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The Unread needs the Finder running
The Unread has one disadvantage: it starts up the Finder when polling Mail.
So it's probably only suitable for those who work with the Apple default Finder anyway (probably the vast majority). For me, it breaks my Path Finder desktop setup. Otherwise very useful!
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The Unread needs the Finder running
I'm the person who wrote The Unread.
The problem you note is known to me but I haven't yet found a way around it. The thing is, The Unread uses AppleScript to communicate with Mail and there is one very important little AppleScript call that I use to test whether Mail is running before asking it (Mail) for info. Basically it goes: tell application "Finder" if (get name of every process) contains "Mail" then tell application "Mail" -- do stuff end tell else --Mail isn't running, don't do anything end if end tell The "tell application "Finder"" bit is what launches Finder if it is not running but I haven't found a way to test whether Mail is running (and not launching it if it isn't) without using this statement. If I omit it, it works fine but Mail is launched when whenever The Unread checks for unread messages. I weighed the pros and cons of both situations and decided that, for now, it's better the way it is. I don't know, though, maybe Path Finder has a similar AppleScript call that I could use if the user indicated they use it rather than Finder... Still, I'd get email from people saying that The Unread launches Mail unwantedly (is that a word?) though they don't use Path Finder - they just quit the Finder for some reason or another... Comments and/or suggestions are more than welcome (peterATschartworksDOTcom).
The Unread needs the Finder running
i'm not sure what "the unread" is written in, but can you make a unix system call to, for example, 'ps ax' and grep that for "Mail"? it would be trivial to do in perl, but i'm not sure how you've implemented "the unread."
The Unread needs the Finder running
I'm not sure how to handle the error trapping, but it's pretty trivial to use the shell via AppleScript; this one liner will return the info on Mail if it's running. If it's not running, it throws a Type 1 error:
I'm sure there are more elegant ways of handling this; the two "grep -v" commands are used to eliminate the actual grep command, as well as the shell process that AppleScript launches. I know very little about AppleScript, but it should be trivial to trap on the error (Mail not running) or the successful return (Mail is running), all without launching the Finder.
-rob.
The Unread needs the Finder running
Well, it uses a combination of AppleScript and Cocoa so I could use that fairly easily inside the AppleScript but I just got an email from somebody that told me the "(get name of every process)" call is passed on to System Events by the Finder so I can just bypass Finder and ask System Events. That should work fine. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
The Unread needs the Finder running
Sorry if this is offtopic. I love your suggestions and troubleshooting on this issue. I'ved learned about a great app, the author gets involved in the discussion and others are flocking with resolutions -- this is what it means to be a mac user in today's age. 10 years ago I think it was more user-interface driven and how you can "trick-out" your UI... now it's about the developer and users coming together to solve problems. |
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