Indicator Applet

I know that not everyone likes the new Indicator Applet, but I do. I like that it can centralize where notifications for certain programs can happen. However, the programs that actually utilize the indicator applet are not all programs that I use.

Like some others, I've removed Empathy & Evolution from my computer. To be completely honest, I never gave Empathy or Evolution a shot. The thing was, I already have programs that I like to use, and I want to continue to use them. For Instant Messaging, I use Pidgin and for email I use Thunderbird.

While Pidgin puts itself on the indicator applet as part of the installation, Thunderbird does not. I have searched for quite a while on how it can be added to that damn envelope.. and it's finally happened.. Here's how..

It's quite a simple process, it just needed to be found. Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird

When the file opens, type in this line:

/usr/share/applications/xxxxxxxxxx.desktop

Please note that xxxxxxxxxx should be changed to the command used to summon Thunderbird. For me it was thunderbird-3.0

After this you should be able to see Thunderbird when you click on the indicator applet (Envelope). If you want the notifications that libnotify would give you, please check out the Mozilla Notification Extension