[regression] What happened to the mailbox deskbar replicant?

[taos]

E-mail preflet used to offer (until January this year, I think) an option to activate a deskbar replicant that informed you about new incoming mail (the mailbox icon changed from empty to full) and gave you a kind of shortcut to your mail folders, Mail application and queries (see ​https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/workshop-email.html). As long as this replicant was already sitting in your deskbar before the changes from January (or you copied pre-January mail settings with an activated replicant to a new Haiku installation) you wouldn't notice a difference after updating with pkgman because the replicant would work just as before. However, after a fresh install (with new mail settings) or after deleting the replicant, there seems no obvious way to activate the e-mail replicant again. The option seems to be gone from the E-mail preflet. The option to change the menu links (which used to be displayed by the e-mail replicant) is still there.

[taos]

As far as I remember, this option was called "Start mail services on startup" or "Start mail daemon on startup" (or similar) and was probably part of src/preferences/mail/ConfigWindow.cpp.

[pulkomandy]

For me the replicant was added when I created an account. However later on I deleted the account and the replicant was not removed.

[taos]

As far as I remember, the replicant could never be removed by deleting a mail account, but either by clearing the corresponding checkbox in E-mail preflet or by ctrl + shift + right-click on the mailbox icon in deskbar - or by deleting one of the mail settings files (can't remember which one). Adding a new mail account didn't trigger the creation of the replicant for me. Does this only work if there are no other mail accounts or if no previous settings files exist?

[axeld]

The mail_daemon should (unlike before) only be started when there is a mail account. That it does not clear itself when the last one is removed is a bug.

I'll look into the other issues you mentioned.

[taos]

Small update: I checked yesterday again with a fresh installation of hrev49500 x86_64 on a microSD card. No left-over accounts or setting files. I added a new pop3 account, however, nothing seemed to happen, no popping up of a mailbox icon in deskbar. I removed the account, added a new imap account, no change in deskbar. I removed the account again, closed E-mail preflet. By accident, I right-clicked on the empty part of the deskbar (there were only 2 replicants - network and process controller by default) and - I couldn't believe it - was greeted with the context menu of the mail replicant. But there is no visible indication of the replicant icon. On my other installations, I cannot reproduce this behaviour (might be due to lack of empty space to click in deskbar as it is usually cluttered with a number of other replicants (battery, volume, etc)).

[axeld]

With hrev50079, the mail_daemon should be quit (and removed) when there are no configured accounts left. Is there any other reason to keep this ticket open? A suddenly invisible mail_daemon doesn't really sound like a mail_daemon issue.

[taos]

I don't know. Should I open new tickets for: a) an invisible but fully functional replicant (it still works on versions > hrev50095, as long as there's enough room in deskbar you can hit it, see comment:6) b) removing a replicant by accident with no known way to create a new visible one without removing all mail accounts (FYI, so far I didn't test if the invisible replicant is actually removed after deleting the last account - I can live with an invisible one as long as it still works, I'm only missing the visual indicator for "You have new mail")?

[taos]

Replying to taos:

I don't know. Should I open new tickets for: a) an invisible but fully functional replicant (it still works on versions > hrev50095, as long as there's enough room in deskbar you can hit it, see comment:6)

kallisti5 opened a ticket for this (#12792).