A new version of Dockstar, a utility that offers super-charged notification badges for Mail.app’s Dock icon, has been released.

Dockstar installs itself as a plugin with options in Mail’s Preferences that let you assign up to five different notification badges. You can choose different badge shapes, set the size of each badge and select the colour you want for each mailbox.

The result is a riot of notification badges, undeniably more colourful and possibly more informative:

The new version adds support for nested mailboxes and the ability to set the counter for unread, flagged, junk, or total messages:

It also offers the option to play a sound when each the count increases for each badge and comes with a screensaver and Dashboard widget.

DockStar is shareware (USD 8). A demo version is available from the developer’s web site .

[Thanks, Tyler]mail.app, apple mail, notification, badges, Dock, widget, plugins

Hannes Bretschneider has written a script that displays notifications about newly arrived mail on the Desktop using the GeekTool utilty.

GeekTool is a Preference Pane utility that can pipe the result of Unix commands, scripts and other things onto the Desktop. There are many ways to use it. For example, Lifehacker journo Gina Trapani uses it to pipe her plain text to-do files onto her Desktop.

Hannes’ script grabs the sender and subject line of new messages. When a GeekTool entry is created for it:

It outputs the results to the Desktop:

Like all GeekTool outputs, the font face, point size, position on the Desktop and many other options can be set in the GeekTool Preference Pane.

This elegant notification solution runs in the background and avoids the need to use another notification utility.

On the other hand, in order to get the most of out it, you need to be able to see your Desktop. I can’t remember when I last saw mine.mail.app, apple mail, notification, plugin, geektool, script, new mail

Logan Rockmore’s excellent menubar notification utility, Mail Unread Menu has been updated and now offers much more control for users over the mailboxes it will track.

Mail Unread Menu works with Leopard (which will be handy) and also features a new exclusions list in its preferences where you can specific mailboxes for the app to ignore.

This is a concentration boost of the first order. For example, in the screenshot below, I have added the mailboxes for two mailing lists:

Because Mail Unread now ignores, it only reports emails that might actually need a response from me, not emails that prefer to browse when it suits me.

Mail Unread Menu is donation-ware and available from Logan’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, menubar, notification, plugin, unread messages, productivity

Mac OS X Tips UK has written up a list of tips to wring the most out of the menubar helper for Google services like Gmail and Google Calendar.

It shows you how to set the default number of messages displayed using the hidden Defaults Editor.

You can also set the Notifier to display only email matching a particular label in the same way.

Of course, the Defaults Editor just a fancy GUI to Notifier’s preferences file — com.google.GmailNotifier — stored in your ~/Library/Preferences folder, which you can edit directly with Proprty List Editor or any text editor.

The list also mentions Gmail+Growl , a plugin for Google Notifier that passes notification of new messages to the Growl alert system .Gmail, google, calendar, menubar, notification, not apple mail, not mail.app, email, tips

The menubar notification utility, Mail Unread Menu has been updated.

Notification utilities comes in two basic flavours.

One style, the full-on “splash screen” approach, is best done by Mail.appetizer and GrowlMail .

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

The second style is more discreet. Mail Unread Menu and MailUnreadStatusBar sit in the menubar, counting away as new mail arrives but not disrupting your work.

Myself, I prefer the latter.

The latest update to Mail Unread Menu has a changed application icon and will now correctly set Mail.app to work with bundles if these settings are not already enabled.

It is also smarter about displaying the count in the Inbox, although as you can see in the screenshot it doesn’t tell you which inbox is which if you have it set to display the unread count in “All Mailboxes” in the preferences.

Take the new version and MailUnreadStatusBar for a test run and make up your own mind which one works best for you.mail.app, apple mail, plugins, notification, menubar, pop-up, splash

The third-party Menubar utility for Google’s news reader, Google Reader Notifier, has been updated with a few nifty new features and the removal of a bug in its version check feature.

The new version (0.22) sports a new icon, adds an option to view the number of unread articles in the Menubar, and has a redesigned menu layout that matches the general Gmail Notifier style. It now also makes a sound (“ping!”) when new articles appear just like the Gmail notifier.

At the same time, a bug that prevented it from properly auto-checking for new versions has been fixed.

It’s not enough to tempt me away from the excellence of NetNewsWire , but it might help Google Reader users stay on top of things more efficiently.

Google Reader Notifier is freeware and is available from the developer’s web site .google reader, gmail, news, RSS, menubar, notification, productivity

MailUnreadStatusBar, a discreet Menubar notification utility for Mail.app, has been released as a universal binary, which will run just as smoothly on Intel Macs as well as PPC ones.

Like Mail Unread Menu, MailUnreadStatusBar takes a low-key approach to notifications. Rather than popping up an alert screen as Mail.appetizer and GrowlMail do, it just keeps score in the Menubar, so that you can see how many unread emails you have without getting unduly distracted.

Its drop-down menu offers options to open, show or quit Mail and to perform an instant check for new mail.

It also lists the amount of unread mail in each of the mailboxes that you nominate in the app’s Preferences. Clicking on one of the listed mailboxes, opens that mailbox in Mail.app. (This helps me – a little – not to read Hawk Wings email at work).

The Preferences menu provides a variety of icons for the Menubar, the frequency with which to check for new mail and allows you to select which mailboxes the app should monitor (hold down the ⌘-key to select more than one):

A new option lets you choose just to have the number of unread messages displayed without any icon. This will please hardcore interface minimalists.

MaulUnreadStatusBar is freeware and is available from the developer’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, notification, plugins, unread mail, productivity, universal binary, mail.appetizer