Previous and Next Buttons

Following on from my previous post about message queue handling in Thunderbird, further research has turned up some interesting facts. The issue is that Previous and Next buttons (available in a customized menu bar) change the focus, from the current message in the queue, to the previous/next unread message, rather than to an immediately adjacent message. Interestingly, this was (first?) raised as a bug on February 26, 2004!

Will Sargent, in Bug Report No. 235666 stated: “I insert the next and previous buttons into the single message window. The buttons take me to the next and previous unread messages, when what I want is to have them iterate over the next and previous messages displayed in the window bar.”

There are postings to this bug report in every subsequent year, except for 2009, until finally (April 5, 2012), “aceman” states: “This is fixed starting at Thunderbird 13 (now in Aurora channel). Do you use that version? Also, you need to rightclick the toolbar, choose customize and choose the version of the buttons you want. It now offers both the ‘prev/next unread’ and also ‘prev/next (any)’ versions.”

As far as I can tell, right now (May 10, 2012), Thunderbird 13 is in beta; the release date for this version is scheduled for June 5, 2012.

However, for those who wish to try/use the beta version (I did – and the new buttons do work as advertised!), installation instructions can be found on OMG! Ubuntu! The two commands required are:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install thunderbird-trunk

Note that, in the last of the above commands, I have stripped out “firefox-trunk” in order to only install the beta version of Thunderbird, and avoid an associated update to Firefox.

This installs a package named thunderbird-trunk from a personal package archive (PPA). A program launcher can be constructed for this program; however, there doesn’t seem to be a default logo. A little searching reveals the availability of thunderbird-trunk.png in /usr/share/pixmaps. This is a cute image – a baby Thunderbird pipping its eggshell.

Now, I’m a happy camper – I just have to wait until early June when the chick successfully pips the egg, and the final version of Thunderbird 13 is released – with “real” previous and next buttons!

References:

Bug 235666 – Next and Previous buttons should work on read messages
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=235666

MozillaWiki Releases
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases#Thunderbird_13

Instant Messaging Comes to Thunderbird 13, Speed-Dial to Firefox 13
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/03/instant-messaging-comes-to-thunderbird-13-speed-dial-to-firefox-13/

Two steps forward, one step back

I really like Thunderbird as an E-mail client but the program’s developers are trying to drive me crazy with their implementation of the next/previous and forward/back buttons.

Further customization of the panel

In the previous post we learnt that Alt-right-click allows us to add and remove program shortcuts to the panel and also to configure the panel. In order to make Ubuntu 12.04 (with the Gnome desktop) look more like Ubuntu 10.04, we need to apply this newly-found knowledge to the tasks of (a) adding a shut-down icon to the panel and (b) modifying the indicator applet to display the day and the date in addition to the time.

Removing shortcuts from the panel

In the previous post we saw that adding program shortcuts to the panel in Precise Pangolin (Ubuntu 12.04) wasn’t exactly straightforward. It turns out that removing a program icon is even more bizarre.

Imprecise Pangolin?

As noted in an earlier post (In praise of backups), automatic updates to the old long-term support release of Ubuntu (Version 10.04, Lucid Lynx) caused a “black screen of death” condition on my production machine and I was wondering if the problem would be fixed in Precise Pangolin, the latest release (Version 12.04) of the Linux operating system. However, before we consider if this is or is not the case, you have to know something about toasters.

Android Word Processors and Notepads

When it comes to apps for Android, there’s good new and bad news. The good news is that there are lots of apps. The bad news is that there are lots of apps! This is certainly true for word processing and notepad applications. There are so many offerings that it’s difficult to know where to start. Sure, you can pick from some of the “best 25 apps” listings, and there are even some blogs that make software recommendations (grin). However, one interesting problem is that many apps assume that the user has an Android phone with an always-on Internet connection. Clearly this is not the case for those of us Wi-Fi tablets who rely on a residential wireless router or hot-spot connectivity. And, this can negate the value of some software suggestions.

Software Data Cable (Addendum)

Even given the ultimate success with file transfers as noted in the previous post, one minor issue I found with the Software Data Cable app for Android was that, by default, FileZilla could only access the “sdcard” mount point for the local storage on my Acer A100 Iconia tablet. My preference is to store files transferred from my PC on the external SDcard installed in the tablet. Fortunately, the fix is very easy. With Software Data Cable running, navigate to Settings and enable Lock access in ROOT (“/”). This allows access to the /mnt/external_sd/ folder of the tablet.