Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
version 1.1.0.
Copyright © 2005-2006 Pasi Orovuo
Copyright © 2005-2008 Brian Tarricone
Table of Contents
Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
is a multi-protocol, multi-mailbox mail watcher for the
Xfce4 panel.
Currently, the protocols supported are:
IMAP (SSL/TLS and cleartext)
POP3 (SSL/TLS and cleartext)
GMail mailbox (HTTPS)
Mbox mail spool (local)
Maildir mail spool (local)
MH-Maildir mail spool (local)
The Mailwatch
icon remains grey (default color) as long as it does
not detect any new mail. As soon as it checks, and there is new mail,
the mail icon will turn gold (default color). By clicking on the mail
icon, a command, which can be defined in the properties dialog box,
will be launched. A mail check can be forced by middle-clicking
the Mailwatch
icon in the panel. Right-clicking on the Mailwatch
icon
shows a context menu from which you can choose
to access the configuration options. There are also menu items
for forcing an update and the about box.
Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
has a variety of configuration options. Access to the
configuration is gained by right-clicking the panel icon, and by
choosing .
The main controls for managing mailboxes are
, , and . At later stage, we'll walk through adding and configuring each mailbox type.Mailwatch
can launch your mail user agent (or any other
program) when the panel icon is clicked. The name of the
executable together with possible startup parameters goes
in the Run on click entry field. You can
also define the command to be executed when Mailwatch
detects
new mail by typing the desired command in the Run on
new messages entry field. Note that the command
is executed once for each time Mailwatch
detects new mail,
regardless of the number of new messages received.
The icons that Mailwatch
displays in the panel are configurable.
Both the Normal and New Mail
buttons present a file chooser dialog, which you can use to select
your preferred icons.
Mailwatch
includes a logging mechanism as well. It provides
information about errors and other noteworthy events that take
place. The log is accessible via the
button. There's also a setting to Show log status
in icon in the log dialog which, if enabled, provides
a visual indication of new log events in the panel.
In this section we walk through adding and configuring each type of mailbox.
To add a new mailbox, click
in the main configuration dialog and a mailbox type selection dialog will appear. The dialog presents each supported mailbox type in the dropdown list, as well as an informative description of the mailbox in the label below.IMAP, acronym for Internet Message Access Protocol, is a quite common mailbox format. An IMAP mailbox is a remote mailbox, so it requires various configuration options to be able to contact the remote IMAP server and get information on the mailbox.
To create an IMAP account in Mailwatch
, choose
Remote IMAP Mailbox in the mailbox type chooser dialog,
and you will be presented with the IMAP settings dialog.
A descriptive name for the mailbox.
The name entered here will appear on the Mailwatch
icon
tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail.
This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.
Mail server - The hostname of the remote mail server.
Username - The username to use while accessing the mailbox.
Password - The password to use.
Defines how often Mailwatch
accesses
the mailbox to see if there's new mail. You shouldn't set
this too low, as it will create unnecessary network traffic.
It's not recommended to set this lower than 5 minutes,
unless you're really sure your service provider
is okay with that.
The default setup uses unencrypted connections and the default IMAP folder. It is highly recommended that you select an encrypted connection type if your mail provider supports it. Others may require an encrypted connection. For that there's the advanced settings dialog.
If your IMAP service provider supports encryption
for client connections, you should take advantage of it.
There are generally two implementations of encrypted
connections. The most common one uses port 993 for client
connections and encrypts the connection from the start.
The other, less common method, uses the ordinary IMAP port
for initializing the connection and then, before any
sensitive data is transmitted, initializes the encryption
with the STARTTLS command. Mailwatch
provides
default settings for these setups, which are
and
respectively. If you're not sure which option your mail
provider supports, you can test via trial and error by using
each setting, and then checking the log viewer for errors.
There's also the possibility of using a non-standard IMAP port, if your service provider so requires. Just check the box, and type in the appropriate port. The box will pre-fill the default port for the selected connection type.
In addition of the connection related settings, you can set the directory on the server where your mail is stored using the IMAP server directory text box. This setting may not be necessary on some systems. If you see a large number of strange folder names when looking in the New mail folders dialog box, you may need to set this, often to something like "mail", "Mail", or "Maildir".
Since IMAP supports viewing mail in multiple folders, it's
possible that you'd receive new mail in folders other than your
inbox. If that's the case, you can use the New Mail
Folders dialog to instruct Mailwatch
to check mail in
multiple folders. The dialog will connect to your mail server
and fetch a list of folders for you to select. Of course, you'll
need to enter the server information first.
POP3, short for Post Office Protocol Version 3 , is another common type of remote mailbox. Because of its remote nature, the settings for POP3 are almost the same as IMAP, with some omissions, as POP3 isn't as advanced a protocol as IMAP.
A descriptive name for the mailbox.
The name entered here will appear on the Mailwatch
icon
tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail.
This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.
Mail server - Hostname of the POP3 server.
Username - Username to authenticate with.
Password - Password to use in authentication.
Defines how often Mailwatch
accesses
the mailbox to see if there's new mail. You shouldn't set
this too low, as it will create unnecessary network traffic.
It's not recommended to set this lower than 5 minutes,
unless you're really sure your service provider
is okay with that.
While for most users providing these settings should be enough, there are also advanced settings for those who need additional features.
If your POP3 service provider supports encryption
for client connections, you should take advantage of it.
There are generally two implementations of encrypted
connections. The most common one uses port 995 for client
connections and encrypts the connection from the start.
The other, less common method, uses the ordinary POP3 port
for initializing the connection and then, before any
sensitive data is transmitted, initializes the encryption
with the STLS command. Mailwatch
provides
default settings for these setups, which are
and
respectively. If you're not sure which option your mail
provider supports, you can test via trial and error by using
each setting, and then checking the log viewer for errors.
Mailwatch can also watch your GMail mailbox. Mailwatch does this securely by using HTTPS and GMail's RSS feed.
Username - Your GMail username.
Password - Your GMail password.
Maildir is a mailbox format for local mailboxes and thus
there is no hostname, etc. to configure, but merely a directory
where your mail is stored. A Maildir mailbox has a certain
distinguishable hierarchy, which defines the mailbox (and which
Mailwatch expects to find). A Maildir consists of a top level
directory (~/.maildir
for
example), which contains three subdirectories
(cur
,
new
,
tmp
).
A descriptive name for the mailbox.
The name entered here will appear on the Mailwatch
icon
tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail.
This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.
The toplevel directory of your Maildir. (Note: This is the main mail folder, not any of the three subdirectories.)
Defines how often Mailwatch
checks the
mailbox for new mail. It is safe to set a value as low as
1 minute, as this is presumably on a local filesystem, or
at least a local network.
Mbox is another very common local mailbox format in which each folder is a single, large file that contains all your messages. Because of this, Mbox expects to find a specially-formatted Mbox file instead of a directory tree.
A descriptive name for the mailbox.
The name entered here will appear on the Mailwatch
icon
tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail.
This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.
The location of your Mbox file (often
/var/mail/
$USER
).
Defines how often Mailwatch
checks the
mailbox for new mail. It is safe to set a value as low as
1 minute, as this is presumably on a local filesystem, or
at least a local network.
MH Maildir is a variant of the Maildir format. For a MH
Maildir mailbox, Mailwatch
reads your
$HOME
/.mh_profile
file for its
configuration, so there are no actual settings specific to MH
mailboxes.
A descriptive name for the mailbox.
The name entered here will appear on the Mailwatch
icon
tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail.
This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.
Defines how often Mailwatch
checks the
mailbox for new mail. It is safe to set a value as low as
1 minute, as this is presumably on a local filesystem, or
at least a local network.
Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
is written and maintained by Brian Tarricone
<bjt23@cornell.edu>
and Pasi Orovuo
<pasi.ov@gmail.com>
. For more information,
please visit the
Mailwatch
website.
All Mailwatch
related bugs should be reported on
Xfce
Bugzilla, under the Xfce Panel Plugins product, mailwatch component.
If you have problems using Mailwatch
, use the
Xfce general discussion list for questions. Development
discussion takes place on the
Xfce4-dev mailing list.
Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.