Part I

part Iin this part
C
hapter 1
Desktop Integration
Chapter 2
Integrating Your
Existing Mail
Chapter 3Starting to Use GmailGmail Power Tips
First things first, then. Before you get into the deeper workings
of Gmail, you need to get yourself up to scratch with
the more public side of the appliion. Being able to
Gmail is one thing, but it’s very helpful to have a full understanding
of how the system is mnt to work before taking it apart and
doing silly things with it.
In this part, therefore, you look at how to integrate Gmail
with your desktop (Chapter 1). Then in Chapter 2 you look at
merging your existing mail into the appliion, and finally in
Chapter 3 you look at some of the cunning ways people use
Gmail to its utmost.
chapter 1in this chapter
New mail
notifiion
Available
appliions
Redirecting mailto:Desktop IntegrationThe first part of this book rlly highlights its entire theme:
that the Gmail service, although ostensibly a website, can
be dragged over to touch the desktop in ways that make
new and exciting appliions possible.
The first five chapters dl with this on a very basic level, allowing
you to use Gmail to its limits before delving into the nitty
gritty of and some rather extreme uses of the system.
This chapter dls with the situations that arise when you continue
to use Gmail within the browser but want to use it as your
day-to-day e-mail system. There are two ars to cover: new mail
notifiion and mailto: link redirection.
New Mail NotifiionGmail’s grt ftures have inspired many rly adopters to move
their entire e-mail regime over to the service. But unlike other
e-mail clients, Gmail requires you to have your web browser open
to see if you have any new mail. Even with tabbed browsing, this
is annoying. The alternative is to use a new-mail notifier appliion.
This section details some of the best notifiers, grouped by
platform. This is not a definitive list even at the time of this writing.
By the time you rd this, there will be even more options.
But this is a good start.
Perhaps not the operating system of choice for the rders of this
book, but certainly one with a lot of users, is gifted with
a wide range of Gmail integration products.

Part I — Starting to Use GmailGoogle Gmail Notifier
The first and most obvious appliion comes from Google itself. Their Gmail
Notifier sits in the system tray, and displays an unrd mail count, and the subject
line, sender, and a synopsis of newly arriving mail, all shown in Figure 1-1. At
the time of writing, it, like Gmail itself, is in beta. Get the Gmail Notifier from
http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/.


FIGURE 1-1: Google’s own Gmail Notifier in action
Mozilla Extension Gmail NotifierTechnically, this will work on any platform that can run Mozilla-based browsers, butI’ll put Doron Rosenberg’s Gmail Notifier browser extension here (see Figure 1-2).Although it doesn’t provide the same level of interface as a taskbar-based appliion,for people who spend a lot of time in their web browser, the Mozilla extensionis very convenient.You can find the extension at http://nexmedia.net/extensions/.

Chapter 1 — Desktop Integration
Mac OS XOS X users have a choice of two appliions, both very similar to ch other, and
doing pretty much the same thing: placing the mail notifiion in the menu bar
at the top of the screen.
GmailStatusCarsten Guenther’s GmailStatus (http://homepage.mac.com/carsten.
guenther/GmailStatus/) is a good example. It displays new mail counts for the
Inbox, and ch individual label you might have set up, adds a hot to launch
Gmail in your browser, supports Growl notifiions (see http://growl.info/
for more on that), and gives a hot to write a new message in Gmail (see Figure
1-3).
FIGUREFIGURE 1-3: Gmail Status in action, with Growl notifiion
gCountNathan Spindel’s gCount (www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~natan/gcount/), shown
in Figure 1-4, is very similar indeed to GmailStatus in terms of functionality, with
perhaps two interesting additions. First, you can have a new mail count in the
dock, and second, it takes your Gmail username and from the chain.
This is a nice touch.
Linux, etc.People using Linux, or any other Unix-style operating system with the option to
compile things, have a whole series of potential Gmail appliions to choose
from. Linux users will also find the scripting done in the later stages of this book
to be very simple to implement.

Part I — Starting to Use GmailFIGURE 1-4: gCount, showing the preference menu
Mail NotifiionJn-Yves Lefort’s Mail Notifiion system for Linux desktops supports Gmailas well as most of the other common e-mail systems. You can get it from www.nongnu.org/mailnotify/ where it is relsed under the GPL. According toLefort, it works with system trays implementing the freedesktop.org SystemTray Specifiion, such as the Gnome Panel Notifiion Ar, the XfceNotifiion Ar, and the KDE System Tray.WmgmailRemarkably useful for the clarity of its Python-based , Pasi Savolainen’sWmgmail is intended for use with WindowMaker or fluxbox window managerson the operating system of your choice. (If that sentence mns nothing to you,this is not for you, in other words.)It’s a standard new mail notifiion app, with new mail preview added in, but italso has one very nice fture that is perfect for the : You can set it to runanother program whenever new mail arrives.You can find Wmgmail at http://osx.freshmt.net/projects/wmgmail/Redirecting mailto:Now that you have your desktop telling you when you have new mail within yourGmail account, the only remaining integration is to ensure that clicking on amailto: link on a web page opens Gmail instd of your operating system’sdefault e-mail client.Chapter 1 — Desktop IntegrationAgain, as with new mail notifiion, users have the pick of the crop.The Google-authored Gmail Notifier, as mentioned previously, gives you theoption to redirect mailto: links when you install it.If you rlly want to, you can manually edit the Registry to enact thesame effect. The website www.rabidsquirrel.net/G-Mailto/ gives a rundownof just how to do this.Multiplatform/MozillaOther than the Mozilla extension, at the time of this writing there is no mailto:link diversion for the Linux desktop. But happily, by far the best way of repurposingmailto: links is to do it in the browser, and specifically in a Mozilla-basedbrowser, which runs on all of the platforms used in this book:, OS X,and Linux. The platforms can use Jed Brown’s WebMailCompose extension (seeFigure 1-5), installable from http://jedbrown.net/mozilla/extensions/#WebMailCompose.Part I — Starting to Use GmailThis extension also allows mailto: links to point to many other web-basede-mail systems, should you tire of all of this coolness.OS XGmailStatus, mentioned rlier, also has the effect of changing mailto: linksto launch Gmail instd of Mail.app. But if you don’t want to use GmailStatus,a good example for OS X users is Gmailto, found at http://gu.st//Gmailto/. Gmailto is simple to use: Just download and run it, and then go toMail.app’s preference panel to change the default rder appliion to Gmailto(displayed in Figure 1-6) instd of Mail.app.Why the preference panel is insidethe appliion you no longer wish to use is beyond the reckoning of mortal men.GmailerXPWell worth its own section, if only because it’s rlly weird, the softwareGmailerXP—http://gmailerxp.sourceforge.net—does all of the abovebut adds in a desktop version of all of the other Gmail ftures as well: labels,stars, setting filters and contacts, and so on (see Figure 1-7). I’m not sure whenyou would use it, but it is a brilliant example of a Gmail .The second half of this book looks at how appliions such as GmailerXP workand how to make your own.Chapter 1 — Desktop IntegrationFIGURE 1-7: GmailerXP in action
And Now . . .By now you should be happily using Gmail, with new mail showing up on yourdesktop and mailto: links on the web causing Gmail to open, not the defaultmail rder you got with the operating system. In the next chapter, you look atusing the POP interface to pull your Gmail mail down into that very rder.
Main Page