New plugin: Thunderbird email attachment helper - help yourself :-)

[ArchieLinux]

ethunder

Greetings. I just posted another nnn plugin called ethunder to quickly send a selected file within nnn off as a Thunderbird email attachment. Again, I'd be honored to have any of my plugins included in this official nnn repository.

BACKGROUND: Many times, while navigating around within the nnn file manager, I want to send a particular file via Thunderbird email either to myself, or to a family member, friend, or business associate.

I find it a pain to (1) leave nnn (2) access Thunderbird (3) create a new message (4) find the file I saw back in nnn that I'd wanted to attach, (5) actually attach it, (6) and then start composing my message (7) send it off (8) and go back to nnn to resume whatever I was doing.

So I created this nnn plugin named ethunder to make this easy...

You can find it here or https://github.com/ArchieLinux/nnn-plugs/blob/main/ethunder

USAGE:
(1) Select a single file within nnn
(2) invoke the ethunder plugin.

Thunderbid opens with a new pending email with your selected file already attached. Enter recipient, subject and message as you like, and hit send, save as draft for later, etc.

Best of all, you're still in nnn :-)

[N-R-K]

I don't think cat-ing the selection file is a good idea since it's typically nul-separated. Also why limit to just one file? Can't thunderbrid send more attachment than one?

[ArchieLinux]

@N-R-K Thanks for taking time to review and comment - much appreciated!

I will certainly look into ways (besides cat) to access the contents of the .selection file. Being new to scripting, I'd welcome any suggestions.

Regarding multiple attachments, I fully agree. To be fair, I didn't "limit" it, I just haven't implemented it yet. You might notice it's on the "TO DO" list at the bottom of the script.

Meanwhile, I typically only send a single file so it didn't stop me from enjoying using the plugin - and one can always send multiple files and entire directories as a single attachment by using my arcenc and arcdec plugins ;-)

[amalgame21]

If you just want to use a single file, you can just use $1 for the hovered item (or current file).
If you want to use .selection file, since it is a list of path with null-separated, you can use xargs -0 as N-R-K said,
i.e. for your script, you may try xargs -0 -I{} thunderbird -compose "attachment={}" < $attach.
Also you need to let user choose to use current (hovered item) or selection, if .selection file exist.
And clear .selection after using the plugin.
All these logic are included in the chksum plugin, I think it is the easiest to go through, you may take a look.

[N-R-K]

you may try xargs -0 -I{} thunderbird -compose "attachment={}" < $attach.

I don't think that will work. It will end up opening multiple thunderbirds with one file for each instance. Which is not expected behavior. User would want a single thunderbird instance with all the files attached instead.

[amalgame21]

Oops, sorry, you are right.

I modified it a little bit, this seems ugly but working for me:

xargs -0 printf "%q\n" < $attach |paste -d, -s |xargs -I{} thunderbird -compose "attachment='{}'"

Tested with filename with space, single quote, double quote, square and curly brackets, seems fine.

I always find it very very difficult to escape those special character when creating new plugins, like in this case.
Is printf "%q" the only proper way to do it ? thanks.

[ArchieLinux]

Awesome - now I need to spend some serious time parsing this string of commands ... will report back.

[N-R-K]

Is printf "%q" the only proper way to do it ?

This is the first time I'm seeing this and I highly suspect that it's a GNU extension.

[ghost]

I find it a pain to (1) leave nnn (2) access Thunderbird (3) create a new message (4) find the file I saw back in nnn that I'd wanted to attach, (5) actually attach it, (6) and then start composing my message (7) send it off (8) and go back to nnn to resume whatever I was doing.

I just open the file with thunderbird, e.g.

1. Hover over the file
2. o
3. thunderbird
4. ENTER
5. g

[ArchieLinux]

Thanks! I never realized it could be so easy. Yeah, the multiple attachment thing is missing but...

... the fix from @amalgame21 & @N-R-K (see above) seems to do the trick for handling multiple files. I've added a line to rm the .selection file (which nnn immediately replaces with an empty one anyhow). But I'm still parsing through the string of commands on the multi-attachment command line to better understand exactly what's happening there.

It's my ignorance and slow learning that stand in the way of simply updating my plugin accordingly. Don't want to miss a chance to learn as I go ;-)

[N-R-K]

I've added a line to rm the .selection file (which nnn immediately replaces with an empty one anyhow).

You can instead ask nnn to clear the selection. Put printf "-" > "$NNN_PIPE" inside the plugin.

[ArchieLinux]

@N-R-K Wouldn't this replace contents of the .selection file with a file containing a "-" (hyphen) rather than being empty (i.e., its state when no selections are active)?

A non-empty .selection file could mess with plugins or other internal functions that rely on a 0-byte length .selection file for various purposes.

If using a printf approach I would've thought it would be more appropriate to use:
printf "" > ${NNN_SEL:-${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/nnn/.selection}

Am I off base here?

[N-R-K]

NNN_PIPE isn't the selection file. Please see the plugin docs (this part in specific: https://github.com/jarun/nnn/tree/master/plugins#send-data-to-nnn).

[ArchieLinux]

@N-R-K Aha, I get it... Didn't appreciate the use of NNN_PIPE for such a purpose. I guess both approaches accomplish the same thing, but yours takes advantage of nnn's internal design features and is clearly easier on the eyeballs. Thanks!

[ghost]

@N-R-K I think we should have a wiki page with unofficial plugins