Comments on: Mail Unread Menu 2.0.3: Menubar notification

By: Sixolile

Sixolile — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:12:48 +0000

I cannot read my messages and am not notified of my unread messages, I need help.

By: Tim Gaden

Tim Gaden — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:48:49 +0000

@a.r. — good question. Yes, of course, you can. But with these utilities you can choose to watch mail in one account only (say, work emails, but not Hawk Wings emails) and jump more quickly to the mailbox you want.

By: Logan Rockmore

Logan Rockmore — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:26:46 +0000

ny: yeah, it’s kind of hard to state in just the one line i allot myself for the read me. but Tim had it exactly right. when you install the bundle, it just runs those two terminal commands.

and a.r.: the mail badge will only show unread messages in the inbox. these other programs will show unread messages in all of your mailboxes. so if you have some rules that automatically move messages to other mailboxes or you want to count all of your unread messages in all of your folders (for whatever reason), these apps will do that.

thanks again, Tim, for the post and update. now that I’ve got some more free time, I do plan on doing even more updates. thanks!

Logan Rockmore, developer
Mail Unread Menu

By: ny

ny — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:23:42 +0000

Thanks Tim!

By: a.r.

a.r. — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:18:58 +0000

dumb question, sorry, but I don’t understand the point of these. Can’t you just see your unread mail count in the dock?

By: Johnny

Johnny — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:08:52 +0000

“Both of these interrupt your work to let you know about new mail”

While I see where you’re coming from, this isn’t quite fair. Mail.appetizer gives you a more full-fledged notification, but I don’t see why this necessarily interrupts your work. It’s not a modal dialog box, and it gracefully fades away after a short (user-adjustable) period of time. The pop-up in the photo is unusually large — I make my notification box large enough that it can convey substantive information but small enough so that if I’m working on something else, I can easily ignore it.

My one complaint about Mail.appetizer is that it hasn’t been updated in quite a while despite lacking a critical feature — the ability to exclude certain mailboxes from the notify list. I may switch to Growl notifications for this reason.

By: Tim Gaden

Tim Gaden — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:22:25 +0000

@ny: That’s not very well expressed, is it?

It means that the app will automatically adjust the enablebundles settings stored in Mail.app’s preferences. In the past, one often had to adjust them manually through the Terminal like this.

By: Peter Herndon

Peter Herndon — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:32:03 +0000

I actually prefer the former, using Growl. I have Mail.app set up with a rule that triggers Growl’s Mail Notification script only according to certain criteria. Those criteria are that the sender is one of my immediate co-workers, to whom I have a responsibility to be aware of their emails as soon as they arrive, or messages that are marked with a high priority. Emails from other senders do not pop a notification, so I am able to remain within my flow of work without needless distraction. Since my Dock is hidden, I have no distractions from useless unread message counts cluttering my view. I read my email when I choose, rather than being interrupt-driven. Well, for anything not from an immediate colleague, anyway.

By: ny

ny — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:56:18 +0000

“The latest update to Mail Unread Menu … will now correctly set Mail.app to work with bundles if these settings are not already enabled.”

What does this mean?