KBiff KBiff
Version 1.0.2

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3. Using KBiff

KBiff is very intuitive to use with obvious and self-explanatory actions... to the author. For everybody else, a little explanation is in order.

3.1 Some Terminology

Here are a few words that will be tossed around in this handbook:

  Terminology  
  command The command that will run with the user clicks on the KBiff app. Usually, this is a mail program. This is not the same as the "Run Command".  
  mailbox The actual mailbox or file that KBiff will monitor. KBiff will not ever modify this file.  
  mail state There are three states: No Mail, Old Mail, and New Mail.  
  mailbox profile This is the configuration settings necessary for KBiff to monitor a mailbox. It includes the profile name (i.e., "Inbox"), the path to the actual mailbox ("/var/spool/mail/user"), the poll time, the command to run when the icon is clicked, and the three pixmaps to use to display the current state (no mail, old mail, and new mail). It is possible to delete any mailbox profile as long as there is at least one left.  
  pixmap The graphic files that KBiff uses to display the mail state. Commonly, this is a GIF or XPM file.  
  poll time The amount of time KBiff will wait before checking again for new mail. It is in seconds. Default is 60 seconds.  
  profile Same as mailbox profile  
  run command The shell command that will run whenever new mail arrives. This is user specified.  

3.2 Starting KBiff

The first time you run KBiff (rather, every time KBiff runs without being restored), the setup dialog will popup. If you have not created any other mailbox profiles, there will be a default mailbox profile created called "Inbox." It will try to use the environment variable $MAIL as the mailbox path. It will not allow you to delete this profile if you do not create another profile, first. That is, KBiff must always have at least one profile.

See the Setup Dialog section for more details on the dialog.

Fill in the parameters in the setup dialog (or verify that the shown parameters are correct) and click on OK.

3.3 Using KBiff

After the setup dialog goes away, KBiff will assume its natural state. It first checks the given mailbox to see what state it is in. Based on this state, it assigns its current pixmap to the corresponding given pixmap. The size of the KBiff window will adjust to the size of the pixmap given for old mail. By default, KBiff will assume a non-docked window initally.

KBiff recognizes both right and left mouse clicks. A left mouse click will launch the command specified in the setup dialog (usually an email program). A right mouse lick will popup a menu. The popup menu is detailed in the Popup Menu section.

It is possible to bypass the setup dialog once a profile has been created. This is accomplished with the -profile command line option. A possible use of it would be to create a .kdelnk file for KBiff and put it in your Autostart folder. In the execute box, put

	kbiff -profile "Inbox"
or whatever your profile name is. This will start KBiff up and bypass the setup dialog.

Note that if you have session management enabled, this is not only unnecessary (KBiff will automatically start up with the correct profile), but it will cause two KBiffs to start.

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