Here is a start of a good XBiff defaults file. Cut everything in between the === lines into the file and all will be well. ============================================ ! This file belongs in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/XBiff ! ! This method of setting up xbiff assumes/requires that EVERY user of xbiff ! is using Maildirs. If that is not the case leave out the *checkCommand line ! and when running xbiff do it with this command line argument... "xbiff -xrm ! '*checkCommand:/usr/local/bin/checkmail'" and it will work with Maildirs ! only for the person invoking xbiff in this fashion. Or you could do ! something like add an alias in the /etc/bashrc file like alias ! xbiff-Maildir="xbiff -xrm '*checkCommand:/usr/local/bin/checkmail'" ! and then tell your users about the alias. ! ! I do not know if the * are required in front of the commands but it works ! correctly that way so I'll leave them there. ! Make sure to put the checkmail command in /usr/local/bin and make it 755 ! permissions and chown it to root:root or this is going to break ! This tells XBiff to use /usr/local/bin/checkmail to tell if any new mail ! has been delivered to the Mairdir in question. Remember THIS IS ONLY SAFE ! TO DO ON A SYSTEM THAT ALL xbiff users have Maildirs. *checkCommand:/usr/local/bin/checkmail ! On a low load machine (few users active at one time check mail often, if ! lots of users or higher load system slow it down (this is in seconds) *update:1 ! I like to hear the mail arrive, volume defaults to 33% my machine is ! better at 50% *volume:50 ! width and height set the size of the window. On my machine this makes a ! fairly good square without squashing the mailbox. Adjust this as needed ! for your viewing pleasure *width:48 *height:88 ============================================ Here is the checkmail program cleaned up a little with some comments added, again cut everything between the ==== lines into the file and all will be well. ============================================ #!/bin/sh # # Program: checkmail # Program by: Timothy L. Mayo # Email: tmayo@mayod.nb.net # WWW: http://mayod.nb.net/ # # Provided with the permission of the author for personal use. # This software provided as. It is used at your own risk.... # # Comments and very slight modifications by: David Mandala # # The purpose of this script is to allow xbiff to detect if new mail has # arrived in a Maildir, it could be a bit more general, right now it expects # that the Maildir will exist in $HOME/Maildir. If for some reason that is not # the case on your machine you will need to fixup the script a bit. This # script needs to be chowned by root:root with permissions of 755 if it is # going to be used machine wide. It should be placed in /usr/local/bin. # If you have the older version of ls that does not understand --color=no use # this line. # ls $HOME/Maildir/new > $HOME/.curmail # This line works with the newer versions of ls that do color automatically # and understand the command --color=no ls --color=no $HOME/Maildir/new > $HOME/.curmail if [ "`wc -l $HOME/.curmail | colrm 8`" != " 0" ]; then if [ -f $HOME/.prevmail ]; then if [ "`diff --brief $HOME/.curmail $HOME/.prevmail`" ]; then mv $HOME/.curmail $HOME/.prevmail exit 0 fi exit 1 fi mv $HOME/.curmail $HOME/.prevmail exit 0 else exit 2 fi ============================================