People may be aware that the next ubuntu release will include thunderbird as the default email client and it includes integration into ubuntu's messaging menu to provide email notifications.

Well, I am using and will continue to use kubuntu and also use thunderbird and am trying to get it working with KDE's message indicator plasma widget.

When I had BOTH KDE and gnome installed on a test system, thunderbird was indeed notifying me via KDE message indicator but since I reinstalled a pure kubuntu system, it no longer works.

So the question is, what do I need to install to get this working, without having to install most of gnome?

Also, I thought the whole messaging system was actually developed by KDE so shouldn't it all work out of the box anyway?

It may be that installing the GNOME packages causes a Thunderbird plugin which provides the Messaging specification support to be installed. This package itself likely has no GNOME dependencies. I would suggest searching for packages named thunderbird-* or mozilla-*

I do have everything thunderbird related installed already.
One thing I do remember is that on another install, thunderbird gave me KDE message indicator notifications after installing unity-2d-launcher so assumed it was something that brought in doing the magic.

I have tried installing that again, which brings in a lot more dependencies than before, to try to narrow down what does it but still not working

Note that after installing it, your may need to restart Thunderbird/KDE for the dependency installed component to be loaded.

I know it's an old topic but am almost 100% sure about how to solve this issue :

just install

libnotify-bin and libnotify4 and thunderbird will send its notifications to any desktop environnement - KDE included !

This works today on ubuntu 12.04 and worked years ago before TB be fully integrated into Gnome, for example.

I had to install the package thunderbird-gnome-support to make Thunderbird use the KDE message indicator. libnotify was already installed in my case.

quirks wrote:I had to install the package thunderbird-gnome-support to make Thunderbird use the KDE message indicator. libnotify was already installed in my case.

I was wondering if anyone can confirm that this still works. I have thunderbird-gnome-support, libnotify-bin and libnotify4 all installed, but the KDE message indicator is still blank. I've tried adding the message indicator both in the system tray, and the "stand-alone" widget in the panel.

KDE 4.12.2
Kubuntu 13.10

You might want to check in Thunderbird itself, to ensure that the extension/plugin that it provides is enabled - as newer Mozilla applications restrict even plugins which have been installed system wide from being automatically activated.

bcooksley wrote:ensure that the extension/plugin that it provides is enabled

I'm not 100% sure if it's the right extension, but the only one with a plausible name is "Messaging Menu and Unity Launcher integration 1.3.1", which was enabled previously.

Are you able to test using other libnotify based applications?

bcooksley wrote:Are you able to test using other libnotify based applications?

I created a new Gmail account and set up KMail to fetch it by IMAP. When I get new mail, there is no indication in the system tray Message Indicator. I also tried creating a new stand-alone Message Indicator, and the Incoming Message plasmoids, but neither showed any indication that there was a new email. FWIW the notify-send pop-up worked fine.

Also, when I hover over the Message Indicator plasmoid, it says "No applications running", even with Kmail open.

At least in the case of KMail, I would expect it to use KNotify, per the configuration settings in KMail > Settings > Configure Notifications - which doesn't involve libnotify. As for Thunderbird, it is quite possible it is preferring the freedesktop.org notifications specification instead - which in KDE is provided by KNotify.

This would explain why neither application is triggering these notifications, and why notify-send works.
Unfortunately, i've no idea how you could configure or adjust KDE applications to use libnotify.

I'm actually unsure if I've been using the wrong terminology. When I use KMail or Thunderbird, the pop-up notifications work fine. These are the same as the ones I can activate with notify-send. The pop-ups are not persistent, and the system tray entry calls them "Notifications". They look like this.


However, Thunderbird and KMail do not work with the messaging indicator. That is, the notifications that are persistent in the system tray, and called "Message Indicator". I'd like to use the version in the system tray, but a stand-alone widget looks like the top icon of this.


N.B. in the above screenshot, the lower widget ("Incoming Message") suggests that KMail is not open, even though it is. FWIW Pidgin was also open.

Is one of these what you mean by KNotify? Sorry, I'm just a bit unsure of the terminology.

bcooksley wrote:Unfortunately, i've no idea how you could configure or adjust KDE applications to use libnotify.

I don't quite understand this either. Does libnotify here refer to my first screenshot? If so, that's not what I'm interested in, as it is working fine already. I'm trying to fix (the top icon of) the second screenshot.

bcooksley wrote:At least in the case of KMail, I would expect it to use KNotify, per the configuration settings in KMail > Settings > Configure Notifications - which doesn't involve libnotify.

I had a look in here, and it doesn't seem to relate to the second kind of notification.

KNotify is referring to the first screenshot. My guess is that notify-send (which i'm assuming uses libnotify) is the second screenshot.

You'll need to ask the authors of the "Message Indicator" applet how it is supposed to work i'm afraid - this isn't something shipped by upstream so it is difficult to know where the issue might be. I'm guessing it relies on patching of the applications.

bcooksley wrote:KNotify is referring to the first screenshot. My guess is that notify-send (which i'm assuming uses libnotify) is the second screenshot.

notify-send actually produces the first screenshot too.

bcooksley wrote:You'll need to ask the authors of the "Message Indicator" applet how it is supposed to work i'm afraid - this isn't something shipped by upstream so it is difficult to know where the issue might be. I'm guessing it relies on patching of the applications.

Yeah, it seems like it's shipped by Ubuntu, but also there a few other reports of it not working well, even with KMail. I posted at the Kubuntu forums here. Thanks again for your help.