tbStats: Thunderbird Mail Statistics extension

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tbs_joaquin
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tbStats: Thunderbird Mail Statistics extension

Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hi! I've developed an extension to get some statistics about mail stored in Thunderbird. If you want to test it or get more information, you can visit its home page: <a href="http://tbstats.sourceforge.net/">http://tbstats.sourceforge.net/</a>.

Any comment would be highly appreciated!

<b>Planned Features</b>

* Configuration options
* New statistics

<b>Changes:</b>

0.1-beta2 (2006-05-01):
* Make the waiting cursor dissapear when is has to
* Append a default extension when saving files
* Changed "TVS" to "TSV
Last edited by tbs_joaquin on May 1st, 2006, 10:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy tbs_joaquin,

i'll try it later tonite, thanks.

btw, there's a bug/rfe on the subject here ...
- Statistics of incoming, sent, junk and more.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=247361

take care,
lee
tbs_joaquin
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Location: Spain

Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hi, Lee. Very interesting link. Thanks!

I've made the extension because it was a feature I wish Thunderbird had and to learn how to make extensions. As you will see, it doesn't get a lot of information and it doesn't have any configuration, but I think it's better than nothing... and it's a beggining! :-)

Thanks again.

Joaquín.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy Joaquín,

thot you might find that bug interesting. [*grin*] i'll be testing your ext later this eve. will post back here with my comments - pro'ly tomorrow.

take care,
lee
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy Joaquín,

my tb info ...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Thunderbird/1.5.0.2 - Build ID: 2006030803

thanks for this ext! installed it and been playing with it for a while. nifty! [*grin*] i DO have a few comments ...

[1] after it has loaded the stats window and fully displayed stuff, the mouse cursor - when hovered over the stats window - shows an arrow-with-hourglass. it's as if it had NOT finished whatever it's doing. i let it sit for and hour while i had lunch and it still had the "busy" hourglass & arrow cursor.

[2] it looks as if you scan the entire mail base when the stats command is run.
are you really doing that or are you parsing the msf files? ... or something else?

[3] could you add the ability to exclude items with zero things?
for example i have several folders that are currently empty. seeing ....
- Trash - 0 - 0.00

... for each account is ... perhaps unneeded. [*grin*]

[4] could you start off with a summary - perhaps the per-year display - and then allow choosing the items to display?

[5] "save as tvs" button
a- for ME that is usually written TSV [tab separated values] [*grin*]
b- the dialog shows ".tvs" as the file extension, but when i give it a name of "test" the file that actually gets saved is named "test" instead of the expected "test.tvs".

[6] "save as html" button
see item 5-b above & substitute "html" for "tvs". [*grin*]

[7] could you add an option to exclude items with totals below a certain threshold?
i have a LOT of "username@address.com" showing with just one item. i would prefer to see those shuffled into a category like "below your current threshold of #" or even "the rest of the stuff". this could perhaps be combined with [3] above.

[8] could you sort the folders below the root folders?
right now the account/root folders are sorted by name, but the others are ... in an order i can't even guess at. [*grin*]

[9] the rt-clk context menus seem to not work in the stats window.
i had to hilite and then ctrl-c to copy stuff.

[10] are you using css to style the display?
if so, i would like to see a way to tweak that myself - perhaps with the stylish extension, but any method would be fun.

i am SURE i will think of more things to whine about ... [*grin*]

take care,
lee
tbs_joaquin
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Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hi, Lee!

Wow! Thank you for your detailed explanations! I want to comment them, but I won't have time until tomorrow at least.

Thank you again!

Joaquín.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy Joaquín,

you do the real work and i will kibbitz ... [*grin*] i am in no hurry on this! please, take your time. i am aware of that "real life" thingy that some very peculiar folks apparently have to deal with.

take care,
lee
tbs_joaquin
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Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hello, Lee.

Lee_Dailey wrote:[1] after it has loaded the stats window and fully displayed stuff, the mouse cursor - when hovered over the stats window - shows an arrow-with-hourglass. it's as if it had NOT finished whatever it's doing. i let it sit for and hour while i had lunch and it still had the "busy" hourglass & arrow cursor.


That one also bugged me, but I wasn't able to solve it before the first release. Now I know that it is only adding a "contentDocument.close()" so it will be solved in the next beta.

[2] it looks as if you scan the entire mail base when the stats command is run.
are you really doing that or are you parsing the msf files? ... or something else?


Err... I don't know! The code to scan messages was taken from Remove Duplicate Messages extension and I don't exactly know how it works.

If you are asking because it takes too long to compute the statistics, according to my tests, most of the time is taken analyzing the headers through the interface nsIMsgHeaderParser. I don't know if there is a better alternative...

[3] could you add the ability to exclude items with zero things?
for example i have several folders that are currently empty. seeing ....
- Trash - 0 - 0.00

... for each account is ... perhaps unneeded. [*grin*]


I think that this should be a configuration option: perhaps there is people interested in knowing which folders don't have any message. In this release, "no configuration" is a feature ;-) so it will have to wait for the next one.

[4] could you start off with a summary - perhaps the per-year display - and then allow choosing the items to display?


Probably the best approach would be making the results window interactive, but I think it's too difficult for my current understanding of XUL and javascript. With time, it will be improved.

[5] "save as tvs" button
a- for ME that is usually written TSV [tab separated values] [*grin*]


For you and for everyone but stupid me! ;-) That one will be corrected in the next beta.

b- the dialog shows ".tvs" as the file extension, but when i give it a name of "test" the file that actually gets saved is named "test" instead of the expected "test.tvs".

[6] "save as html" button
see item 5-b above & substitute "html" for "tvs". [*grin*]


Another one that will be corrected in the next beta.

[7] could you add an option to exclude items with totals below a certain threshold?
i have a LOT of "username@address.com" showing with just one item. i would prefer to see those shuffled into a category like "below your current threshold of #" or even "the rest of the stuff". this could perhaps be combined with [3] above.


I think that a configuration window should be shown to choose all this kind of things, but that will have to wait a little.

[8] could you sort the folders below the root folders?
right now the account/root folders are sorted by name, but the others are ... in an order i can't even guess at. [*grin*]


Neither do I :-) I will try to correct it.

[9] the rt-clk context menus seem to not work in the stats window.
i had to hilite and then ctrl-c to copy stuff.


I think that I will have to program them if I want them to work... It will take time.

[10] are you using css to style the display?
if so, i would like to see a way to tweak that myself - perhaps with the stylish extension, but any method would be fun.


Yes, I'm using CSS. I don't know the stylish extension; I will have to take a look into it.

i am SURE i will think of more things to whine about ... [*grin*]


Thank you again for making this detailed report :-)

Regards,

Joaquín.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy Joaquín,

thanks for the info!

glad you tracked down the hourglass problem - that is the only really irritating thing about the ext. right now. my q about how you got the info was curiosity. as for the other points, good to know that you are aware of them.

you might wanna put a "planned features" list on the 1st page of the thread so folks can get a quick idea of where you are heading.

as for the css stuff and stylish [ http://userstyles.org/stylish ], it would be nifty if you made a way to tweak the css. actually, if you just document your css, the users can diddle it easily with stylish. perhaps you could list the info in the thread? id's and such ... take a look at what has been done to stylish by looking at the "stylish ..." section of the style listing here ...
http://userstyles.org/style/list

again, thanks! it's a nifty little extension. [*grin*]

take care,
lee
tbs_joaquin
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Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hi!

I've made a new beta version with some of the bugs corrected. The first message in this thread has been updated.

I still have to take a deeper look to stylish and have to solve the order of the folders.

Regards,

Joaquín.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy joaquin,

kool dude! i 'll play with it later this eve ...

take care,
lee
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy joaquin,

i have tried 3 diff dl sites from source forge and all have resulted in damaged files. i flushed out the cache and temp folders - still fubar. can YOU dl from them?

take care,
lee
tbs_joaquin
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Post by tbs_joaquin »

Hi, Lee!

I have downloaded the file from two mirrors, installed both of the files and they worked just fine. I think you may have experienced a problem with SourceForge when the files are being copy to the mirrors or something. Somebody also wrote me with a similiar problem when the first version was published... :-?

If tomorrow there are still problems, I will investigate more.

Regards,

Joaquín.
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy joaquin,,

thanks for checking .. i will re-dl the file this eve & test then.

take care,
lee
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Lee_Dailey
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Post by Lee_Dailey »

howdy joaquin,

[1] got the file finally. [*grin*] dunno why it was garbled the 1st several times i dl'd it, but it downloaded just fine this morning.

[2] another link you might wanna look at ...
http://mnenhy.mozdev.org/junk.html#stat

[3] you might wanna put a link on sourceforge pointing to this thread. this page ...
http://tbstats.sourceforge.net/

... has a link to the sorceforge forum, but that is ... not very active. [*grin*] adding this one might help a tad.

take care,
lee
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