Okay, so my previous post on the default sort behaviour of Thunderbird was largely correct — I just need to learn to read instructions better :)
In a nutshell, I set mailnews.default_sort_order to 22: sort by thread (where previously I tried 18 and other combinations of settings). Le duh. Now It Works(tm)
KeyConfig addon, and configure a new key: CTRL+ALT+M as binding, code: goDoCommand("cmd_attachFile") (note: no “;” at the end!), and voila, you can attach messages with CTRL+ALT+M!
And yes, there’s a similar extension called Nostalgy, which hides this behind Esc+A. I tried it, and it worked… if I kept Esc pressed while pressing A. That’s awkward. This is way better :)
This thread and this bug are amazing. Apparently, “they” decided that when music is playing, and you close the player, the window will go away, but the music will continue. WTF?! Why the *BLEEP* did you think I was closing that window? Because I couldn’t find the damned minimize button???
Seriously, this “innovation” allows your computer to play music without any GUI. Nice huh? You clicked to start, but if you want to stop: open a terminal and issue a command (either banshee –stop or just kill the bastard).
I know the difference between a friggin’ minimize button and a close button. I want to quit the application, not the GUI. Stop treating me like a baby and stop thinking you know what’s best for me.
Edit: worst thing: you set it to play one song, quit the GUI, and it plays one song. And then the process sits there, wasting mem/cpu cycles. *ANNOYANCE*
Edit2: Okay, I’ll just give up on all these new-fangled media players. I never got the fad, I was curious, but with annoyances piling on annoyances… Let me just compile/install the old XMMS myself. Sure, nowadays it doesn’t play nice with the sound system. But it also quits when I tell it to — apparently an uncommon feature nowadays.
In old versions, Ubuntu asked for the PIN code of my broadband 3G connection once, and then remembered it from then onwards. With the shiny new PC with shiny new Ubuntu, I’m greeted by this pop-up every time I log on.
Enough, I say. I just clicked on the connection, chose “Edit Connections”, edited the broadband connection and entered the PIN code (as well as setting the “available to all users” and “connect on login”-alike options, because at home, I want those anyway).
Didn’t test yet if Ubuntu will now remember, but have hopes. Too lazy to reboot though ;-)
Edit: This Ubuntu bug seems relevant… and dashing my hopes of not having to type in the PIN any more.
FireFox now automagically gives you its latest and greatest… whether you want to or not. Perhaps ok, perhaps not. But: some things change. Things I do care about. I don’t like someone assuming I’m okay with them in this fashion.
Anyway, rant over.
The new Firefox (shiny new version 7, at least new right now) removes the standard url prefix “http://”. I like that prefix. So, let’s add it back!
From somewhere on the web:
To restore the “http” prefix:
And Firefox behaves again.
Yeah, not subtle, not PC. But, if you’ve ever read an online discussion, you must recognise the below sentiment.
I am the new and proud owner of a desktop machine (the cheapest PC I’ve ever bought — and the other two were cheap netbooks(!)). Last time I was in Eindhoven, I bought some lengthy VGA cable. See, the desktop isn’t as mobile as a netbook, and I like to connect it to my TV. Especially after the movies Agnieszka made of my performance in the show turned out to be too much for the processors in my little netbook… I hope this desktop does have the juice to handle them.
Anyway, I hooked up the telly to the TV last night. Major bummer: resolution sucked.
Reboot, using the monitor, and then swap. Guess what happened: resolution was ok for a split second, and then it crashed down to the 1024×768 world of inferiority here (and yes, I’ve been a geek/nerd long enough to remember days when I didn’t even dream of such resolutions). The TV didn’t get recognised by my Ubuntu install (although it did previously on the netbook, weird).
Solution for Ubuntu:
The values listed are for my case, YMMV.
Edit: not related, but still: seems I need to set the audio delay in VLC-player to -300ms. I figured it’d vary depending on .. well, whatever, but it seems to be rather constantly lagging just a tad behind the video. Not a problem, but weird anyway. Solutions welcome!
More Thunderbird news: how to set default view. It is possible, though in an awkward manner.
The trick: use the config editor (Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General), and fix the view according to this comment in Thunderbird’s bugtracker bug about this. I like my mails threaded (in all folders), and sorted with newest on top. You can set this per folder, but I want to do it once and be done with.
To do this:
I want descending (sort_order: 2), date-sorted (sort_type: 18), threaded (view_flags: 1) mails.
So change the relevant mailnews.default_* values to reflect that :)
The comment in full (to safeguard, and in case your settings don’t match mine):
(PS: Note that according to comment 102, further below, the linked comment had _type and _order swapped. That’s changed below.)
Prefs are named as follows; first three apply to Mail and RSS folders, the second three to Newsgroups.
mailnews.default_sort_order
mailnews.default_sort_type
mailnews.default_view_flags
mailnews.default_news_sort_order
mailnews.default_news_sort_type
mailnews.default_news_view_flags
In about:config (Tools | Options | Advanced | General, Config Editor),
you can enter "news._def" to filter out all the prefs but these.
sort_type:
byNone 17 byPriority 23 byLocation 29
byDate 18 * byStatus 24 byTags 30
bySubject 19 * bySize 25 byJunkStatus 31
byAuthor 20 * byFlagged 26 byAttachments 32
byId 21 ** byUnread 27 byAccount 33
byThread 22 byRecipient 28 byCustom 34
* = commonly desired values
** = by Order Received (?)
sort_order:
ascending 1
descending 2
view_flags -- the second group of values can be added to one of the first group to combine effects,
with several limitations:
Unthreaded 0
Threaded 1
Grouped 64 [mail only (?)]
ShowIgnored 8 [news only]
ShowUnreadOnly 16
ShowExpanded 32 [doesn't seem to work]
ShowUnreadOnly will check the View|Threads|Unread menu; this will cause only
unread items to be seen, but doesn't force a threaded view.
Edit: of course, afterwards I find the add-on to do just this :)
Edit 2: Again, no convincing case… not sure if this works …
Edit 3: Nope, it doesn’t work. :(
Edit 4: see next post, kind of got it working.
Ever since switching to Thunderbird, I’m happy… for the most part. There is this error where it cannot open or download attachments correctly. People complained and were told to upgrade. Guess what: no such luck!
Ton said that the second answer there might be correct.That is:
Go to Preferences > Advanced > General > Config Editor, and change the value of mail.server.default.fetch_by_chunks to false.
I did, could unfortunately not test conclusively yet (existing PDF attachments may be locally stored in corrupted format, not sure how to undo that).
If I find the answer, I’ll update the post.
Edit (15 sep 2011): Still no conclusive test, but I tested it on a new TB install (setting the values before adding my mailaccount), and the attachments that were previously borked now work. Which is sufficient evidence for me :)
Focus follows mouse, but too closely. Basically, if you have focus follows mouse, your alt+tab behaviour is getting screwy. Alt+tab works if the mouse is not over a window, but otherwise, it almost always doesn’t work. Which sucks. To the point where I’m considering going back to click-to-focus as opposed to point-to-focus (recall that I fixed windows to do point-to-focus… windows can be hacked to do this, Unix was doing this, but Ubuntu is now broken. Boo le hoo!).
edit: more relevant bug(?).
edit: I complained about this before :).