Delta Chat as Thunderbird Add-On

Hi all,
what about a Thunderbird Add-On (or maybe also a Firefox oder Chrome Add-On) as another way to bring DC on the desktop. That would make DC available for all platforms Thunderbird (Firefox, Chrome, …) is running on. It could look like this:

Happy First-Contact-Day! :vulcan_salute:

9 Likes

first of all welcome here.
of my side, i like this idea!

I would like it,
Also there are a Pidgin plugin that let you create a Delta Chat account in Pidgin (adds a new type of account to Pidgin)
Helping that project, that already have something that works, may be more useful than starting from zero.
gitlab.com/lupine/purple-plugin-delta/

3 Likes

I also would like this.
Now we just have to found a developer for it :wink:

First of all its not that easy…

regarding Thunderbird addon

But as Thunderbird already has the libraries for SSL and email, core building problems related to that won’t be an issue in this.

So the most tricky part is probably to integrate deltachat core with thunderbird (I don’t know the plugin system, so it might need to be integrated directly into thunderbird).

regarding Browser Plugins

In the future we could use webassembly(for speed, instead of ‘slow’ js) and raw TCP Sockets (for email protocols - namely SMTP and IMAP) for deltachat as browser plugin. (Technology isn’t quite there yet for a dc browser plugin)

regarding User Interface in Thunderbird

As for the Userinterface it would be cool if you could specify wheter an folder/account is an deltachat account if that’s the case it opens the deltachat interface instead of the normal one.

Like to cover the two use cases:

  1. you use DeltaChat together with you main mail account:
    • clicking on the DeltaChat folder reveals the dc interface
    • the dc folder has a dc icon and the new message counter stands for the new chat messages
    • sub-entries in the hierarchy/tree to provide quick access to archived chats, blocked contacts, new Chat and so on
  2. you have a pure dc account
    • the account entry in the hierarchy/tree has a delta chat icon and also the above mentioned sub-entries from the dc folder

In both cases are the settings added to the settings to the normal Thunderbird settings place. Where in case 1 its a part of the email account settings and in case 2 it manages the whole account
( like hide some settings that dc manages/ are irrelevant when it’s a pure dc account)

Also on that setting matter → the dc plugin should manage some settings/set good defaults automatically as on which folder to watch according to the above mentioned use-cases.

2 Likes

Wouldn’t it be more useful to implement a delta-like view option in thunderbird, that uses the rest of thunderbird as it is?

There is a “conversations” addon, that displays e-mail threads like Gmail conversations. Similar things should be possible to display delta chat threads. Autocrypt is already implemented in enigmail, so thunderbird only needs a few tweaks (I think delta sets in-reply-to headers slightly different than normal mail programs) and a polished delta-chat-view option.

4 Likes

Yes, Schiminieee and allo, you are right! I furthermore overlooked that Thunderbird already has a Chat feature. So everthing we need (TB, Enigmail/Autocrypt, Chat, …) is already there and only (:wink:) needs to be connected…

Delta Chat is already compatible with classic MUA, the only trouble was in the MUA side that had to chat using a classic email view, if with this Thinderbird addon that is solved, then what are the plus of having dc core in Thunderbird? maybe just tweaking the Thunderbird addon to add some dc headers would be enough, or I am missing something?

1 Like

on other hand having a web-based version of Delta Chat could solve a lot of problems(ex. Windows)
for example Spike has one (https://spikenow.com/web/)

2 Likes

Hello
i can’t give any technical help on the topic but i can give a huge, huge support to the idea ! i absolutely dream of such a solution to see my Delta Chat conversations in my daily use of Thunderbird !
Please someone find a way :wink:

1 Like

Tb already has extentions for autocrypt, enimgma mail, and another one that does seamless pgp key exchange.

Expect evil Mozilla to harm and harass development efforts needlessly and relentlessly

Hi, I’m a new member here in forum (and no specialist for DC) - and of cause haven’t read all the topics yet…
An addon in TB would be great.
BTW: Someone said, that it’s possible to export private key from DC and import in TB, to be able to read the mails there. Is this correct?
(EDIT: I have Thunderbird 78.4.0 with integrated PGP)