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nsxpower · Jun 18, 2004, 07:42 AM

Gtray is a Windows utility that sits in the system tray and periodically checks whether you received new e-mail. Would it be possible to have similar functionality coded as a menu extra? If so, is anyone working on this?

http://torrez.us/archives/2004/05/23/000272.html <- Link to Gtray

Arkham_c · Jun 18, 2004, 09:49 AM

I suspect that there will be once more people get GMail accounts. How do so many people have them anyway when it's still in beta?

nsxpower · Jun 18, 2004, 09:54 AM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
I suspect that there will be once more people get GMail accounts. How do so many people have them anyway when it's still in beta?

There are a log of invites to go around, especially lately since Google has been giving them out left and right. I certainly hope something similar is available for Macs. On Windows there are already a variety of tools for notification and downloading of e-mail from Gmail.

Wevah · Jun 18, 2004, 01:34 PM

I though about writing one...I just wish I wasn't so lazy. Part of the reason is that I don't really want to figure out the connection process myself (though I guess I won't know how hard I'll find it until I try, eh?),

itai195 · Jun 18, 2004, 02:38 PM

Maybe I'll look into it this weekend, but don't expect much

If any other developer wants to give it a shot, PM me your e-mail address and I can send you an invite to Gmail.

nsxpower · Jun 18, 2004, 02:54 PM

Dominyo · Jun 18, 2004, 08:27 PM

I'd love to see something like this too, but don't have enough time to work on it myself. If anyone wants to try this and needs a Gmail account, feel free to email me at [email protected]

natan · Jun 18, 2004, 10:15 PM

I've been working on this for about a week now. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have something to release.

Wevah · Jun 19, 2004, 06:57 AM

Beaten to the punch. Do you have screenshots? And will it be open-source (not that it's a huge deal)?

natan · Jun 19, 2004, 04:44 PM

Originally posted by Wevah:
Beaten to the punch. Do you have screenshots? And will it be open-source (not that it's a huge deal)?

No screenshots yet, I'm still working on the scripts to simulate a login and extract the new mail count (this is by far the most difficult part of writing the whole app).

Yeah, if I get it working I'll probably release the source.

Ghoser777 · Jun 20, 2004, 12:27 AM

Expect a cease and desist order once you make such an app. I got one for writing such a menu extra for Google News:

http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenba/gn/gn.html

Matt Fahrenbacher

Angus_D · Jun 20, 2004, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Expect a cease and desist order once you make such an app. I got one for writing such a menu extra for Google News:

http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenba/gn/gn.html

Matt Fahrenbacher

The lessons here:[list=1][*] Don't call it something with Google in its name.[*] Disclaim all responsibility for its use.[*] Don't charge for it.[/list=1]

natan · Jun 20, 2004, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
The lessons here:[list=1][*] Don't call it something with Google in its name.[*] Disclaim all responsibility for its use.[*] Don't charge for it.[/list=1]

Thanks for the tips, I hadn't thought of these issues at all. So do you think the following is okay?

1. I'll call it gCount or something like that, Google won't be mentioned in the name, the description, or any of the documentation. The only time google will be mentioned is in fetching the url to scrape the info.

Description: "gCount is a menubar item that will check your new email count in the inbox of a recently popular email service."

2. When first launching, it will display a dialog disclaming all responsibility for it's use, and it will ask the user how often email should be checked.

3. It will be free, and open source (what license, if any, should I use?).

If I do all the above, do you think I'm in the clear?

Angus_D · Jun 20, 2004, 05:30 PM

Originally posted by natan:
If I do all the above, do you think I'm in the clear?

I don't see why not, but then again IANAL.

Stradlater · Jun 20, 2004, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by natan:
If I do all the above, do you think I'm in the clear?

I would think so...none of the things mentioned in Google's cease&desist would be violated. Can't wait for it to be released!

Wevah · Jun 20, 2004, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by natan:
...I'm still working on the scripts to simulate a login and extract the new mail count (this is by far the most difficult part of writing the whole app).

That's just the part I didn't want to futz around with myself; I'd rather spend that time on other stuff I'm working on.

natan · Jun 20, 2004, 09:41 PM

Here we go! gCount v0.1 is available at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~natan/gCount01.dmg.gz

Comments are welcome, but keep in mind I spent about a full day working on this, and wanted to release a quick stripped down version just to get something out. Enjoy

I'll work out all the bugs and polish later, and release the source later when I'm not embarrassed.

zachs · Jun 20, 2004, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by natan:
Here we go! gCount v0.1 is available at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~natan/gCount01.dmg.gz

Comments are welcome, but keep in mind I spent about a full day working on this, and wanted to release a quick stripped down version just to get something out. Enjoy

I'll work out all the bugs and polish later, and release the source later when I'm not embarrassed.

Hmmm...when I double-click, nothing happens.

Edit: Oh, re-build and set the mode to "Deployment."

natan · Jun 20, 2004, 11:29 PM

Fixed! Sorry about that =P

afphreak01 · Jun 20, 2004, 11:55 PM

works great so far

would like to see this stay nice and simple not bloated up though...

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 12:10 AM

Originally posted by afphreak01:
works great so far would like to see this stay nice and simple not bloated up though...

I agree, bloated apps bother me. What features would you like to see added?

The current to-do list is:
� Fix Update Message Interval changing kluge (needing to quit to have it take effect).
� Adding an icon mode, instead of the current counter mode. (grey logo when no new mail, color icon when new mail, something like that)
� Secure storage of login/password.
� Multiple accounts? Maybe, depending if people want it or not.
� Setup a small product website.
� Clean up the code, (pick a license?) release the source.
� Depending on whether people want it - an option to play a sound when there is new mail (I know a lot of people that use this feature in other mail clients).

What do you guys think?

afphreak01 · Jun 21, 2004, 01:16 AM

i'd like to see the menu icon customizable(for us gui modding folk)...
and maybe a menu option to load the compose message page

iOliverC · Jun 21, 2004, 03:02 AM

Originally posted by natan:
I agree, bloated apps bother me. What features would you like to see added?

The current to-do list is:
� Fix Update Message Interval changing kluge (needing to quit to have it take effect).
� Adding an icon mode, instead of the current counter mode. (grey logo when no new mail, color icon when new mail, something like that)
� Secure storage of login/password.
� Multiple accounts? Maybe, depending if people want it or not.
� Setup a small product website.
� Clean up the code, (pick a license?) release the source.
� Depending on whether people want it - an option to play a sound when there is new mail (I know a lot of people that use this feature in other mail clients).

What do you guys think?

Sounds awesome, I would like a sound when a message appears also. Good work

nsxpower · Jun 21, 2004, 07:01 AM

Ah, this is awsome ... the power of suggestion

iOliverC · Jun 21, 2004, 10:01 AM

Ooh, also it should check if there is an active internet connect.

zachs · Jun 21, 2004, 12:02 PM

For the icon mode, maybe also put the count in the menu, so you could check how many messages without opening your inbox.

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 12:36 PM

Originally posted by zachs:
For the icon mode, maybe also put the count in the menu, so you could check how many messages without opening your inbox.

Thanks for the suggestion; I was thinking about something along those lines. I think I'll also have two inactive menubar items at the top, "Next Update in 2 Minutes", "Unread: 5, Total: 203."

However, that might be too much information. What do you think?

afphreak01 · Jun 21, 2004, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by natan:
Thanks for the suggestion; I was thinking about something along those lines. I think I'll also have two inactive menubar items at the top, "Next Update in 2 Minutes", "Unread: 5, Total: 203."

However, that might be too much information. What do you think?

sounds good, but maybe just list "Unread:5" since later on down the road, i'm planning on filling up that 1 gig... dont really need it to say "Unread: 10; Total: 9485"

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 12:50 PM

Originally posted by afphreak01:
sounds good, but maybe just list "Unread:5" since later on down the road, i'm planning on filling up that 1 gig... dont really need it to say "Unread: 10; Total: 9485"

True, true. Do you think it would be cool to display how many megs you're using up?

iOliverC · Jun 21, 2004, 02:22 PM

Originally posted by natan:
True, true. Do you think it would be cool to display how many megs you're using up?

Couldn't you have a small panel appear when you click on the icon full of stats in a NSTableView?

Also, can there be a compose menu item too :-).

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by iOliverC:
Couldn't you have a small panel appear when you click on the icon full of stats in a NSTableView?

Also, can there be a compose menu item too :-).

I could have a NSTableView panel come up, but I don't want it to come up by just clicking on the icon. That'll mess up the expected menubar usage, I think. An alternative is to have a separate stats panel that you would bring up by clicking on a menu item, but I don't know how important it is. I just thought it might be nice to have the two or three stats (unread messages, total message count, megabyte usage) as greyed out items in the menubar. What do you think?

Compose menu item has already been requested and will be in v0.2.

afphreak01 · Jun 21, 2004, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by natan:
I could have a NSTableView panel come up, but I don't want it to come up by just clicking on the icon. That'll mess up the expected menubar usage, I think. An alternative is to have a separate stats panel that you would bring up by clicking on a menu item, but I don't know how important it is. I just thought it might be nice to have the two or three stats (unread messages, total message count, megabyte usage) as greyed out items in the menubar. What do you think?

you could have them setup as options... like some people would want only unread messages, others would want to list how fill their gmail is, ans so forth...

Compose menu item has already been requested and will be in v0.2.

nsxpower · Jun 21, 2004, 02:57 PM

Clear count/notification when "Open Inbox in Browser" is clicked, Compose, keychain for username/password storage, icon mode and a notification sound would be awesome.

Total number of messages, Mb used and "next update in ..." are hardly relevant pieces of information, but I could be wrong. Total number of messages is just a vanity item. Gmail is not hotmail, so people shouldn't care how many Mb they are using. If you are desperate to update, just clock update now ... . Extra code, time and bulk that will be of little use IMHO.

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by nsxpower:
Clear count/notification when "Open Inbox in Browser" is clicked, Compose, keychain for username/password storage, icon mode and a notification sound would be awesome.

Total number of messages, Mb used and "next update in ..." are hardly relevant pieces of information, but I could be wrong. Total number of messages is just a vanity item. Gmail is not hotmail, so people shouldn't care how many Mb they are using. If you are desperate to update, just clock update now ... . Extra code, time and bulk that will be of little use IMHO.

I thought about clearing count when "Open Inbox in Browser" is clicked, but there's sort of a problem with that; the new count is only decremented when you actually view the emails, not the inbox. So theoretically, you could just view a few of them, and still have new ones left over. So I'm not exactly sure what to do about that. I was thinking possibly that after the item is clicked, that a few updates are forced in the minutes afterwards, but that's sort of strange as well.

Keychain should come with v0.2, a friend of mine offered to help out with that part.

Notification sound and compose will definitely come with v0.2, since they're pretty easy to do

I agree that those stats are sort of irrelevant, but geeks like stats and numbers and that sort of stuff. I'll make it an option, and it will by off by default. How about that?

Thanks for your input!

JayTay · Jun 21, 2004, 03:43 PM

Hmmm, just downloaded and although I've read everything in my inbox gCount is showing 2 unread.

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 04:05 PM

Originally posted by JayTay:
Hmmm, just downloaded and although I've read everything in my inbox gCount is showing 2 unread.

The count includes unread messages that are not in the inbox (like labelled messages). That's probably (hopefully) what you're seeing, and I'm thinking of making a preference to not count these messages since it's confusing.

nsxpower · Jun 21, 2004, 04:26 PM

Originally posted by natan:
I thought about clearing count when "Open Inbox in Browser" is clicked, but there's sort of a problem with that; the new count is only decremented when you actually view the emails, not the inbox. So theoretically, you could just view a few of them, and still have new ones left over. So I'm not exactly sure what to do about that. I was thinking possibly that after the item is clicked, that a few updates are forced in the minutes afterwards, but that's sort of strange as well.

Keychain should come with v0.2, a friend of mine offered to help out with that part.

Notification sound and compose will definitely come with v0.2, since they're pretty easy to do

I agree that those stats are sort of irrelevant, but geeks like stats and numbers and that sort of stuff. I'll make it an option, and it will by off by default. How about that?

Thanks for your input!

Hehe, geeks love stats ... GUI people will want themes ... you see where I'm going with this

Thanks for making this!

afphreak01 · Jun 21, 2004, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by nsxpower:
Hehe, geeks love stats ... GUI people will want themes ... you see where I'm going with this

Thanks for making this!

i'm both

but really, the GUI folk dont really need themes if this is gonna stay as a menu extra, you can have the menu icon as a .icns in the app that we can edit to our hearts content

and yes, thanks bunches natan!

JayTay · Jun 21, 2004, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by natan:
The count includes unread messages that are not in the inbox (like labelled messages). That's probably (hopefully) what you're seeing, and I'm thinking of making a preference to not count these messages since it's confusing.

Indeed it is, phew, I was worried I'd lost a couple of messages somewhere.

natan · Jun 21, 2004, 06:53 PM

Originally posted by JayTay:
Indeed it is, phew, I was worried I'd lost a couple of messages somewhere.

Yeah the first time it happened to me it was a strange feeling. Do you think that we should count those messages by default or not? I'm mixed on it.

zachs · Jun 21, 2004, 07:01 PM

Originally posted by natan:
Yeah the first time it happened to me it was a strange feeling. Do you think that we should count those messages by default or not? I'm mixed on it.

Maybe make it so that the first time you launch it, the Preferences window opens. That way, people will know what they can change.

afphreak01 · Jun 22, 2004, 04:43 PM

hey natan,
i got a little bored today, so i made an icon for gCount to show how much i appreciate you write this program

(and cause it just has the default app icon anyways

)

[clicky clicky]

use it if you want, i'm going to

P.S. this is the first icon i've ever made for mac, hope i did it right

natan · Jun 22, 2004, 06:53 PM

Originally posted by afphreak01:
hey natan,
i got a little bored today, so i made an icon for gCount to show how much i appreciate you write this program (and cause it just has the default app icon anyways )

[clicky clicky]

use it if you want, i'm going to

P.S. this is the first icon i've ever made for mac, hope i did it right

Cool man, thanks.

Your icon will be one of the new features of v0.2.

afphreak01 · Jun 22, 2004, 09:08 PM

if you want a project site done also, i'm willing to do that, most of my skills involve php programming and site layouts

natan · Jun 23, 2004, 03:46 AM

v0.2 is released.

Check it out here: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15238

I think I'll work a little harder on v0.3, which means I'll try to have it out by the end of the weekend. Hopefully, it will include secure login storage, timer bug fix, sound notification... and maybe icon menubar mode.

Stradlater · Jun 23, 2004, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by natan:
v0.2 is released.

Check it out here: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15238

I think I'll work a little harder on v0.3, which means I'll try to have it out by the end of the weekend. Hopefully, it will include secure login storage, timer bug fix, sound notification... and maybe icon menubar mode.

I'd avoid having that capital G in the icon. Otherwise, cheers and thanks!

natan · Jun 23, 2004, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by Stradlater:
I'd avoid having that capital G in the icon. Otherwise, cheers and thanks!

I was a little worried about that too. I think I'll modify it for 0.3, and hoepfully they won't yell at me before then. What would you put there instead of the G, or would you just remove the G altogether?

Still, it's not as bad as GTray's icon though, see it at http://torrez.us/archives/2004/05/23/gtray-balloon.png

natan · Jun 23, 2004, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by natan:
Secure login storage, timer bug fix, sound notification, multiple accoutns, icon menubar mode.

Of these features, which are most important to you guys?

Wevah · 02:18 PM

GTray's icon is just the Google favicon, so it kind of makes sense.

I think I'll download this and check it out myself after I run an errand!

Edit: I guess not, as it's 10.3-only.

Stradlater · Jun 23, 2004, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by natan:
I was a little worried about that too. I think I'll modify it for 0.3, and hoepfully they won't yell at me before then. What would you put there instead of the G, or would you just remove the G altogether?

Still, it's not as bad as GTray's icon though, see it at http://torrez.us/archives/2004/05/23/gtray-balloon.png

I've seen people use a lowercase "g" with very similar formatting (to Google's capital "G") to good effect. This would make sense for an app called gCount.

(...probably took it from the main logo--the second g)