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Ghostbird: GhostText for Thunderbird

Supports Thunderbird ESR Latest release

Download on AMO

Ghostbird is a Thunderbird add-on that lets you compose your emails in your favorite text editor - Vim, Neovim, VS Code, Sublime Text, Emacs, or any other editor with a GhostText add-on installed.

Please visit the website for the original browser add-on, GhostText by Federico Brigante, to get the idea.

Since synchronization uses the GhostText protocol, your text editor needs to have a GhostText server function. This means you need to install a plugin on your text editor's side to listen for connections from Thunderbird.

Requirements

  • Thunderbird 140 (We will mainly support the latest ESR)

  • A text editor that has a GhostText server add-on installed and running:

    Sublime Text VSCodium Visual Studio Code GNU Emacs Vim Neovim Acme Helix $ANY_EDITOR

    The last two implementations can wrap any editor that blocks while editing.

Installation

logo

You can install Ghostbird in several ways:

Install within Thunderbird (Recommended)

  1. In Thunderbird, open Add-ons Manager.
  2. Search for "Ghostbird".
  3. Click the + Add to Thunderbird button.

Download and install manually

  1. Download the latest release from the Thunderbird add-on website or GitHub Releases.
  2. In Thunderbird, go to Add-ons Manager.
  3. Drag and drop the downloaded .xpi file into the Add-ons Manager window.

Alternatively, you can:

  1. Press 鈿欙笍 button at the top-right.
  2. Select Install Add-on From File... from the menu.
  3. Select downloaded .xpi file.

Build from source

  • Basically, running make will do, which is roughly equivalent to yarn install && yarn build.
  • See CONTRIBUTING.md to get started.

Usage

  1. Launch your favorite text editor.
  2. Start the GhostText server in your text editor (e.g., with :GhostTextStart in Vim).
  3. Press the gray Ghostbird button Gray button in the Thunderbird mail compose window. (The default shortcut is ^Ctrl+鈬hift+H)
    • If the connection is successful, the button will turn blue Blue button.
    • If the connection fails, the button will turn red Red button. Make sure that the GhostText server is listening. See Troubleshooting page of original GhostText.
  4. Write your email in the text editor.
  5. Close your text editor to stop Ghostbird.

  • Example using Vim-Ghost

    vimghost.webm

  • Example using Notepad++ via GhostText-Any

    Screenshot using Notepad++ with GhostText-Any

How it works

Roadmap

Contributing

If you like the idea, please:

FAQ

Is it safe to use?

  • I'd say yes, but save your work frequently since it may contain bugs and eat your email.
  • This add-on does not collect any personal data and can only connect to localhost. Attempts to send any data to external servers are blocked by Thunderbird's security model.
  • You can look inside the released .xpi files (which are just zip files) to verify that they match the build from the source code.
  • As for trustworthiness, the safest option is to wait until it reaches 1.0.0, as that indicates it has passed Mozilla's manual review.

Why not just fork the original GhostText add-on, or contribute to it?

How do I set up a development environment?

How do I troubleshoot connection issues?

How do I switch between HTML mode and Plain Text mode?

How can I support the project?

Please consider the following options:

If you've looked at the options above and still want to motivate the maintainer @snipsnipsnip specifically, you can tip some ETH.

Credits