

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2010-09-30 23:33:12 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #2)
> Sorry my mistake. Then the request should fall back to
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=953505 (bio 54) with the added ability to
> do, more or less, an instant live sync between two clients if both are on line.
> At the very least this leaves room for the above integration to be developed,
> and should not be a limitation of the instantbird. 
There was some discussion (either by flo or Mic, not sure which one) about being able to Sync across programs (i.e. your "buddy list" and "account book" from Instantbird and Thunderbird could be synced. But not because they're on the same  machine, they'd be synced via the server. If this is what you meant than I misunderstood you, sorry! I think this would certainly be interesting if you're using the same Sync location for multiple programs (Firefox, Thunderbird, Instantbird). I'm going to change the bug title to reflect this concept.

> The most annoying thing IMO is the most of the IMs will boot you off the oldest
> connection ungratefully, The only exception to this is gmail's chat client.
> Ideally there should be a trust between clients where both of them are actively
> kept in sync.
Unfortunately this is a protocol issue, not something the IM client has any rights over. I believe XMPP and AIM will let you sign on in multiple locations, I'm not sure about other protocols.

> This could lead to some fun workarounds on IM'ing. In thory you could have a
> private internal IM server that is not connected to the outside world., however
> if you also have an account to the outside world, there is the possibility to
> route the IM through a different connection.
Flo, the main dev of Instantbird, does this by SSHing into his server to have a persistent IM connection. There are servers that let you do this too, they sign in for you on say AIM, and then you connect to the server via an XMPP connection.

Comment 4

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 531 by nexxuscommand AT yahoo.com at 2010-10-01 00:27:37 UTC ***

Ok I guess we are talking about two different things that could do the same thing in different ways.

Using the sync process is a good way to backup your IM's to the network that's what bug 953505 (bio 54) is primarily about and where this idea originally came from. 

The abridge idea is to allow a person at to use another instance of the IM to communicate. Basic it requires making the IM client aware that it has a twin somewhere else on the net and if say AOL is blocked at work to forward the information to your home to be sent to the net. So in essence you creating a point to point SSH tunnel between two clients in which you could sync directly but as the primary goal keep both clients active and online even if one of them was dropped because of the one instance limitation on the IM protocol. 

To a certain extent it sounds like Flo is already doing a pseudo version of this by establishing a separate SSH sections. I am saying why not just make the client capable of doing it directly?

You would still need to use sync in order to allow both instances to know where each other are if the IP changes or some other factor changes and the IM's lost each other, but once the connection is done, what you could do with it near limitless including the ability to tie the client into thunderbird and forward new e-mails when they arrive. 

Here is a real world example.

At work I have a private IM server that is always on, that I don't what to expose to the internet for various reasons. At home sometimes I need to respond to an IM someone sends me. Because my system is on at work 2/47 with a connection to the internet and the IM client is on with access as well, I would be able to use the IM client at home to talk to the IM client at work. Messages would be forwarded back and fourth. As an add bonus this should eliminate the two instance issue, because once it see one sessions got boot it means that the other must be working and as such the direction of the sync reverses. That's the theory anyway.

Comment 5

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2010-10-01 00:49:26 UTC ***

OK, I see what you're saying. But that would involve adding an IM server to Instantbird so that you can generate some direct connection to it.

I changed the bug to discuss the Thunderbird integration type idea you were discussing, which to me has very little to do with what you're now saying you want. But if that's not the main focus/idea you were going for we change it to something else.

The way I'm viewing what you're saying you want two entirely separate things that nicely complement each other, but aren't actually related:
1. You want Instantbird to include a server so a running instance can be connected to from another Instantbird instance (on a different computer most likely). The "client" instance would then IM the "server" instance which would pass it on to the "real" network, and received IMs would follow the opposite path.
2. You want some sort of integration into Thunderbird...so it can inform when there's a new email?

I see these are two separate ideas (although the second one isn't very useful without the first.)

Comment 6

[Benedikt Pfeifer]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2010-10-01 08:16:06 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #2)
> Sorry my mistake. Then the request should fall back to
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=953505 (bio 54) with the added ability to
> do, more or less, an instant live sync between two clients if both are on line.
> At the very least this leaves room for the above integration to be developed,
> and should not be a limitation of the instantbird. 
> 
> The most annoying thing IMO is the most of the IMs will boot you off the oldest
> connection ungratefully, The only exception to this is gmail's chat client.
> Ideally there should be a trust between clients where both of them are actively
> kept in sync.

I think Pidgin/libpurple has a project ongoing or at least the idea for it to integrate a connection-forwarding feature. That is you'd run the core of the program on one computer and it would forward the connections to another computer. So you're connecting your UI from somewhere to this own server which could be running all the time.. you get the idea?

I need to look up the details though..

Comment 7

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2010-10-01 12:05:36 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #5)
> 1. You want Instantbird to include a server so a running instance can be
> connected to from another Instantbird instance (on a different computer most
> likely). The "client" instance would then IM the "server" instance which would
> pass it on to the "real" network, and received IMs would follow the opposite
> path.

I remember some passionate debate on this topic. I think it was with Even (offline though :-/). If we ever get the time to implement it, we would like to have an XMPP server in Instantbird and have the various Instantbird running on the same local network collaborate so that when going from one's laptop to one's desktop computer, the conversations are the same with the same history. I'm saying "local network" here because on the local network there's no firewall/proxy/NAT problem to work around. If you have one of your Instantbird instances running on a computer that can open a port on a public IP address, it can work outside the local network.
If this bug is about integration with Thunderbird, this is way off topic though.

Comment 8

[Instantbot]

*** Original post on bio 531 by nexxuscommand AT yahoo.com at 2010-10-01 16:35:39 UTC ***

I think comment #5 more or less sums up the entire thread. It was one idea that became two, so we should probably file two separate bugs.

Comment 9

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

*** Original post on bio 531 at 2011-06-27 19:40:08 UTC ***

(In reply to comment #8)
> I think comment #5 more or less sums up the entire thread. It was one idea that
> became two, so we should probably file two separate bugs.

Bug 954152 (bio 717) is the bug I split off (a while ago and never posted back here...), I'll leave this one as the Thunderbird one.

Comment 10

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.

Comment 11

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.

Comment 12

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.