i3wm & mutt: check mails, blink caps lock led, mark mail workspace as urgent.

README.md

This puzzle has 3 parts:

• A i3wm config that opens mutt in a dedicated workspace. $mod+m will switch to this workspace and will launch mutt, if not already running. Actually it doesn't launch mutt, but…
• a small wrapper script, which opens a named pipe and then starts mutt.
• a checkmail script which uses mailcheck(1) to tara check mail. If new mail is available, it blinks the CAPS LOCK led (which I mapped to CTRL anyway) and marks the mutt workspace via a bell.

Additional configuration:

• set your terminal to mark urgent bells. In Termite the setting is "urgent_on_bell = true".
• adopt you ~/.mailcheckrc to include paths to your mailboxes. In the simplest case it contains just the line "$(HOME)/Maildir/INBOX"

Place the checkmail script in ~/bin/checkmail and run in background on login.

checkmail.sh

#!/bin/bash

RATE=60 # how often to check mails

while true; do
	UNREAD=$(mailcheck -c | cut -f3 -d ' ')

	if [ "x$UNREAD" != "x" ]; then

		if [ -p /tmp/mailnotify ]; then
			echo -e "\a" > /tmp/mailnotify
		fi

		xset led named "Caps Lock"

		# blink $UNREAD times, then sleep 1; repeat $RATE times
		for ((i = 1; i <= $RATE; i++)); do
			for ((j = 1; j <= $UNREAD; j++)); do
				xset -led named "Caps Lock"
				sleep 0.1
				xset led named "Caps Lock"
				sleep 0.1
			done
			sleep 1
		done
	else
		# no unread? just wait $RATE
		echo 'on mail'
		xset -led named "Caps Lock"
		sleep $RATE
	fi
done

i3wm.conf

bindsym $mod+m workspace mail; exec --no-startup-id "flock -xn /tmp/mutt.lock -c 'termite -e ~/bin/mutt_with_notify'"

mutt_and_notify.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ ! -p /tmp/mailnotify ]; then
  mkfifo /tmp/mailnotify
fi

while true; do cat < /tmp/mailnotify; done &

mutt