New account types in Javascript for Thunderbird (Part 3)
I’ve now released an initial version of my extension TweeQuilla, Twitter for Thunderbird. While the extension provides useful functionality, the main purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate how a Thunderbird account can be created using just javascript. Well almost … there are some binary files needed (called Skinkglue) which are account-independent, and presumably could be made available in the Thunderbird core code to eliminate the need for extension writers to maintain their own C++ compile environment. Unfortunately that binary extension limits this current release to only working under Windows in TB 3.1.x
There are a number of screenshots on my instruction page for TweeQuilla, but just as an example you get standard Twitter folders in your folder pane:
Messages are displayed in thread pane, and show website bodies where appropriate just like an RSS feed:
My main interest here is really to prove that this can be done, and hopefully to inspire some others to add additional account types.
Only windows
Why ? There are way to do that without specific binary (javascript etc.)
Is it the Twitter private key issue ?
No, like everyone else I am forced to reveal the private key. The issue is that the Thunderbird base C++ code (which I call Skink) was never designed to be extendable from JavaScript. There is a binary layer (Skinkglue) that I have provided that allows it to be extended with JavaScript.
I guess what I would hope is that someone who has more experience than I do on the Linux and Apple platforms will work with me in getting Skinkglue working on Linux and Macs. I don’t think that will be very difficult for someone who knows they are doing, it is all Mozilla platform code.
Great work!
Looking forward to see more JS account types like facebook etc…
Thanks a lot for creating this! It makes Thunderbird even more fun to use.
Your plugin is not online anymore, what happened??? thanks
Mozilla addons changed their review procedures, and I have not yet submitted the information that they need to re-review it. Should do that soon though. But if you want, you can download it from http://mesquilla.com/tweequilla.0.1.1.xpi
rkent
I don’t normally Tweet, Face, or book for that matter, but I do use Newsgroups to embed or Iframe Youtube videos all the time. (I have for years)
I saw on tb-planning that you are working on a TB3.3 version. Is that available yet. I just might get a Twitter account and attempt to inject some multimedia.
BTW..Don’t even think about sending SWF or OGG data within mail/news.(Although it can be done with a tad of Javascript) They get very big in a hurry. Remote linked stuff is the way to go. Store it somewhere, then link to it thusly:
iframe type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”
src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/TD1LHejil6M” height=”350″
width=”425″> </iframe
(starting and ending braces clipped)
This week I started work on support for TB 3.3. I have TweeQuilla working now on 3.3, and hope to release that to AMO next week.
Concerning video, you probably saw my tb-planning post about video working in TweeQuilla on 3.3, probably through the plugins. It’s a pity that stuff like that is only allowed through non-email accounts, though I guess that email is viewed as fatally flawed wrt security compared to web-based formats.
As to TweeQuilla, I will warn you that it is not really intended to be a robust Twitter application, rather its main point is to demonstrate that new account types can be added to Thunderbird in a javascript extension, if you use a C++ glue layer (skinkglue) which is not dependent on the particular new account type. But even with its limited feature set, I find myself able to follow Tweets and occasionally post status, which I don’t do from the web interface for some reason. I really like to have all of my activity consolidated into a single location.
So far I have been disappointed in the interest in new account types in the Thunderbird community though. Not sure why the interest has been so low, perhaps the html gurus don’t like my hybrid javascript/C++ approach.
I have been trying to install TweeQuilla but Thunderbird crashes every time I attempt to add one of my Twitter accounts.
Any ideas?
What version of Thunderbird are you using, and what version of TweeQuilla are you installing?
TweeQuilla is still considered quite experimental, though I use it myself regularly.
TweeQuilla 0.2 and the latest version of Thunderbird 3.1.10.
Sorry, but one more question:
Do you see the “New Account Types” addon installed, and if so what is its version?
I don’t see that listed.
By the way, thanks for your help.
OK then that is the problem. The extension actually consists of two different extensions, that need to be downloaded together.
The extension that you need to download and install is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/new-account-types/
That did the trick.
Thanks!
The link to new account types is dead.
Yes I know. The addons people are having a hard time adapting to their new review processes as it applies to binary extensions like New Account Types. They disabled the addon simply because they asked me for additional information. I have complained.
Until that gets resolved, there is little I can do to update and stabilize TweeQuilla, which is one reason I have been fairly quiet recently. But hopefully that will be resolved in the next week or so, and I can get back to doing some fixes and updates (and actually making it work for people who want to try it).
New Account Types 0.2.1 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/new-account-types/) is now available and was able to make TweeQuilla work.
“You can however vary the update rate for the folders, and select which folders are automatically updated. If not automatically updated, the folders will update only when selected.”
Hopefully “Timeline” or the other folders get updated automatically soon. So far, I like this addon. Integrating Twitter with Thunderbird, good job! Thanks.
Can I stream from other accounts, like RSS?
RSS support is built into Thunderbird directly, so I don’t understand this question as it applies to TweeQuilla.
Hey good luck. I was able to run .1 for months and it stopped working. I was having the same problem as Fiona. I really liked tweequilla since it allows one to see the link in the Thunderbird browser.
Hope it works out so I can use it again.
very nice. i was thinking of porting twitter into Tb from snowl (as soon as someone did an oauth lib), though i should really pick up snowl again..
one thing that is a bit odd is any tweet with embedded http will automatically load it. so if the embedded link is a .pdf it will start a download and open a viewer, which imo is not desirable. perhaps you could fit this into the feed paradigm of summary/web page? account option to load summary, enter/dbl click loads ‘website’ if there, use the view->message body etc etc. oh, and believe it or not, a real tweeter i follow as a test actually had 2 embedded links.. perhaps links can be attachment-like, not sure.
the other thing is that a twitter message actually has a lot of headers (or at least the pre oauth version that i am familiar with). would it be reasonable to keep this stuff, in an .eml format, rather than tossing it and solely using db properties? just a thought.
new account types is great, non interest by Tb merely reinforces some not great things about the project.. seems the next cool thing would be to add in xmpp/sameplace (not sure if those guys are still active).
“one thing that is a bit odd is any tweet with embedded http will automatically load”
That is how I designed it, as for me this is mostly a substitute for an RSS feed, when I want the page to show in the message body. But for lots of urls it does act strangely I do agree. That’s something I need to work on. I’ve been discouraged from working on TweeQuilla though because of long backlogs at the addons site, and their bad habit of disabling access to my download when all they really want is some additional information from me. But FINALLY I have all of the pieces of TweeQuilla (and the related New Account Types) through at least preliminary review, so something should now be reliably available on the AMO site in the future, so I might consider doing some tweaks to this. But I was really hoping to get other people interested as well, and so far that has not happened.
“the other thing is that a twitter message actually has a lot of headers” – keeping these only makes sense if there is some UI to use them, like a custom column in the folder pane, or a display in the message header. They are after all readily available on the Twitter website as well.
“new account types is great, non interest by Tb merely reinforces some not great things about the project” I don’t think it is entirely fair to say there is non interest, in fact bienvenu recently did a patch specifically to remove some of the obstacles that I have had. But there has been a lack of leadership for a long time, as innovation in the old Mozilla Messaging team was directed more at UI issues, and Firefox-based communication, rather than new account types. Not sure if the recent demise of Mozilla Messaging helps or hurts that.
- i would merely suggest a pref for the behavior, in the way feeds work now.
- i intend to add one click custom columns in TotalMessage (customize headers bit). current existing methods would work seamlessly (mime emitter to headersink) with twitter headers, if the message were stored with headers .eml style.
- that’s just the impression i got from your experience/post. there should be a built in api, no cpp required for extensions, as you mention. since it seems you’ve already done the work, not uplifting indicates non interest..
Hi!
Waiting for fixes, but no comment from you. Seems that nobody than me uses this plugin.
Regards
Marco
Is it supposed to work for Thunderbird 6.x as well ?
I’ve just upgraded from Thunderbird 5.x and the Twitter Account has disappeared.
Using Thunderbird 6.0, did the setup 3 times, but each time no account shows up in Thunderbird, even though my Twitter account shows the application has been authorized.
Too bad, would have been convenient if it had actually worked. Will check back later perhaps, to see if this has been fixed.
Sorry, doesn’t work yet in TB 6. The review process for the required “New Account Types” addon is the issue. I hope to post the update real soon now, and I’ll probably add a link to bypass AMO which will introduce a long delay till approval.
New Account Types 8.0 have been updated on the 31st of August, and the log says it should support Thunderbird 6, 7 and 8. I also have Tweequilla 0.2.2 (App) installed, but I still have the same problem as DaveJ. Is it working on your side ?
Yep. working for me. I even tried a new with an older TB, updated, and everything updated and worked just fine.
Superb information here, ol’e chap; keep burning the miigdnht oil.
I doesn’t work with tb 6.02 for me, i tried countles times, the account won’t show up
Issues like this are usually associated with problems with the second required addon, “New Account Types”. In theory both should update automatically (and support TB 6.02), but if you are still having problems then I would suggest that you uninstall then reinstall New Account Types.
After I updated I removed New Account Types 8.0 and reinstalled. I tried to create an account twice and still it would not show up.
I checked the Error Console and it said: [TweeQuilla extension] Cannot Create Twitter Server. Is New Account Types (SkinkGlue) extension loaded?
There were also some warnings too. I will email you a screen capture of the Error Console.
OK I updated to Thunderbird 7 and now everything works. Cool.
Same case here, I could not manage to make it work on Thunderbird 6.02, but after Thunderbird 7.0 everything is fine and I love it !
Unfortunately they updated to 7.0.1 and it stopped working for me. So I am running 7.0 for right now.
I think there is a problem with Mozilla development process, they always break add-ons. This does not seem to happen with Chrome. I also had to downgrade to Thunderbird 7.0 to make Tweequilla work.
Great plug-in. But messages cannot be loaded if Thunderbird conversation plugin is installed:
https://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View/wiki
Any date to have MesQuilla running with 7.0.1?
Sorry, I mean any date to have TweeQuilla running with 7.0.1
Same problem with 6.02. Cannot create twitter account.. I have these messages in Error Console:
Error: [TweeQuilla extension] Cannot create Twitter Server. Is New Account Types (SkinkGlue) extension loaded?
Source File: chrome://tweequilla/content/overlay.js
Line: 51
Error: Cc['@mesquilla.com/sgincomingserver;1'] is undefined
Source File: resource://tweequilla/twitterIncomingServer.jsm
Line: 73
I love this extension. Best way to check the tweets. I just wish you keep up with the version numbers..
Same problem with 6.02. Cannot create twitter account.. Got these messages in Error Console:
Error: [TweeQuilla extension] Cannot create Twitter Server. Is New Account Types (SkinkGlue) extension loaded?
Source File: chrome://tweequilla/content/overlay.js
Line: 51
Error: Cc['@mesquilla.com/sgincomingserver;1'] is undefined
Source File: resource://tweequilla/twitterIncomingServer.jsm
Line: 73
I love this extension. Best way to check the tweets, hopefully you keep up with the Mozilla’s development of version numbers..
Sorry to be slow to get back to this.
I investigated these issues last week again (I thought I had done so previously and everything was working fine, but I was wrong). My excuse is that I still consider this an experimental addon, so I don’t necessarily respond quickly to problems.
Apparently, the New Account Types addon was not correctly loading when TB numbers had minor updates, like 6.02 or 7.01 for example. I have uploaded a new version to the Mozilla addon site, but reviews are really far behind right now so there’s no telling when it will get reviewed. But you can download and install the newest version from http://mesquilla.com/skinkglue-789_9.0.build2.xpi Hopefully that should work with 7.01 But this version does not support TB 6, only 7,.8, and 9.
Thanks. It works perfectly with TB 7.0.1.
Great! Works indeed with 7.0.1. (Had to move away from 6.0.2.) Thanks a lot!
Hi RKent,
I downloaded use the link you posted and I got a .zip file. Then a tryed to install addon from file but it didn’t happen (TB 7.0.1). Did I missed something?
Renato,
You need to go to Tools->Add-ons. From there click the gear symbol on the upper right side. From there click Install Add-on From File. From there look for the XPI file that should have come from the zip file you downloaded. Then everything should work fine.
RKent,
Thanks for the file.
I don’t know why but if I try to download from http://mesquilla.com/skinkglue-789_9.0.build2.xpi using Internet Explorer it insist to save as .zip file. Now I downloaded using Firefox and everything run fine on 7.0.1.
Warning for those using Norton.
Norton quarantines skinkglue7.dll because of WS.Reputation.1. An explanation of that can be found at: http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Clarification-on-WS-Reputation-1-detection/td-p/232155
The fix for this is to restore the file in Norton like the link explains.
It appears that Thunderbird doesn’t save the TweeQuilla settings. You know, the folder update time and all that stuff in the Account Settings. Although I check almost all radio buttons, after a TB restart, all the checks are gone, and options are reset. Is there a fix for this? I have Windows 7 Professional, running Thunderbird 7.0.1. And, of course, we need to be able to delete and archive the tweets.
Otherwise, this plugin is great!
When I turn on Thunderbird and check my timeline the max messages is 100. Is there a setting in Thunderbird where I can change this or is there something I have to do at Twitter.
Any help would be appreciated.
Unfortunately this is currently hard-wired. Let me add a note to change this, as I agree it is not really acceptable.
Tweequilla has suddenly stopped working. The twitter account still shows in the left panel, but it cannot retrieve any tweets and it just seems to try to connect forever. Anybody else having the same issue ?
I re-registered the account, and now that’s OK.
Hi, there is a feature for deleting old Twitter message from my folders?
I don’t like to store all (old) message on my Pendrive memory.
Although I don’t recall if I have tested it or not, you can set a retention policy on each folder by right clicking on the folder, and setting the retention policy.
It is possible though that 1) it does not work at all, or 2) it appears to work but does not actually reduce storage usage, only message appearance.
TweeQuilla has no “storage” outside of the message database, so the question is whether space for deleted items is being recovered in the database. That is a core issue that would need to be checked. I don’t know the answer myself.
hi,
I am running TB 11.0.1 with TweeQuilla 1.1. The activation procedure does not work for me. I click on “CLICK HERE FIRST” but I am not redirected to the browser. The browser does not open at all. So I cannot get the Tweeter authorization
to use your APP.
Is it normal with these updated versions of programs incurring on this error?
Hope to use your nice APP soon.
regards
L.
I vaguely recall having a brief intermittent issue like your during one of my testing sessions. But then I frequently have cases where Thunderbird links cannot be displayed in the browser (unrelated to ToneQuilla), with some sort of message claiming that Firefox is already running.
Generally my issues go away when I close Firefox (sometimes manually from the task manager) or after reboot in the worst case.
So I suspect this is an underlying Thunderbird/browser interaction issue, though perhaps I need to anticipate that and show a link that could be opened manually if the browser interaction fails.
BTW, is there any possibility for me to get this link now, that It could be opened manually if the browser interaction fails? Mail me in pvt if u prefer so.
Thanks for your support.
Live
I don’t believe that it is possible for me to just “give you a url” because that url is actually encoded with a token that is received from Twitter each time you try to add a request.
I should be able though to at least show the returned url to the user, so that if you have problems opening the browser from TB (which frequently happens to me, too BTW) you will have a recourse.
But that will have to be in a future TweeQuilla version, which does not help your current problem. I have no workaround, other than killing FF before trying this, which usually works for me.
Warning for those using Norton.
When installing New Account Types 14 Norton quarantines skikinglue-beta-i386.dll because of WS.Reputation.1. Explanation of WS.Reputation.1 can be either Googled or found on a search on the Norton site.
The fix for this is to restore the file in Norton like the link explains.
Thanks for the feedback on the Norton issue. As you probably know, that flag just means that Norton does not recognize the file, and so is being uber conservative and disabling it. They have taken a lot of flak in the forums about that.
Since I detect when New Account Types is missing, I suppose that I could add a pointer to the dialog that suggests users check their AV quarantine if the New Account Types is installed but not working.
Hi there.
With the thunderbird update to V13.0.1, “New Account Types” isn’t working any more for me
Any known issues? Any way I can help to bugfix it?
Cheers, Roland
I’ve posted a fix to this as version 14.1. Try:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/new-account-types/versions/?page=1#version-14.1
(Though standard AMO policy is to disable binary addons that have not been reviewed. Still it might work!)