Migrating To OpenOffice.org

Microsoft Office 97 was the last version of the Office Suite from Microsoft that I ever used. Ever since I got hooked on to OpenOffice I have never felt the need/urge to go back to the dark side . I have been using OpenOffice for quite a few years now, and I have seen then evolve over the years into a robust and mature product. Of course they have had a lot of support from Sun Microsystems and a lot of other corporate sponsors, but there are huge amounts of contribution from a wide range of people donating their time to the cause of Free Software.

One of the most useful features I have always used in OpenOffice is the ability to “Export to PDF” right from the File menu, no complicated plugins, no fake printer drivers. Easy as.
Of course one of the only things I have missed over the years in OpenOffice is a credible replacement for Microsoft Access. Recently the OpenOffice Base application is touted as that replacement, but I have always had a LOT of trouble getting it to work [since beta days]. The Access replacement would definitely need to be “Office Killer” quality application, not the cursory equivalent.

I wish I had a LOT of time on hand to help out in the effort for an Access Replacement. I say LOT of time since I am pretty sure a LOT of time gets used up in defining standards and then implementing them, its definitely a LOT easier to create an Access Replacement in the Cathedral rather than the Bazaar.

If you feel like it and/or can afford it please consider contributing to OpenOffice.org. [Mention my name and you get a discount of 100% on the next free version of OpenOffice ]

Over the next few days I will write a bit about other Free Software Tools that I use. I must admit I am a fan, A HUGE FAN. I wish I could contribute, and I will, I suggest you try your best too.

Calling all localizers !

I have been in touch with a few people and requested help in translating/localizing the Send Later Extension

So far the response has been quite favorable, I am quite impressed. So if you are someone who is quite well versed in any non-English language, please get in touch with me and we can organize to get the strings in the extension localized. This would help a great deal in maintaining some sort of consistency in the look and feel of the user interface for non-English installations. [I realized this personally when I saw a screen shot of the extension running on a Chinese version of Thunderbird.

Send Later Update coming soon

Just to inform everybody that I am working on an update to the Send Later extension, the new version will have the following additional features/fixes:

• The dialog will have quick access buttons to choose 3 different quick time settings [configurable via options].
• The dialog options will also have the option to be a toolbar that you can view in the compose window, if you choose.
• The compatibility fix for co-existing with QuickQuote.
• Using a different mail sending backend to avoid sending all unsent messages.
• Minor user interface changes to accommodate above changes.

I will do my best to deliver this sometime this weekend, but dont hold your breath [seriously.. DON'T].

If you have any minor feature requests please let me know below in the comments.

New Mail Alert Configuration Extension Released

Last week I ranted about a new “feature” of Thunderbird 2.0, and now I have finally done something about it.

I wrote up an extension that will allow you to configure whether you want to see the new mail alert per account rather than a global enable / disable.

You can read more about it here. If you have any trouble using version 0.1.0 please let me know below and I will do my best to resolve problems.

The languishing state of Thunderbird

One thing I have learnt from developing the Send Later extension is this:

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s step child.

I don’t mean that derogatorily, its just that I think Firefox has recieved a LOT of media attention and a LOT of community support that the lack of similar enthusiasm for Thunderbird is just completely out of whack. I find that the documentation for the mailnews API (Thunderbird specific XPCOM etc) is just ‘not there’. Most of the documentation is just auto generated from IDL and does not have any pointers/descriptions. So I pop onto IRC for the #extdev channel and they are a pretty helpful bunch, except not many know anything about the mailnews API. They are the first to point out that its going to be hard to find someone with knowledge of Thunderbird. (I wonder what the state Lightning etc are ?).

Eventually I had to dig up a lot of Thunderbird’s source code [God Bless Open Source], as well as read obscure mailing lists, as well as look at other people’s code to figure out “What would Stewie do?”.

And there is more… When I started I enthusiastically created myself an account at addons.mozilla.org as a developer and submitted the Send Later Extension. Till date there has been not one review/discussion.. So its basically in limbo/sandbox world. I need to have reviews first before I can nominate the extension for inclusion into the main site after which someone is supposed to review it and then put it on the public side of things.. By the time that happens [given the state of affairs] I would have aged considerably. [I hate to think what would happen everytime there is a bug fix or feature enhancement release].

But all this come back to the same basic caveat, Thunderbird is just not mom’s darling child.

Note: This is not an attack on the Mozilla team, they have done an incredible job. But maybe some of those google dollars can be spent on Thunderbird too.. Oh wait.. You can’t search google from Thunderbird [YET]

The shout out

Earlier when I released version 1.1.5 of the Send Later extension for Thunderbird, I gave a big shout out to Miles from San Francisco. I really meant it. Here was a guy who was willing to put up with the rigors of Software Debugging on a platform that I [said developer] was just beginning to understand. He helped me a lot installing all of those point releases and capturing debug logs, scheduling emails and so on. But most importantly this experience gave me the pleasure of having helped a “community” of users. Any software developer worth his salt, develops for the pleasure, of seeing a user use / appreciate the product. On such occasions, the elation of having made somebody else’s day a little bit better is just great.

Miles wrote to me:

“Can’t wait to use it [the extension] and I know exactly where: I have a wholesale coffee company and I send and email msg out to my customers — restaurants, stores, etc on Friday advising them to order by Monday before 11 a.m. for the fresh coffee roast. So every Friday I must be at the computer at 7 a.m. to send the msg. Now, I can do it at my leisure on Thursday or whenever.”

And I am happy.
Note: I know everybody has their own usage scenario, I would love to hear from you. Oh, and not the usual ‘I was awake at this ungodly hour’ .

Send Later Extension Updated Once Again

Well as promised, the send later extension has been updated to fix the various bugs experienced by some users. The items that are now fixed are:

Send Later version 1.1.5
Changed - Account/Identity/Folder Enumeration is more sophisticated
Changed - The progress of a poll sequence is indicated by a progress bar instead of the low tech “—#–>”
Fixed - Handling of IMAP Draft Folders are now handled properly
Fixed - Crash of extension while polling
Fixed - Full CPU usage during the checking of Draft Folders with lots of unrelated drafts
Fixed - NNTP Accounts were considered to be mailboxes
Fixed - Multiple accounts with same mailbox URI were wrongly polled multiple times.
New - Sophisticated debugging features can be enabled if required

You can download here. If you are already using a previous version you should be able to update it from Thunderbird’s Tools -> Extensions / Addons [Right click and choose find update]… Or if you are lazy…. wait till Thunderbird does it automagically.

A Big Shout Out to Miles from SF/USA who stayed up VERY late on quite a few occasions to test and help me fix this.

Send Later is Download of the Day

One of my recent haunts online is the Lifehacker website. They have some interesting articles on nifty tricks / software utilities etc. So when I released the Send Later extension I wrote them an email. Adam Pash, their Senior Editor was kind enough to review the extension and chose it for their “Download of the Day”.

My sincere thanks go to Adam Pash and team. They are now on my Blogroll
Here is the article Download of the Day - Send Later Extension.
As a consequence of this increased exposure the pressure to release the newer version of the extension is higher ;-). My beta tests are at a frantic pace and hopefully I will do a release by tomorrow.

Problems with Send Later Extension

Some users of the Send Later extension have reported problems with functionality. Thanks to some help from Thomas and Miles, I think the problem is nearly narrowed down. This affects people using IMAP folders / [most probably remote Drafts]. I am looking into the problem and should have an update soon. Meanwhile, I would appreciate more feedback from users with IMAP accounts (I have used them and not been able to duplicate the exact problem seen by the others yet.). FYI: Both Thomas and Miles have seen a javascript error (from the error console) in background.js [Line 147].

Send Later Extension - Install Instructions

Apparently a couple of users have had trouble installing Send Later, and thats because of incomplete installation instructions on my behalf
The original page is now updated to include the following instructions:

Instructions for installing:
1. Right click on the link and choose “Save Link As…” or “Save Target As…”.
2. Choose a file path on your hard disk. [Desktop/Home folder is fine too].
3. In Thunderbird, goto Tools -> Extensions or Tools -> Add ons.
4. Choose Install, locate the the SL8TR.XPI file you saved in step 2.
5. Restart Thunderbird.
6. Sit back, relax and have a cuppa.

That last instruction is a MUST!!