Older blog entries for clarkbw (starting at number 203)

Thunderbird Conversations

Jonathan Protzenko, who worked with us over the summer, released Thunderbird Conversations the other day.

If you haven’t tried it out already you really should. We’ve been demoing it on the road for quite a while and I’ve been using it as my main way to interact with Thunderbird for weeks now.

Check out the TB Conversations Video for how it works.

Note: Thunderbird 3.3 is required for Thunderbird Conversations

See the Thunderbird Conversations post on the Mozilla Labs site for all the details.

Syndicated 2010-12-09 00:48:40 from Bryan Clark

Vancouver Go-Kart Spring GT

This Thursday at 11am PST will mark the beginning the the Spring GT race season in Vancouver. Mozilla Vancouver is set to take on a number of other local companies like Nitobi, mainsocial, KRANKY cafe, and others in several rounds of go-kart racing.

If you’re in the Vancouver, BC area and want to participate just ping @clarkbw or show up at the Richmond Go Kart Track; we have an open reservation. We have local cafes, tech shops, and individuals racing; you’ll fit right in. If you can’t make this weeks race, don’t worry; we’ll be scheduling other (weekly) races on different days and times to make sure everyone can at least participate in a few races.

This is an outdoor track, so dress appropriately. Oh yeah, and neither I nor my employer assume any responsibility for your ass during this activity.

Syndicated 2010-05-10 23:56:23 from Bryan Clark

Gathering Facebook Identities from Email

Looking at the announcement of the Facebook Graph API from Facebook F8 it seems like it will be a little easier to work with the Facebook system.

In Raindrop we already have some integration with Facebook in order to identify emails coming from the Facebook system and help you filter them out. But there is a lot more that can be done to help keep your email, Facebook, and other contacts in a cohesive form.

So here’s a quick code example written in Python to grab Facebook identities from emails sent by Facebook. This could be used to gather Facebook identities and then possibly merge those with twitter and email contacts.

First we need to import a couple things.

import email, json, urllib2

Then we’ll need to grab an email message.  I used Thunderbird to save a Facebook notification email message as an EML file locally, I called that file ‘facebook.eml’ as you can see below.

msg = email.message_from_file(open('facebook.eml'))

Now we have a parsed email message msg object and we want to look for the X-Facebook-Notify header in the email so we can extract what happened.

fb_notifiy = [tuple(t.strip().split("=")) for t in \
              msg.get('X-Facebook-Notify').split(";")]

The object fb_notify contains tuples of information about the type of notification.  Here is an example of an object you might see.

[('event_wall',),
 ('eid', '14102494623'),
 ('from', '21602578'),
 ('mailid', '12bf28cG149a112G63016bG21') ]

Using fb_notify we’ll do a really simple grab of the from attribute because that is what is going to be publicly available from the Facebook Graph.

from_identity = json.load(urllib2.urlopen("http://graph.facebook.com/%s" % fb_notify[2][1]))

Here’s an example from_identity object:

{u'first_name': u'Bryan',
 u'last_name': u'Clark',
 u'id': u'21602578',
 u'name': u'Bryan Clark' }

The from_identity can be used to more clearly identify who Facebook is sending this notification on behalf of and we could try merging this Facebook identity with other identities we already have in our contacts.

I saved all this code into this gist if you want to take a look at it in code only form with syntax highlighting.

Syndicated 2010-04-21 18:58:12 from Bryan Clark

Quick Filtering in Thunderbird

Today we’ve released a new add-on the Mozilla Messaging team has been working on for a little while, the Quick Filter.  A new single folder search and filter system that will work alongside our previously released Thunderbird global search.

The Quick Filter add-on is reminiscent of the old quick search system of Thunderbird 2.0  but we’ve improved it in a number of areas.  Here’s how it’s changed from the 2.0 days:

Search Message Types

Unread, Starred, Contact, Tags, Attachments are all types of searches you can toggle to turn on.

A Tag search presents the array of possible tags to help you filter down even more.

Filter Results Count

If your search returns a lot of results we let you know the search bar will let you know how many messages match.

And if even if the search query is too strict and there are no results the Quick Filter will display this inline.

Better Search Type Options

The old quick search tended confuse people because the search type settings were hidden in this popup menu:

In the new Quick Filter we’ve brought those options out every time you focus on the search entry so you always know what kind of search you are performing.

Space Saving Options

Last but not least we’ve worked hard to make sure that if you are using the Quick Filter on a smaller screen it converts down to icons only mode automatically.

Note for Techies: This change was made possible by the CSS  @media rule

Try it out!

You’ll need to be running Thunderbird 3 and then from the Add-on Manager (Tools -> Add-on)  search for “quick filter”.

Give Feedback!

We’re looking for feedback before this lands in Thunderbird as a core feature so any praise and/or comments you have would be greatly appreciated.  Leave your comments in the Quick Filter add-on reviews.

Something you might have already noticed is that this is a separate toolbar just for quick filtering but you can show or hide it as you need it.  Try out the keyboard shortcut and see how it feels.

Thanks for taking a look!

Syndicated 2010-04-03 02:46:55 from Bryan Clark

Try other web apps in Thunderbird tabs

Colin Dean converted the code from my post on Google Calendar in Thunderbird tabs and created a GMail tab for Thunderbird.

If you’re interested in trying what a web application would look like running inside a Thunderbird tab without modifying an extension use the following code snippet.

Open the Error Console from the Tools Menu

tools-error-console

Copy & Paste this code into the input entry at the top:

Components.classes['@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1']
          .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator)
          .getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane")
          .document.getElementById("tabmail")
          .openTab("contentTab",{contentPage:"http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z"})

Change the provided link ( http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z ) at the end to the web application you’d like to try, like http://twitter.com for example.  Click the ( Evaluate ) button.

error-console

It’s Party Time! ( if you didn’t change the link,  http://tinyvid.tv/show/2h9led44g152z )

its-party-time-in-a-thunderbird-tab

You can continue to iterate the tab application by creating a new click handler, however at that point it might be worthwhile to start with the extension code instead of working in the error console.

Jetpack for Thunderbird

In the hopefully not too distant future Thunderbird will gain Jetpack as it’s new extension model and it will be no longer necessary for add-ons like this these be created but instead a simple Jetpack which can do the same things without restarts or complicated installs.

If you’re interested in this take a look at Andrew’s recent Jetpack in Thunderbird post.

Above code snippet courtesy of Magnus in bug 519041

Syndicated 2009-11-25 22:30:50 from Bryan Clark

Google Calendar in Thunderbird tabs

If you’re a Google Calendar user like myself you might want to check out this really simple add-on for Thunderbird, which should be available as an official add-on for the coming Thunderbird 3 release.

The Google Calendar Tab

As simple as it sounds, this adds the Google Calendar web interface as a new tab directly into Thunderbird.  Creating and viewing events works just as it would in a browser like Firefox. :)

Google Calendar Tab

If your calendar is setup to show popup alerts you’ll continue to see them from the calendar tab while in other, mail, tabs.

Here’s my family Pinochle game reminder alert showing.

Google Calendar Alerts

There is no official release of this extension yet, however you could grab the latest XPI, download and install it into the latest (at least rc1) Shredder release.

More Extensions

It’s easy to get started integrating a web application like Twitter, Remember the Milk, and other sites into Thunderbird.  Once you get the initial pieces you can start working on better integration into your email conversations.

If you’re interested in creating an extension similar to this one, here are a couple links you probably want to check out:

Lightning

This calendar extension only handles a single url for Google Calendar.  If you’re looking for actual calendar integration with different calendars, including google calendar, you’ll want to check out the Lightning Calendar extension which also runs inside Thunderbird tabs.

Syndicated 2009-11-24 00:49:43 from Bryan Clark

Raindrop & Jetpack

The other day I did a quick hack using Raindrop & Jetpack to get new mail notifications from Raindrop.  In total it took me less than an hour.  It’s no Joe Shaw hack, so I don’t expect to get in the paper for this but I figured I’d share anyway. :)

This Jetpack checks Raindrop to see if there are new messages and bubbles them up as notifications if there are.  Here’s the source code:

var messages = {}; 

function checkMail() {
 var api="http://localhost:5984/raindrop/_api/inflow/conversations/home?limit=10";
 jQuery.getJSON(api,
               function(data, textStatus){
                 jQuery.each(data, function(i,item){
                   if (item.unread) {
                     if (!messages[item.id] || messages[item.id] != item.messages.length) {
                       var n={title: item.subject,
                              body : item.messages[0].schemas["rd.msg.body"]["body_preview"],
                              icon : 'http://localhost:5984/raindrop/inflow/i/logo.png'};
                       jetpack.notifications.show(n);
                     }
                     messages[item.id] = item.messages.length;
                   }
               });
 });
}
setInterval(checkMail, 10000);

To try this out you’ll need Raindrop installed and running and Jetpack installed in Firefox.

Go to about:jetpack and copy the above code into the Develop tab, then click the try out this code link just below the Bespin editor.

If you don’t want to do all that you can just watch the video below (no sound, so you might want to play some music)


View on Vimeo.

Syndicated 2009-11-21 01:25:32 from Bryan Clark

Raindrop

Raindrop Shadow Logo

Today Mozilla Messaging released the Raindrop project

Raindrop is an experiment in the design of a new messaging platform in the open.

What I like most about Raindrop is our process.  We started with some simple designs, created a couple iterations and now we’ve opened up the whole process to share.  This isn’t another email client or a twitter client, we have been designing for the way people communicate on the web today.  And we’re looking to make it awesome.

If you’re a developer or just have lots of patience you could grab the source code, follow the instructions and get raindrop up and running.  But that’s not what we’re launching, we’re launching the next version, the one that we design and develop in the open.  Read that again, there is no download. :)

Design

Starting today, new raindrop designs will be uploaded into the Raindrop Design flickr group for discussion and review.  As designs are ready to be implemented we’ll be blogging about them in the Raindrop Design Blog.

Develop

Discussion of code and extension development takes place on the Raindrop Development Google Group.  We’re currently built on CouchDB, Python, and JavaScript(if you’re trying to get raindrop up and running make sure you read the INSTALL doc carefully)

Extend

From the ground up Raindrop was built as a set of extensions on top of extensions.  This architecture was a design choice so that others could easily continue extend on top of our work.

There are places to add Data Miners which can search messages for regular expressions and User Interface Extensions which can modify the layout and design of messages presented.

Check out James’ video on Raindrop Software Components for more on the extensions system.

Syndicated 2009-10-22 21:28:56 from Bryan Clark

Cubed Mail

Lately I’ve been working a lot on the Thunderbird add-ons developers user experience.  Often times designers don’t get to work on developer experiences because developers tend to do those pieces themselves without much design.  With a lot of others I’ve spent a good amount of time working on the whole experience of development, docs, and extension types so hopefully the Thunderbird 3 add-on developer experience will be significantly better.

To get into the user experience of an add-on developer I recently made a Jetpack, Bugzilla Air Traffic Control, to examine what it is like to develop inside Jetpack.  I’ve also been creating a number of example extensions that take advantage of the new code that has landed in Thunderbird recently and learn the pitfalls of extension development.

So in honor of the hacks.mozilla.org recent article called 3D transforms in Firefox 3.5 – the isocube I added a similar hack to my tabbed message example extension.  I give you…

Cubed Email Messages

messages-in-a-cube

To demonstrate the awesome interactiveness that I didn’t add to my email extension I also have a pure HTML demo available.   Try out the email cube test demo for yourself.  This demo requires Firefox 3.5, go get it if you don’t have it.

If you’re asking “why email in a cube,?” then I’ll ask you why not?  This demo reminds me that Thunderbird has all the same Firefox goodness that’s coming out in 3.5 but we have yet to take advantage of much of it.  Hopefully as we make more progress in the coming months we’ll do just that.

And if you’re asking yourself… Is this what Bryan gets paid to do?  Well then we’re asking ourselves the same question; though I don’t think I’m referring to myself in the third person.

Syndicated 2009-06-18 23:59:17 from Bryan Clark

The pattern is not full

This past Friday I made my first Jetpack and on Sunday while lazily waiting for chores to finish themselves I posted my Jetpack on userscripts.org.

Bugzilla - Air Traffic Control

For Jetpackers a mid-air collision is an especially scary thing.

Mid-air collision!

So this Jetpack does a pretty simple thing to help you avoid the mid-air collision by notifying you before it’s about to happen.

Mid-air collision warning

For every tab you have with a bug open this Jetpack does a simple check in the background to see if someone else has modified the bug while you were looking at it.

Code

The code for this is pretty simple and in total it probably took me only an hour to get up and running and then a bunch more time polishing things off.  Here’s the break down.

I have a simple regex to find urls that are showing a bug:

var show_bug_regex = /^https:\/\/bugzilla\.mozilla\.org\/show_bug\.cgi\?id=(\d+)/;

Then I check if the url matches whenever a new page is loaded in a tab:

jetpack.tabs.onReady(function(doc) {
  // here we setup our persistent check
  var match = this.url.match(show_bug_regex);
  if (match) {
    init(this);
    this.bug_id = match[1];
    startCheckingTab(this);
  }
});

Also for good measure I do a similar check when a tab is focused, in case the Jetpack wasn’t installed or running during the original load.

jetpack.tabs.onFocus(function() {
  // here we just double check out status
  var match = this.url.match(show_bug_regex);
  if (match) {

    /* if we've already notified then we aren't checking anymore */
    if ( alreadyNotifiedTab(this) )
      return;

    if ( ! areCheckingTab(this) ) {
      // they focused a url match that we haven't been checking!
      init(this);
      this.bug_id = match[1];
      startCheckingTab(this);
    } else {
      resetCheckingTabInterval(this);
    }
  }
});

The start checking function simply runs an ajax request against the bug on an interval.  All that was needed for this was to know if the bug had changed from the last time we looked so we build a url that only retrieves the delta_ts field to create a Date object.

"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=" + bug_id +  "&ctype=xml&field=delta_ts";

That’s about it.  If you want to check out the source or install it yourself you can go to the Bugzilla - Air Traffic Control page at userscripts.

Syndicated 2009-06-08 15:47:50 from Bryan Clark

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