Please PortableApps Package Benbuck's RBTray Fork

Hello John and Gord,

I think that RBTrayOriginal should be replaced with RBTrayBenbuckFork. Reasons are many, the addition of two other ways of minimising windows is very useful, but I'll mention specifically what has happened recently with Mozilla Firefox and (Mozilla) Thunderbird and how this relates to RBTray.

I've used RBTray(original) for years. But right-clicking on the minimise of button of (pre-Quanutm) Firefox never used to work. However, on the release of Firefox Quantum the right-click on the minimise button did start to work. So what did that mean? RBTray hadn't changed, so Quantum must have changed the coding of the minimise button at least to the extent to how it interacted with the operating system. This was good I enjoyed the new-found capacity to minimise to the system tray. I would also note that pre-Quantum Thunderbird couldn't be minimised to the system tray with RBTray(original) either. This used to drive me up the wall.

Then, very recently, I came across an addon for (pre-Quanutm) Thunderbird call FireTray. I installed it and it allowed minimise to the system tray of (pre-Quantum) Thunderbird. Then out comes Thunderbird Quantum. And, along with the new release, suddenly the user, to install FireTray at all, had to change an about:config preference in Thunderbird (in a default install of Thunderbird Quantum it will block the installation of FireTray). Once the about:config preference was altered the user could install FireTray, but, alas, it no longer worked with Thunderbird Quantum. This means that once people install Thunderbird Quantum, and if they were used to using FireTray, they would no longer have a way of getting Thunderbird Quantum into the system tray. As far as I am aware there are no plans to make FireTray work with Thunderbird Quantum. So users now have to look for an alternative.

As I knew about the change in coding for the minimise button in Firefox I thought that maybe that change would have fed into Thunderbird Quantum. So I tried to test this with a default install of Thunderbird Quantum and using RBTray(original). The result was it didn't work. Which had me baffled for a while. Then it dawned on me that a default install of Thunderbird Quantum the (Windows) "titlebar" isn't displayed. After a bit of research I found that to get the titlebar to display it was necessary to do an about:config change in Thunderbird Quantum. The change is to alter the preference mail.tabs.drawInTitlebar from "true" to "false". Once I did that I found that RBTray(original) did work in getting Thunderbird Quantum to minimise to the system tray. That in itself baffled me, after all, in a default install of Thunderbird Quantum, a minimise button is shown, yet it didn't work with RBTray(original). This of course has to mean that the "default install minimise button" is coded differently from the minimise button that is presented after doing the above mentioned about:config preference tweak. I tried to do some research on this and it was then that I came across RBTrayBenbuckFork.

To test how the BenbuckFork interacted with Thunderbird Quantum I undid my about:config tweak -- so I was back down to a default install of Thunderbird Quantum. And then on testing found that the BenbuckFork combination Shift+Click did minimise Thunderbird Quantum to the system. However, the Win+Alt+Down combination didn't work, nor did right-clicking on the minimise button (pesky different coding again). However, this was a significant improvement in as much, with a default install of Thunderbird Quantum, the user could get minimise to system tray by one of the available routes offered by BenbuckFork. (Just using RBTrayOriginal would have failed to get the minimise done.)

Then I changed the about:config setting again to force Thunderbird Quantum to show the Titlebar. Once that is done two of the routes of minimising Thunderbird Quantum offered by the BenbuckFork worked -- Win+Alt+Down, and right-click on the minimise button. (Shift+click on the titlebar failed to minimise -- so evidence of more different coding.)

So to summarise, in all the BenbuckFork -- though at first glance the changes to RBTRay(original) look cosmetic -- does offer distinct advantages when it comes to dealing with Thunderbird Quantum: users can minimise to the tray by a route irrespective of whether they do or do not tweak about:config to show/not show the Titlebar, the BenbuckFork won't fail to minimise, RBTray(original) might.

Also bear in mind that FireTray users will soon be looking for a solution that works with Thunderbird Quantum and the BenbuckFork offers that without tweaking a default of install of Thunderbird Quantum. So I would say the usefulness of just offering the BenbuckFork should show up, particularly from folks looking for an alternative to FireTray.

I'd also note that changing over to just offering an RBTRayBenbuckForkPortable wouldn't be difficult for someone with experience in packaging PortableApps. I think all that really needs changed is a couple of dialogues, making sure that they mention the three options available of minimising windows via the BenbuckFork, and maybe alterations to the "splash" dialogue to reflect this is a fork that is being launched, and Bob's your uncle! (Okay, there's program details entries to deal with as well, I'm just looking at it from the point of view of naïve user, like me.)

So I would say replace the original RBTray, and I'm saying that with some emotional attachment to RBTray(original) -- it's given me great service over the years.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, John. Have downloaded and things seem fine. That said, the 'first run' dialogue window text has a typo in it as follows [my emphasis]:

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RBTray Portable (PortableApps.com Launcher)
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Welcome to your first run of RBTray Portable! RBTray has no user interface or icon of its own. While running, you can minimize most windows to the system tray by right-clicking on the window's minimize button. You can also minimize by holding SHIFT and right-clicking the title bar of an app of pressing WIN-ALT-DOWN ARROW on the keyboard to minimize the active window. To exit RBTray, right-click on one of the minimized application icons in the system tray and select exit. Or run RBTray Portable again and you will be asked if you want to close the running copy. Enjoy!
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OK
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I think where it says ". . . of pressing WIN-ALT-DOWN . . ." that ". . . or pressing WIN-ALT-DOWN . . ." was intended. There are also two instances of this typo in the RBTrayPortable\App\AppInfo\Launcher\Custom.nsh file. (Which is where I think the two possible dialogues are set-up from.)

Also in RBTrayPortable\App\RBTray\readme.txt there is only mention of the right-click on the minimise button method to send a window to the System Tray. The other two methods are omitted. Though I think that omission might be down to Benbuck Nason.

Don't know if you want to correct any of this, RBTRay is working fine.

Hope this helps. Thanks again.