Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Mac Mail vs Thunderbird

OK, so I upgraded to Snow Leopard. And that included an update to Mac Mail. Dunno, I can't see much different. What is different though is that this requires extensions to be updated. No big deal, except that my favorite extension, MailActOn, at the level of Snow Leopard, is now no longer free and is $24.95. I'm not against anybody making any money, and MailActOn is a really good extension. However, my use for MailActOn was to define keyboard shortcuts so I could file incoming messages into 4 folders. Hardly worth $24.95 for something that should be possible in Mac Mail to start with! Gargh!

I've been using Thunderbird on windows for a while and have been happy. I've been using keyconfig() to define keys to file my messages after I've read them. So, time to try this on the Mac instead of using Mac Mail.

First up, Add-ons. I found:
  • keyconfig
  • Lightning
  • Provider for Google Calendar
Keyconfig lets me configure keystrokes for filing my mail:

I define things like:
MsgMoveMessage(GetMsgFolderFromUri('imap://account@server.bu.edu/saved-messages'));
and then assign to a key. Let's me run through my inbox quickly and file messages to various folders. (Note that the Uri account@server *MUST* match the name in the Thunderbird profile. I'm an admin for some mail servers and they have at least 3 or 4 names that all work and end up at the same server. If I don't have the exact name that I used when setting up the account originally then it won't match the thunderbird profile and it will be ignored. To see the profile, look at http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Profiles. (You don't know how long it took me to figure that one out!))

The GUI on the Mac needs a bit of tweaking. For example, deleted messages don't look different visually - they just have a little gray circle with a line through next to them. Much better would be if the line was gray or had a line through it or something like that. Here's an article on how to change the GUI - http://eriwen.com/css/tweaking-thunderbirds-chrome/

Basically, create a folder "chrome" in your profiles folder and then create a file called userChrome.css with the following content:

/* set default namespace to XUL */
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

/* Change color of deleted messages */
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell(imapdeleted) {
background-color: #999999 !important;
}
treechildren:-moz-tree-cell-text(imapdeleted) {
color: #FFFFFF !important;
text-decoration: line-through !important;
}
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell(imapdeleted,selected) {
background-color: #333333 !important;
}
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell(imapdeleted,current) {
background-color: #666666 !important;
}
treechildren:-moz-tree-cell-text(imapdeleted,selected) {
color: #DDDDFF !important;
}
treechildren:-moz-tree-cell-text(imapdeleted,current) {
color: #DDDDFF !important;
}
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(imapdeleted, offline) {
background-color: #DDDDDD !important;
text-decoration: line-through !important;
}




So what am I missing?
  • Mac Mail has Quick Look which Thunderbird does not have. Evidently somebody is working on getting that working for Thunderbird - http://grbmozilla.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/gsoc2010-proposal-add-quicklook-support-in-thunderbird/
  • Mac Mail has good integration with iCal. Thunderbird integrates with google calendar (which I have integrated with iCal). But, I miss being able to click on dates in messages and create iCal events from them. And have the event in iCal tie back to the original message.

So what does Thunderbird do that Mac Mail can't?
  • Awesome extensibility.
  • "Filter these messages" is awesome. Can filter on various combinations of sender, recipient, subject. Can only do one of those for the search box for Mac Mail.
  • Way faster. Mac Mail sometimes can take ages to trawl through mailboxes. Thunderbird is really zippy.

What do they have in common that's a bit different?
  • Mac Mail's Smart Mailboxes is Thunderbird's "File->New->Saved Search..."

So far, I've been happy with the swap.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Stubbs BBQ


Stubbs BBQ, originally uploaded by nikconwell.

This BBQ sauce I haven't tried yet. I've used some dry rub spices by this guy. The awesome thing about it all is the quote "LADIES and GENTLEMEN, I'M a COOK". The guy sounds really BADASS! I can imagine him walking into some restaurant, the room goes quiet, and he stands up and proclaims "I'M A COOK, DANG IT!" I'd buy this guy's BBQ sauce any day of the week.