Any plans to port MailBox Alert to 110, 112 or 115?

[dmcichy]

No description provided.

[fe-hicking]

I'd love that and would also like to donate... like, would 25$ be an incentive? 🥹

[tjeb]

Not sure, to be honest. I have spent a few evenings trying to get it working in 115, but from the looks of it legacy extension support has finally been broken completely, and it essentially requires a full rewrite from scratch using the new APIs (insofar those even support the necessary functionality...), and I simply don't have the time for that.

[fe-hicking]

Totally understand. As a user I'm quite frustrated. I have personal and professional accounts all in one Thunderbird instance and while I need to get specific notifications on the latter, I don't want ones in the former. Can't really understand that TB doesn't provide that out of the box. Your extension accompanied me happily for many years and I'll just stay at the old TB version now.

(You don't happen to know similar solutions to yours that could work with new TB? Or maybe just a "mailbox alert lite" extension that would only allow a custom sound plus on/off per mailbox (not per folder), might that be work I could pay for? 😅)

[curmudgeon13]

I'm on Thunderbird 115.2.2 (64-bit) now, your alert add-on would be so helpful, I can know who emailed me by the sound, it's a must-have item, kind of frazzled without it.

Please do what you can, your efforts are appreciated.

[firehawkx]

I changed the manifest to allow for activation on 115... and while that worked, sadly the extension itself didnt.. most likely for the reasons mentionned above that they dont use the same API structure anymore... very sad... I have 6 email address in my thunderbird, only 2 i want notifications on, and i like to differentiate between them with a different audio...

Hopefully it can be solved at some point. I'd also totally pitch in 50-100$ if that can help.

[garvinhicking]

@firehawkx Actually I did migrate to FiltaQuilla now. This one allows you to setup sounds per-account, too.

[kupietools]

Hah, looks like you committed the cardinal sin of writing too useful a plugin for an app that's historically been fine with completely breaking everything on upgrade. I too relied on this and feel crippled without it in 115, and would certainly kick in a few bucks for an update.

For those looking for an alternative, I haven't tested it yet, but it appears from the reviews that Scriptable Notifications https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/scriptable-notifications/ works on 115. It looks like it requires some coding to use, though, and it's much more complex and not as well documented as it could be (developer expects you to figure out the usable parameters it sends yourself) and at first glance it looks like it doesn't transmit the message URL so there's no way to easily create a notification that can be clicked to directly open the message in TB.

If life calms down I'll take a look at doing a rewrite myself but right now I'm incredibly busy and don't see having the time for at least a few months, if at all.

@tjeb, at the very least, thanks for writing something that so many found so useful for a long time. I'm sorry Mozilla screwed you and us like this. I hope in the long term the changes prove to have benefits, but I haven't seen them yet, and this upgrade has not made me happier with TB at all.

EDIT: I was using this to trigger new email notifications with Terminal-Notifier (also open source, and available here on Github, but for Mac only). I've posted full information plus a bash script to handle calls from the plugin and send them to Terminal-Notifier, including instructions on getting it to work with FiltaQuilla, here: https://github.com/kupietools/terminal-notifier-bridge-for-thunderbird/

[jobisoft]

@tjeb: What are the difficulties you are running into? We did not remove the ability to run Experiments.

You are still using the WindowListener API which I created 3 years ago to allow WebExtension developers to transition from the old chrome.manifest/legacy approach to the new background script / WebExtension approach. I created tutorials for the transition: thunderbird/addon-developer-support#37

And of course, we offer extended support for add-on developers:
https://developer.thunderbird.net/add-ons/community

John

[tjeb]

The main difficulty is that i just don't have the time or the energy to work on it.

I have no doubt the small issues can be worked around or done through an experiment (like lack of URI of mailfolder, or how one can't stop context menu closing on click, or how the mailFilter API is either gone or undocumented), but all of that just takes time. Some of the code harks back to thunderbird 2, which makes it rather amazing that it held out this long (in no small part thanks to your windowListener API, btw!), but I'm not very actively working on porting it to 115, and I'm not sure when I will, and what form it will take; it is unlikely to have feature parity with the current extension.

AIUI, by far most people use it to simply set a different sound per folder, in which case filtaQuilla might suffice (haven't used it myself). If it's just for enabling/disabling notifications per folder, someone created a feature request for that: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1849501, so perhaps that is the way to go for now.

[godzfire]

Can someone please take over this add on if the original author is unable to? This is mandatory for me and my multiple inboxes.

I'm stuck on 102 and refuse to update to 115 because of this.

[kupietools]

@godzfire I don't know if you've read the whole thread (forgive me if you have) but I relied on this too, and I was able to complete replace it with FiltaQuilla, terminal-notifier.app, and a script which I shared above. If you're not on Mac, my solution would require some adaptation to whatever scripting language and notification apps are available on your platform, but should be fairly easy to port (and I don't have any other platforms available, but would be willing to contribute a little thought & research and see if I can provide some tips to help you adapt it.)

It is definitely a drag, it seems like TB regularly breaks backwards compatibility and makes necessary plugins incompatible. Then a ton of users are up a creek until someone has time to learn the new APIs for writing these things.

One thought that crosses my mind, if you can describe how you use it, no promises, but maybe I can try to adapt my existing FiltaQuilla Mailbox Opener script to create plain javascript alerts or something, so an external script and program aren't even necessary.

Can you give me details on what you need to do with MailBox Alerts that a FiltaQuilla-based workaround won't work for?

[curmudgeon13]

Can you give me details on what you need to do with MailBox Alerts that a FiltaQuilla-based workaround won't work for?

I have not looked into FiltaQuilla yet, (just now looked, has everything there, I'm not on a Mac, I use Linux, but I'll look at your script.

How I currently use it:
When a new email is found or saved in a folder with a specific sound file associated to that folder, it is played.

When I hear specific sound files I know who or what the mail is from without looking, allowing me to look now, or later, so I can choose if it may be important enough to stop what I'm doing at the moment.

Now I have to check notifications every so often and see what arrived, I have around 100+ folders by individual, or a group of individuals, reports and various server responses or incidents, mailing lists etc., and associating sounds or various quotes makes management a simple task.

Thank you very much for your direction and script.

P.S.
This looks like a Linux alternative to terminal-notifier.app/
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-send-desktop-notifications-using-notify-send

[alsavage]

A "me too" comment, situation as curmudgeion13 above :( At this stage of my life, I'm much more willing to throw $50 at this than spend a Saturday trying to decipher a recipe that may or may not work for my Ubuntu box.

[godzfire]

@kupietools my usage is essentially what Mailbox Alerts does now: Assigns a certain sound when new mail comes in, and creates a visual alert and preview of the new message, essentially like what Outlook does for new messages.

While Filterquilla seems to have a basic option for a sound alert, there is nothing I can see that does a visual alert, which is half of the reason I need it and can't update.

[garvinhicking]

While Filterquilla seems to have a basic option for a sound alert, there is nothing I can see that does a visual alert, which is half of the reason I need it and can't update.

FiltaQuilla actually allows to spawn any shell command; so on macos you could use intern notification tools, but also with any Windows tool like http://vaskovsky.net/notify-send/ or powershell commands you could create any notification.

The initial setup is way harder than with MailboxAlert, but you can gain a lot of flexibility - and: a working extension for current Thunderbird.

(I wish we could have both options, but I see how much work adaptation would cause)

[curmudgeon13]

@kupietools my particular email setup allowed me to come up with a solution that fits my needs, although a bit more work is involved.
Using Filterquilla's ability to play a sound file, I discovered it would use header variables.
Since I use getmail.pl to fetch mail and store them on a local Dovecot server for all of my family's emails, and I use its Sieve ability to sort into folders ( https://pigeonhole.dovecot.org/ ).
In the sieve script right before an email gets moved into its folder, I use the addheader function to insert X-Home-Folder with the value of the folder name.
So now I have Filterquilla play specific sounds for the value found in the header field X-Home-Folder.
It is more precise than using the email address alone.

:) I am happier now, thank you for nudging me towards Filterquilla.

[kupietools]

@curmudgeon13 that's an admirably geeky DIY solution! Glad to see you got something worked out.

[kupietools]

While Filterquilla seems to have a basic option for a sound alert, there is nothing I can see that does a visual alert, which is half of the reason I need it and can't update.

Yeah, unfortunately FiltaQuilla's power lies in letting you under the hood to mess with Javascript or trigger system apps or shell scripts. None of the premade options that come with it are going to do what you need out of the box, it requires tinkering—as @curmudgeon13 put it, "a bit more work is involved"—which obviously not everybody has the time and/or desire to do. Unfortunately there's no easy replacement I know of for MailBox Alert without that.

But if you do know javascript or some scripting language on your platform, FiltaQuilla lets you very easily create custom visual alerts in those and trigger them from a filter.

Other than that... I share your frustration at TB once again breaking something very useful without providing a comparable alternative.

[curmudgeon13]

While Filterquilla seems to have a basic option for a sound alert, there is nothing I can see that does a visual alert, which is half of the reason I need it and can't update.

In Thunderbird Settings / General where a single sound file can be used, there is Enable Notifications, on my system (Linux,KDE) the notifications pop up from the system tray, they hang about 10 seconds, and I can pull up notifications after the fact, click on and go to that email should I choose.
Also, Filterquilla has Run Program where you could use notify-send
https://www.maketecheasier.com/desktop-notifications-for-linux-command/

Sounds plus notifications is proving to be a blessing, what you hear determines whether you look at latest email notifications.
There are other apps like that for Windows OS as well.
Best of luck

[godzfire]

I have a Mac so yea. I swear that Windows at least has a new mail pop up indicator in the lower right hand of the screen. Mac doesn't even have that.

[godzfire]

The other issue I am admittedly not code/programming savvy, and can't understand/do all these scripts for what's needed to get FiltaQuilla to function as MailBox Alert.

[viking2]

@kupietools
@curmudgeon13

I am on Windows (WIN7..) and can therefore not use the Terminal-Notifier which is for Mac.

When an E-mail arrives, matching my filter conditions (e.g using FiltaQuilla), I would like a pop-up window (no sound). The window should show E-mail info such as sender, subject and recipient. Also a link to click to open the E-mail if possible.

In addition, if another E-mail arrives before I close the current pop-up window, the new E-mail info should populate the current open window (that is how it works for me in Outlook) or at least create a second pop-up window..

I know that this is a lot to ask, but I am trying to replace Outlook.....

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

p.s I am not a programmer....

[garvinhicking]

@viking2 Check out https://alternativeto.net/software/growl-for-windows/ - there are some tools that you can use on windows, you can execute the file with the parameters from FiltaQuilla to show that as a notification.

Maybe you can even use windows' internal msg.exe if you use your local windows username to send to: https://www.lifewire.com/msg-command-2618093

Hth.

[dan-sullivan]

I've just released what some people may find a simpler alternative that doesn't involve external scripts.

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/ntfntf/

• Enable notifications per account and/or per folder
• Supports per account sounds and volume

Only extra steps are to disable the thunderbird native notifications and sounds. Instructions in the extensions settings page.

[viking2]

Thank you for the Add-on. I tested it but I have two issues with it.

1. The notification is only showing for a few seconds and then disappears. I may get an E-mail when I am away from the computer and I therefore miss it. Is this a windows issue or can it be set so that it is up until I close the notification?

2. I only want to be notified when certain E-mails arrive, so I have setup a Saved Search folder as a local folder. However, the notification doesn't work on local folders. I guess that this a Thunderbird limitation?

As an alternative, I could use FiltaQuilla to find those E-mails. Is there some way to run NTFNTF as an external program from FiltaQuilla when the filtered E-mails arrive?
(Unfortunately FiltaQuilla doesn't have a notification option)

[dan-sullivan]

Thanks for testing it out @viking2. I just did some more testing on Windows 11 and I see the issue with the notifications disappearing.
You can get them to stay in the notificaiton area by toggling the "Use the system notification" setting on before turning off "Show an alert".

I'll update the setup instructions to include this. I also see that you get no icon for the notification on Windows so I'll fix this as well.

As for saved search, Im afraid thats not going to work. NTFNTF uses the new mail event and that only contains the standard folder information. And as its a TB extension it cant be triggered externally.

[viking2]

@dan-sullivan ,
I am running WIN7 (yes, I know....)...

I selected "Use the System notification" and tried to change the default from 5 sec to stay open "forever". The max is 5 min if using control panel. However, I was able to change it to longer by editing a registry key https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/10697-notifications-change-how-long-stay-open.html . I set it to the max 4294967295 seconds (Hex: ffffffff) or 136 years and rebooted.

Unfortunately, it didn't work; the notification window only stays open 19 sec...

p.s. Setting it to 1 or 5 min in control panel still only keeps the window open for 19 sec.