ToneQuilla
ToneQuilla provides a new filter action to Thunderbird and Seamonkey, to play a custom sound (maybe could be called a biff tone?) as a result of a mail filter. This makes it possible to have different sounds to notify you when emails arrive with different characteristics. ToneQuilla is available here on Mozilla’s add-ons website. This description is current for version 0.2.20090223.
Also provided are a few sample audio files. These are all licensed using a Creative Commons licenses. For details see our sounds licensing page.
Usage Summary
When you install ToneQuilla, it adds a new filter action “Play Sound” that is available when you add or edit filters. This would normally replace the standard “Play a Sound” option under Options/General, so I recommend you turn that option off.
In normal usage, you define an email filter, and then set the “Play Sound” action. Select a sound file, either from one of the provided samples, or from some other available sound. Currently, the usable sound formats are the basic uncompressed sound formats for your system, typically .wav file types.
Detailed How-to
From the main menu, enter Tools/Options and select the General tab. Disable the standard “Play a Sound” option when messages are received:
Now you need to define a message filter to fire when particular types of messages are received. From the main menu, select Tools/Message Filters…
Message filters are defined separately for each server, so select the correct server that will receive your email under “Filters for:”. The press New… to define a new filter, and you get the Filter Rules dialog (shown below).
Give the filter a name in “Filter name:”. In the match criteria section (the lines after the “Match all …/ Match any …” section) you need to define the types of emails that will fire the filter. In this example, I’ll match messages that are From another email account of mine, kent@caspia.com.
In the “Perform these actions” section, select “Play Sound”. The Filter editor then shows a file name entry area (in the obscure URL format), followed by a folder icon 
and a play icon 
. If you press the folder icon, then you can browse sound files that can be played. The default location is the sound directory in the extension itself, where a number of sound files are shown. I’ve selected the “nightingale.wav” file. After selection, you can press the play icon to hear the sound. When you are done, the filter rules dialog should look something like the following image. Click OK to finish, and you are done!
Now if you send an email that matches the filter (In the example, if “kent@caspia.com” sends an email to “rkent@mesquilla.com”) then the sound should play.
Details and Issues
- To prevent too much overlap when multiple emails are received, ToneQuilla allows each sound 4 seconds to play before firing another sound. Also, 15 seconds must elapse after a sound has played before it is allowed to play again. If you test the filter using a local “Apply filters to folder” keep this in mind.
- The standard Mozilla sound play only accepts basic uncompressed sound format files. I’ve tested .wav files on Windows. I’d appreciate comments from any Mac users who successfully use a .aiff file on a Mac. I’m investigating trying to allow the open Ogg Vorbis file format, which is now partially supported in the Mozilla source code.
- Sometimes the sounds get interrupted prior to completion. I’m not sure why this happens. Fixed in version 0.2.20090223
