/ThunderTray

Minimize to tray Thunderbird

Primary LanguagePerlGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

ThunderTray

This is not a Thunderbird extension.

It mimics Minimize to Tray extensions, but the application runs outside Thunderbird.

It has been developed as an alternative to disabled Tray Extensions on Thunderbird 60.

It can be easily installed and removed from the system. You may remove it when a reliable extension comes up, or Thunderbird team gives a native tray icon, some day.

Small note, I just released a new project, is a linux terminal editor, if you could git it a try, visit : https://github.com/hanspr/mi-ide

Getting Started

Download latest release or zip file. Unzip. Copy : thundertray.pl to any directory you like

Prerequisites

  • Linux
    • Tested on : Linux Mint 18.3, with Cinnamon 3.6.7
  • Perl Libraries
    • Mozilla::Mork;
    • Glib
    • Gtk3
    • MIME::Base64
    • GD
  • System
    • xdotool
    • x11-utils

Installing

sudo apt-get install libglib-perl libgtk3-perl libgd-perl libmime-base64-perl cpanminus xdotool x11-utils
sudo cpanm -qn Mozilla::Mork
unzip ThunderTray.zip
cd ThunderTray
cp thundertray.pl ~/MY_INSTALLATION_PATH

Recommendations

  • Disable any active tray extension in Thunderbird.
  • Because application is not running inside Thunderbird, it has no control over the Close window Button. To minimize: click always on the Tray icon
  • Tray Icon states
    • Thunderbird icon normal : No email, window is not minimized
    • Thunderbird icon dimmed : Thunderbird is minimized
    • A number (black): quantity of unread messages in INBOX (Thunderbird is open)
    • A number (red): quantity of unread messages in INBOX (Thunderbird is closed)
    • Thunderbird dimmed and red X : No email. Thunderbird is closed. To start again, click in Tray Icon.
  • If you quit the tray and want to restart, execute:
./thundertray.pl &>/dev/null
  • You may add that instruction to your Main menu so you can start it from there.

To test

Inside the unpacked ThunderTray folder

perl thundertray.pl

When executed, thundertray will minimize to tray any existing Thunderbird Window.

To show Thunderbird: click on Tray Icon

Send emails to your email accounts, check email count on tray icon, read, delete messages.

To exit ThunderTray right click on Tray icon select : Quit

Deployment

If everything looks fine, add thundertray.pl to your startup applications with no delay. Named so it starts before Thunderbird. Add Thunderbird to startup applications too so it starts minimized.

Customization

At the beginning of the file, you will see the following Variables

$DIR = "";      #/home/MIUSER/.thunderbird/PROFILE.default
$FONT_PATH =""; #/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf
$OFFSET = 0;
$MSEC = 1000;
$SCAN_ALL = 0;
$IGNORE_BOXES = "";
$DEBUG = 0; # 0-No debug, 1-Debug, 2-Debug and stop after scanning boxes
  • $DIR
    • thundertray will try to locate your default location for emails, if it can not find it in your computer, write the path in this variable
  • $FONT_PATH
    • If you want a specific Font to be used for the email numbers that show in the tray Icon (has to be TrueType: .ttf)
  • $OFFSET
    • If you have been creating and deleting email accounts and the old folders were not deleted. You may see more unread messages from those old directories. Your best option is to remove those directories. If you can not, add an offset to the count, example: -1. Or add folder names to the IGNORE_BOX (below)
  • $SCAN_ALL
    • 0 - Scan only main INBOX. 1 - Scan all mail boxes available
  • $IGNORE_BOXES
    • Used when when SCAN_ALL=1
    • List of comma separated names. Those names are searched within the path/box to be processed. If any name matches, that box or full path is ignored for search of boxes with new emails
  • $MSEC
    • Check for new emails every amount of milliseconds, default 1,000 = 1 second. Every cycle, creates an access to your hard drive, if it is too intense, increase to 1500 or 2000. If you use an SSD drive, it could be reduced, but I do not recommend it, 1 second gives a good responde time.

Icons

  • Icons come with transparent background so they should blend better with dark themes, but
  • You may edit icons included to fit your toolbar background color.
After modifying the icons, execute in terminal.

base64 -w 0 iconname.png

Copy the long string
Paste in code in subroutine build_start.
Substitute the string depending on the correct state:
* tbrv : Normal
* tbrh : Thunderbird minimized
* tbrx : Thunderbird closed

Authors

  • Hans Peyrot

License

This project is licensed under the GPL3 License