All i wanted was a simple biff program for the dock, just a little, unobstrusive, audio/visual "new mail" signal, so that i wouldn't keep popping open my mutt window every N minutes (bad discipline). No such luck and too lazy to write something myself (and afraid of SOMEHOW managing to screw something up and lose mail). Here's what i ended up doing.
Read the rest of the article for the how-to. This hint assumes you have mutt and esound installed ... check out fink first if you don't...
[Editor's note: This tip also assumes the Dev Tools are installed and you have some knowledge of compiling UNIX software. I have not tried it myself, since I'm pretty happy with Mail.app]
Instructions:
Read the rest of the article for the how-to. This hint assumes you have mutt and esound installed ... check out fink first if you don't...
[Editor's note: This tip also assumes the Dev Tools are installed and you have some knowledge of compiling UNIX software. I have not tried it myself, since I'm pretty happy with Mail.app]
Instructions:
- Configured mutt so that it had a very visible color for new messages in the index, bright yellow or something... this way you can see it in the Dock:
color index brightred default "~N"
- Downloaded and compiled netbiff (maybe this should be a fink package)
- Configured netbiff to play a sound in my home directory (it's actually just a copy of Submarine.aiff from System -> Library -> Sounds). If i change my mind, i'll just copy over it without bothering to change my config:
action "mybeep" "esdplay ${HOME}/Library/Sounds/BiffSound.aiff >& /dev/null"
connection
name "my mail"
command "/homemade/bin/netbiffd"
update "mybeep"
folder "/mail/me"
endconnection - Made a mutt script to 1) run mutt with colours 2) launch netbiff (if not already running). The reason i chose to run it with mutt is because i couldn't figure out how to get something to run only whenever i logged into my mac (ended up creating a .command file and putting it in my login System Preferences thingy, but that gave me a Terminal window to shut, which annoyed me). I always have mutt running anyway):
#!/bin/tcsh
Threw in a bits from a title bar hint for free ... oooh.
# detect if netbiff has already been launched
set HASBIFF=`ps`
set HASBIFF2=`echo ${HASBIFF} | grep netbiff`
# launch netbiff if neccesary
if ( "${HASBIFF2}" == "") then
echo "starting netbiff"
netbiff 2> /dev/null &
else
echo "biff already there"
endif
# set the title bar to say "mutt"
#settitle ${HOST} mutt
# launch mutt, passing arguments
setenv TERM xterm-color
mutt $*
# set the title bar back to normal
#cwdcmd
- aliased mutt to my callMutt script
- went away and hoped i would never be wasting my time on such trivialities again instead of doing real work
•
[7,163 views]

