Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin
version 0.1.0svn.
Copyright © 2005-2006 Pasi Orovuo
Copyright © 2005-2006 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)
Xfce4 Mailwatch Plugin has a variety of configuration options. Access to the
configuration is gained by right-clicking the panel icon, and by
choosing Properties.
- Mailboxes
The main controls for managing mailboxes are Add, Edit, and Remove. At later stage, we'll walk through adding and configuring each mailbox type.
- External Programs
Mailwatchcan 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 whenMailwatchdetects new mail by typing the desired command in the Run on new messages entry field. Note that the command is executed once for each timeMailwatchdetects new mail, regardless of the number of new messages received.- Icons
The icons that
Mailwatchdisplays 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.- Logging
Mailwatchincludes a logging mechanism as well. It provides information about errors and other noteworthy events that take place. The log is accessible via the View Log 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 Add 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.
- Mailbox Name
A descriptive name for the mailbox. The name entered here will appear on the
Mailwatchicon tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail. This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.- IMAP Server
Mail server - The hostname of the remote mail server.
Username - The username to use while accessing the mailbox.
Password - The password to use.
- Interval
Defines how often
Mailwatchaccesses 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. For most users this is enough, and everything should work now. Mail server implementations differ, and this setup might not work for you. For example, you service provider might require encrypted connections (which you should use wherever possible). For that there's the advanced settings dialog.
- Connection
If your IMAP service provider supports encryption for client connections, you should take advantage of that. There are generally two implementations of encrypted connections. The most common one, even though it's against the IMAP RFC uses the port 993 for client connections. In this scheme, the connection is encrypted from the beginning, as the encryption is initialized before the actual IMAP traffic. 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.
Mailwatchprovides default settings for these setups, which are Use SSL/TLS on alternate port and Use SSL/TLS via STARTTLS respectively.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.
- Folders
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".
POP3, short for Post Office Protocol Version 3 , is another common type of remote mailboxes. 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.
- Mailbox Name
A descriptive name for the mailbox. The name entered here will appear on the
Mailwatchicon tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail. This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.- POP3 Server
Mail server - Hostname of the POP3 server.
Username - Username to authenticate with.
Password - Password to use in authentication.
- Interval
Defines how often
Mailwatchaccesses 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.
- Connection
By default, due common practice,
Mailwatchattempts to access the mailbox without encrypting the traffic between the local host and the mail server. For those, whose service provider supports encrypted connections,Mailwatchsupports two different methods of encryption. First one, quite commonly used, is to use an alternate port (default: 995) for encrypted connections. This way, the connection is encrypted from the beginning. The setting to choose from the dropdown list is Use SSL/TLS on alternate port for this method. The other, that uses the default POP3 port 110 and takes advantage of the STARTTLS method of the protocol, is chosen with Use SSL/TLS via STARTTLS. If your service provider requires a port that is different of the defaults provided, you may define it by checking the Use non-standard POP3 port checkbox, and typing in the correct port number.
Mailwatch can also watch your GMail mailbox. Mailwatch does this securely by using HTTPS and GMail's RSS feed.
- GMail Server
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).
- Mailbox Name
A descriptive name for the mailbox. The name entered here will appear on the
Mailwatchicon tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail. This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.- Maildir Path
The toplevel directory of your Maildir. (Note: This is the main mail folder, not any of the three subdirectories.)
- Interval
Defines how often
Mailwatchchecks 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.
- Mailbox Name
A descriptive name for the mailbox. The name entered here will appear on the
Mailwatchicon tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail. This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.- Mbox Filename
The location of your Mbox file (often
/var/mail/$USER).- Interval
Defines how often
Mailwatchchecks 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, Mailwatch reads your
$HOME/.mh_profile for its
configuration, so there are no actual settings specific to MH
mailboxes.
- Mailbox Name
A descriptive name for the mailbox. The name entered here will appear on the
Mailwatchicon tooltip, which indicates mailboxes that have new mail. This setting is required, regardless of the mailbox type.- Interval
Defines how often
Mailwatchchecks 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.