Is "you have mail" not quite enough detail? Is a per-message notification too much? Welcome to xlbiff, the X Literate Biff.
Xlbiff presents enough information to tell you: Is this new mail worth reading right now? And it stops distracting you once you decide.
Xlbiff waits in the background, monitoring your mailbox file or IMAP server (or running your custom check-mail script). When a new message arrives, it invokes the MH scan(1) command (or your custom mail-scanning script) and pops up a window with the output (typically the From and Subject line of each new message). If more mail arrives, xlbiff scans again and resizes its preview window accordingly.
Clicking the left mouse button anywhere in the window causes it to vanish. It will also vanish if the mailbox becomes empty. Xlbiff stays out of your way when there is no new mail and pops up only when something requests your attention.
Xlbiff:
- occupies no screen real estate until mail comes in
- supports scripts for checking mail
- has configurable screen location, color, and font
- can notify by bell and/or keyboard LED
- shows all new messages in one, easy-to-dismiss window
- lets you click anywhere on it; no trying to select a tiny "x"
./configure
make && make install
The configured default mail file template is /var/mail/%s. If this is incorrect for your system, set CONFIG_MAILPATH when running configure, e.g.:
./configure CONFIG_MAILPATH=/somewhere/mail/%s
To see a list of the flags that control where "make install" installs various files:
./configure --help
If you are building from a source repository, without "configure" and "Makefile.in" files, you will need the GNU Autotools: autoconf and automake. With those packages installed, you can create the needed files with this command:
autoreconf -i
The complete guide to using and configuring xlbiff is in xlbiff.man. After installing xlbiff, you can view the formatted manual with
man xlbiff
Ed Santiago ed@edsantiago.com
The latest version of xlbiff may be found at