# The KBiff Handbook

Kurt
Granroth

    granroth@kde.org

27/03/1999
2.03.00

KBiff is a KDE aware mail notification utility. It supports MBOX (Unix style), Maildir (Qmail), MH, POP3, IMAP4, and NNTP mailboxes.

KDE
KBiff
mailboxes
incoming mail

## Introduction

### Features

KBiff is a mail notification utility for the KDE project. It has several advantages over much of its competition:

- Pure GUI configuration. No more command line parameters to remember (well, one optional one to make things easier for some people) or strange config files. All settings for KBiff can be done from one setup dialog.

- Session Management. KBiff starts up with the same configuration you left it with.

- Panel Docking. KBiff can be docked into the panel very easily. Handy when you are monitoring several mailboxes and don't have room anywhere else.

- Animated GIFs. You can use animated GIFs as your icons.

- Sounds. KBiff has an option to play .wav files when new mail arrives.

- POP3, IMAP4, NNTP, Maildir, MBOX, MH. KBiff supports all major mailbox formats!

- Multiple Mailbox. KBiff can monitor several mailboxes with one instance.

- Others. KBiff has scads of other options.

If you have any comments or requests for more features, feel free to email.

Kurt Granroth

<granroth@kde.org>

## Installation

### How to obtain KBiff

The most current release version in both source and binary formats can always be found at the KBiff homepage. This is at http://www.pobox.com/˜kurt_granroth/kbiff KBiff is also now part of the KDE Networks package. As such, the bleeding edge release can always be found in the KDE CVS repository.

### Requirements

In order to successfully compile KBiff, you need at least the 1.0 version of KDE. All required libraries can be found on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde.

### Compilation and Installation

Compiling KBiff is very easy. The following should do it:

    &percnt; ./configure
    &percnt; make
    &percnt; make install

That should do it! Should you run into any problems, please report them to the author

## Using KBiff

Almost every feature of KBiff can be configured from the Setup dialog. What few command line parameters KBiff has are mostly for convenience -- some options just make more sense on the command line.

### The "profile"

KBiff revolves around something called a "profile" A profile is simply a container for one or mailboxes that KBiff will monitor. For instance, there will always be one default profile called "Inbox" (or something else if you rename it). This profile will contain one mailbox, usually something like "/var/mail/username". It could just as well hold several mailboxes, though. Each instance of KBiff (that is, each visible icon) corresponds to one profile.

### Command Line Parameters

KBiff supports three command line parameters. They are: profile, debug, and secure.

    -profile <profile_name> Bypass the Setup dialog and start KBiff directly in the
                            given profile. e.g., 'kbiff -profile Inbox'
    -debug                  Turns on verbose debugging. Use this only if you are
                            having problems with KBiff
    -secure                 Disables the setup dialog. Useful when you want KBiff
                            displayed but don't want others to modify it.

## The Setup Dialog

The setup dialog handles all configuration items for KBiff. As a result, there is no need for command line parameters in nearly all cases.

### Profile Name

The top part of the dialog consists of a drop down list and three buttons. The drop down list contains the names of all the "profiles." A profile is a set of configuration settings for one mailbox under one name. The three buttons are New, Rename, and Delete. The buttons work on the profiles, only. They do not touch the actual mailbox files. When KBiff is started for the first time, there will be one profile automatically created. This is the Inbox profile which monitors the system mailbox.

### Preference Tabs

There are four preference tabs. These are full of options that apply to the current profile. The current profile is the one that is currently displayed in the drop down list. There are no global settings.

#### General Preferences

The general preferences for each profile are contained in this tab. There are five fields here:

##### Poll

This setting controls how much time KBiff will wait until it checks the mailbox again. The time is in seconds. The default is 60 seconds (one minute).

To choose a time other than the default, here, it is a good idea to analyze the frequency in which your mail arrives. If, for instance, you have `fetchmail` downloading new mail every 5 minutes, then it doesn't make sense to set the time for less than that. On the other hand, if you are using the POP3 or IMAP4 feature of KBiff, you should probably use a higher interval. Setting it less than 60 might give you unexpected results if your network connection isn't very fast.

##### Mail client

This field specifies what command will run when KBiff is left-clicked. While this is typically a mail client, it does not have to be. It can be any command that can be run with its own X window. In other words, putting `elm` in this field will not work. Putting `kvt -e elm` would. The default is `kmail -check`

##### Dock in panel

This controls whether or not KBiff will start docked into the panel or not when the user exits the setup dialog. Note that it is still possible to switch between docked and undocked regardless of this option. This only controls the initial state. This is checked by default.

##### Enable session management

This controls whether or not KDE session management is enabled. This should be turned off only in rare cases. The most common case where session management is disabled is when a user is running KDE under the same account on several different computers at the same time. In this case, it would probably be desirable to turn off session management and use the `-profile` command line option instead.

In all other cases, session management should probably be left on.

##### Icons

KBiff uses three icons to represent the three states: No Mail, Old Mail, and New Mail. The icons shown are the "large" icons. To select new ones, click on the buttons and a icon loader dialog will pop up. Note that even though KBiff supports animated GIFs, they will not appear animated here.

#### New Mail Preferences

This tab groups together the options that control what happen when new mail arrives.

##### Run Command

This is a shell command that will be executed when new mail arrives. A typical example of this would be play newmail.au. This would cause the file newmail.au to be played whenever new mail arrives. By default, this is turned off.

##### Play Sound

This specifies a sound to play when new mail arrives. As of this version, it will only play .wav files. Simply specify the path to the file to have it played. By default, this is turned off.

##### System Beep

Enabling this will cause KBiff to beep whenever new mail arrives. This is probably the least intrusive, yet still active, method of alerting the user that new mail as arrived. By default, this is on.

##### Notify

Enabling this will cause KBiff to popup a window when new mail arrives. The "notify" message box will list both the mailbox in question and the number of new mails. This option is not recommended on mailboxes that receive lots of mail.

##### Floating Status

If this is enabled, KBiff will popup a small box listing all mailboxes with their newmail count whenever you the mouse is over the icon (after a one second delay). The effect is similar to that of a tooltip... only better. This isn't technically a new mail feature... but it doesn't fit easily anywhere else!

#### Mailbox Preferences

This groups together the options controlling the physical mailboxs themself.

All options on this tab are PER mailbox. So if you have three mailboxes in this profile, each mailbox will have its own settings on this tab. However, all settings in the other tabs apply profile-wide. This means that if you have the Notify option checking the the New Mail tab, then KBiff will notify you that new mail has arrived in all of the mailboxes in this profile.

##### Mailbox list

The listbox on the left of the tab contains the list of mailboxes that the current profile will monitor. In most cases, there will be only one (the "Default" mailbox). However, you may have as many mailboxes per profile as you wish.

There are two buttons below the mailbox list. The button with the mailbox on it will create a new mailbox. The button with the cross will delete a mailbox. If you wish to rename a mailbox, you must delete the old one and create a new one with identical properties.

##### Protocol

This determines the protocol for the currently selected mailbox. There are 4 (and a half) protocols - mbox (Unix style), maildir (Qmail), POP3, and IMAP4. The 'file' protocol can be used to monitor any local file as it uses only the last read and last modified times to determine the state.

##### Mailbox

This field will not be active with the POP3 protocol. In all other cases, put the path to your mailbox here. In the case of mbox, this will be a file. With maildir, this will be a directory. It is a folder with IMAP4.

##### Server

This is active only for the IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.

##### User

This is active only for the IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.

##### Password

This is active only for the IMAP4 and POP3 protocols.

##### Store Password

This will save the password between sessions.

KBiff does not encrypt the password when it is saved! It will scramble it a little, but anybody with the source code (or a little patience) could unscramble it in an instant. If you are on an insecure network, it is strongly recommended that the store password option be turned off

##### Advanced

This will popup a dialog containing advanced features.

###### Mailbox URL

KBiff handles mailboxes internally as a URL. If you know what you are doing, you can directly modify the URL here. Modifying this is discouraged unless you are familiar with the code,

###### Port

Set this to whatever port your server is at. By default, it will be 110 for POP3 and 143 for IMAP4

###### PREAUTH

If you don't know what this means, you probably don't need to use it. Basically, it will start checking for new mail in IMAP4 without logging in.

###### Keep Alive

When checked in POP3 or IMAP4 mode, this will keep the connection "alive". That is, KBiff will login once and stay logged in. This is not recommended if your POP3 or IMAP4 server uses locks. If locks are in place and KBiff does not log out then your mail client will not be able to access your account.

#### About

This tab has information about KBiff.

##### About KBiff

This contains information about which version of KBiff is being used. It also has contact information about the author.

Note that the email address is a hyperlink. Clicking on it is supposed to pop up your mail client in order to send mail to the author. Unfortunately, there is no automated way of doing this in KBiff at the present time. There is some code here, though. To send email using this hyperlink, KBiff looks for the environment variable `MAILER`. If it finds it, it will use the contents of this variable as the email program to use.

For example, if `MAILER` is set like so: `% setenv MAILER "kvt -e mutt"` then KBiff will use `kvt -e mutt` as the default mail client, here.

## The Popup Menu

The popup menu is activated whenever the right mouse button is clicked in the KBiff icon area.

### (Un)Dock

This docks or undocks KBiff from the panel. This option will only work in KDE complient window managers like KWM. The default state is determined by the setup dialog.

### Setup

This will activate the setup dialog. See the Setup Dialog section for more details.

### Help

This activates the online help (this).

### Check Mail Now

This forces KBiff to check for new mail right now, regardless of the poll time. This will check all mailboxes in a profile.

### Read Mail Now

This will force KBiff to act like all mailboxes in the current profile are "old." This makes most sense when you have new mail on a remote server (pop3 or imap4) and don't feel like downloading it right then.

### Stop/Start

This will either stop or start KBiff.

## Questions, Answers, and Tips

### Are there other KDE-aware "biff" utilities?

Yes. There are at least two that I know of. Each "biff" has its own strengths. KOrn was the original. It's main strength is the ability to monitor multiple mailboxes with one instance and effectively show the number of messages in each. If you have many mailboxes and don't care for the cutesy icons, then KOrn is probably a better choice than KBiff. The other "biff" is KNewMail. KNewMail attempts to emulate the Windows utility NewMail. It checks for POP3 mail and displays the subject line for each message.

### What is the difference between a "profile" and a "mailbox" again?

A "profile" is a group of one or more mailboxes that one instance of KBiff will monitor. And example of a profile is "Inbox". A "mailbox" is a physical entity that can be monitored by KBiff. An example of a mailbox is "/usr/var/username".

### How do I use my own pixmaps?

Short answer: select them using the setup dialog. Longer answer: KBiff searches for its icons in the standard KDE icon path. Currently, this is

    kdedir()/share/apps/kbiff/toolbar
    kdedir()/share/toolbar
    kdedir()/share/icons
    kdedir()/share/apps/kbiff/pics
    &dollar;HOME/.kde/share/apps/kbiff/toolbar
    &dollar;HOME/.kde/share/toolbar
    &dollar;HOME/.kde/share/icons
    &dollar;HOME/.kde/share/apps/kbiff/pics

Where "kdedir()" is usally "/opt/kde" and &dollar;HOME is your home directory. If you put your pixmaps in any of these directories (the last one listed is recommended), then KBiff should have no problems finding and using them.

If you plan on docking KBiff, you should have a 22x22 (or smaller) version of your pixmap. The name of the small pixmap should be the name of the larger pixmap preceded by "mini-". So if you want to use the default "oldmail.xpm" pixmap for old mail but want to use your own "mycoolpixmap.xpm" smaller pixmap when it's docked, you should rename your pixmap to "mini-oldmail.xpm" If you do not do this, KBiff will use the large version even in the panel.

Note that KBiff determines its size by the old mail pixmap. So if your pixmap for old mail is 100x100, but all the other ones are 32x32... well, KBiff will look very strange every time new mail arrives.

### How do I use elm (or mutt or PINE) with KBiff?

You tried putting "elm" into the Mail Client edit box, didn't you? Whoops! 'elm', 'mutt', and 'PINE' all need a terminal to run in and KBiff does not supply one. The author uses the following as his Mail Client: `kvt -vt_geometry 80x35 -caption Mail -no_scrollbar -e mutt &`

If you use a graphical email client such as KMail or Netscape, then you simply need to put the name of the client in the edit box. No terminal is necessary.

### Why won't KBiff play my newmail.au file?

KBiff uses the KAudio class to play sounds when new mail arrives. Currently, this class only supports .wav files. If you wish to play an .au file when new mail arrives, try getting the SOX package and put 'play newmail.au' (or just 'cat newmail.au > /dev/audio') in the Run Command option.

### Does KBiff work without session management?

Yes. Session management is on by default, but you can turn it off in the setup dialog. You can still have KBiff start up when KDE starts up by putting KBiff into your Autostart folder with the '-profile' option.

### Clicking on your email address in About does nothing!

It would be nice to pass the 'mailto:granroth@kde.org' URL to kfm to process it.. unfortunately, this is not implemented yet. I did code in some support, though. Just set an environment variable MAILER to whatever your mailer is and the link should work.

    e.g.
    &percnt; setenv MAILER kvt -e mutt

Note that this has the pleasant side effect that 'mailto:' links in the regular kfm will also use your mailer.

### When I use KBiff to monitor my mailbox, all other 'biff' utilities stop working. What's up?

This is a result of the new message counting code in KBiff. In order for KBiff to know how many new messages are in an mbox mailbox, it must open it up to read it. When this happens, most other 'biff' utilities (including your shell's built-in one) will assume that you read your mailbox and announce it as old (or "read") mail.

There are three ways around this:

1. Don't use KBiff.

2. Use the 'file' protocol instead of the 'mbox' protocol (note that you'll no longer know how many new mails have arrived)

3. Convert all of your 'mbox' mailboxes to 'maildir'

### How do I use Netscape Mail with KBiff?

You tried 'netscape -mail', didn't you? You then discovered that this caused Netscape to complain about a lockfile if it was already running, right? Well, here's a workaround from KBiff user Steven Boger (sboger@marcus-online.net) Create a shell script like so: `&num;!/bin/sh`

    if &lsqb; -L "&dollar;HOME/.netscape/lock" &rsqb;;
    then
    netscape -remote 'xfeDoCommand(openInbox)'
    else
    netscape -mail &
    fi

### KBiff truncates the initial slash in IMAP mode. Is this a bug?

No, it's a feature! It is very very rare that one uses an absolute path with IMAP. Nearly all mailbox can (and are) accessed either relative to the user's home directory or use symbolic names like 'inbox.

If you are trying to read `/var/spool/mail/username` try entering `inbox` as the mailbox name.

### I have this great feature I want implemented. What should I do?

First, look at the TODO file in the source distribution (or on the web page). If your feature request is already there, then sit tight -- it may well be implemented. If it is not there... well, it doesn't hurt to ask. Email me!