Current Version: 1.0

What is imapbiff?
-----------------
imapbiff is a small perl/tk program that notifies you of new mail in an IMAP 
mail account.  It only checks IMAP accounts, not local mail files or POP
accounts.  When you do not have any unread messages in your IMAP Inbox, it
will display a mailbox icon with the flag lowered.  When it detects new
messages in your IMAP Inbox, it will beep and raise the flag.  Whenever it is
querying the IMAP server, a "?" is displayed to indicate that it is checking
for messages.

Requirements
------------
- perl.
- The Tk perl module (DOES NOT come with most perl installations).
- The Getopt module (comes with most perl installations).
- The IO perl module (comes with most perl installations).
- The IO::Socket::SSL module if you want to use an SSL connection.

Installation
------------
Check the first line of imapbiff to see if it is pointing at the correct
location of your perl interpreter.  If not, change this line so that it
contains a correct path to perl.

Usage
-----
You can either pass command line arguments to imapbiff, or use a .imapbiffrc
file in your home directory.  The format of the .imapbiffrc file is:

host <IMAP server hostname>
user <your user name on the IMAP server>
sleep <number of seconds to sleep between checks>
password <your password>
nobeep 
use_ssl (if you want to connect over SSL)

It is recommended to not store your password in the file, and rather let
imapbiff bring up a window to prompt you for your password.
Example .imapbiffrc:

host my.mail.host.org
user marndt
sleep 600

This would try to login as marndt at my.mail.host.org every 600 seconds.
You will be prompted for your password when imapbiff starts, and upon having
new mail, the icon will change and a beep will be sent out.

You can also specify command line options, which override the .imapbiffrc
options: 

-d
  debug mode: in this mode, imapbiff will not run as a daemon, but rather print
  out debugging messages to the terminal you start it from.
-q 
  quiet mode: do not beep when you have new messages.  Identical to having a
  line with "nobeep" on it in the .imapbiffrc file.
-h <host>
  host: use <host> as the IMAP server.  No default, this must be specified
  either in the .imapbiffrc or on the command line.
-s <sleep>
  sleep: sleep for <sleep> seconds between checks.  Defaults to 120 seconds.
-u <user>
  user: connect to the IMAP server as <user>.  Defaults to the user you run
  imapbiff as.
-e
  Use SSL when connecting to the imap server.  This defaults to port 993.

While imapbiff is running, you can use the mouse buttons for the folllowing:

Button 1: click on the pixmap with button 1 to lower the mailbox flag, and
remember the current number of unseen messages in your mailbox.  If any new 
messages come, the flag will go up again.  If imapbiff sees that you have
read the messages, it will automatically lower the threshold so that you
are notified when new messages arrive.

Button 2: click on the pixmap with button 2 to initiate an immediate check of
your mailbox.  

Issues
------
On older perl installations, the IO::Socket module does work correctly with 
imapbiff's alarm setup.  If imapbiff is dying, run it in debug mode (-d), and
look at the output when it dies.  If it dies saying "Alarm clock", then you
will need to upgrade your perl IO module.  If it is dying for any other reason,
please let me know.

To-do
-----
- Get prettier pixmaps!

Author and Homepage
-------------------
Author: Michael Arndt
Email: marndt@bulldog.tzo.org
Home Page: http://bulldog.tzo.org/imapbiff/imapbiff.html

Thanks you's:
-------------
I got the pixmaps for the mailbox from a color xbiff program.  I don't know what
it was, but if anyone recognizes the pixmaps, let me know and I will give credit
to the original creator of the pixmaps.  

See the CHANGELOG file for some more Thank you's.
