SimpleGmail plugin For LiveView

What

SimpleGmail is a plugin that notifies you if there is a new message in your gmail inbox, or one of your labels. You can select what label to read. It supports Apps for Domains, and apart from the main account up to 5 additional accounts.

Where

You can find it in the market! Check it here: GMail notifier for LiveView

With

SimpleGmail is a plugin for the LiveView device (by Sony Ericsson). So you need that device, and the LiveView(tm) Application.

Why

There are at the time of writing a couple of other plugins that notify you of new email. One (Gmail for LiveView by LilHermit) doesn’t work anymore because it uses a deprecated API, the others ( e.g. poor Gmail Notifier by dekuyou) didn’t come with enough information for me to figure out what to think of it. They seem to be populair in the Japanese language, which I do not really speak :)

How

As there is no behind-the-scenes method to leech of your normal Gmail downloading, the plugin needs to fetch a feed and parse that. This shouldn’t take too much time, data or other resources.

Help

You can use the provided test-application to test the feed. Note that even though there could be unread messages, this does not mean you’ll get an announcement: the app remembers the last new unread mail it has seen, and only announces once. If something does not work, check:

  • Your username/password: if that isn’t correct, you won’t get any results ;)
  • The label. Leave empty for default workings (your inbox). If you use ‘unread’ you also get the mails that skip you inbox (trough a filter). You could use any of you labels as well. Just one as for now.
Leave a comment with suggestions, findings, questions and/or praise.

62 comments on SimpleGmail plugin For LiveView

  1. ennaN says:

    Currently I am planning to add some stuff, but not yet figured out what. Some better “test my stuff” would be nice. Also, I don’t know how it likes timeouts on shaky connections. Suppose it will be fine obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be running it myself :)

    Maybe an extra option for a custom refresh interval? Don’t know if there’s a need for that?

  2. Kip says:

    Support for Google Apps Gmail accounts would be fantastic.

  3. ennan says:

    I can’t say I knew they are different in this case,i’ll look in to it!

  4. ennan says:

    This would be the same as “google apps for domains” by the way?

  5. Kip says:

    Yep. The usernames are whatever@yourdomaon.co.uk rather than whatever@gmail.com

  6. ennaN says:

    I think I just figured out how to do it, I’ll be glad to try and update the stuff. If you’re willing, I could send you a test-version that you can try? It’ll probably not be tonight or tomorrow with all the christmas stuff going on, but somewhere next week might work.

    You can reach me at the email nanne -at- huiges.nl if you want :)

  7. ennaN says:

    This feature was added in version 0.5 :D

  8. dani says:

    Could you add support for multiples accounts? Thank you

  9. Nanne says:

    Hmm, that’s a good one, and it sounds possible. I’ll look into it.

  10. ennaN says:

    I think I’ll have a version available at the end of the week. Just testing it now, seems to work fine.

    It will have settings to add 5 additional accounts, which will be checked just like the primary. It will obviously make the same calls and checks as the primary, so will take that same amount of cpu / bandwith extra if you’ve got them enabled.

    Because of the limited space, it will not comfortably fit in one “announce”, so you’ll get one for each account that has new messages.

  11. ennaN says:

    aaaand, the update is in the market :)

  12. Danut Chereches says:

    Hello,

    This is the only plugin that works on ICS. (Galaxy Nexus)
    How did you do that? :)

  13. ennaN says:

    Haha, nothing special. Probably other plugins might be just a tad old? :D

  14. Danut Chereches says:

    I tried to create a plugin myself, according to the official documentation/samples, and it doesn’t work on ICS. (but works on gingerbread)
    So if you are willing, I’m really asking. :)

  15. Nanne says:

    Willing yes, able: don’t know. I’m really not doing much (just used the timer from the SDK provided by SE, and every interval I check if there is new mail. If so, I’ll send an announce.
    So for plugin/liveview specific code there is not much I can do. Maybe it is your other code that’s the problem? Or is it still basically a HelloWorld?

  16. Danut Chereches says:

    Yes, HelloWorld. :)
    The problem is that the plugin is not detected.
    I have about 10 plugins installed, (including HelloWorld) but yours is the only one that appears in the “Add plugin” menu.

  17. Nanne says:

    That’s.. strange… Maybe drop me a mail for some discussion? (about has my email I guess :) )

  18. Tippfehler says:

    Hello,
    is it possible, to check pop-mails from other providers?
    Do you know, why this symbol in the second plugins folder is and not in the first?
    (I have to go to plungins an then to down.)

  19. ennaN says:

    Not as is, but that might be an option for an update. Don’t know if I’ve got the time. It would surprise me if there isn’t something like that online? Could you maybe scout around? If there really isn’t something like that, i might give it a go… Maybe as a separate plugin?

    The second question: I’m not really sure what you mean by second plugins folder. Maybe it is something that happens above a certain amount of plugins? I only use 1 plugin (this one), so don’t know exactly what happens ;)

  20. rui says:

    would be great if allowed to receive more characters in each email for example 150 characters per email.
    Regards

  21. Alan says:

    I’d really like the ability to select how much of an email the app downloads, inns like to be able to read all of the text of an email ad not just the first few words

  22. ennaN says:

    Currently the information is gathered from the atom feed google supplies for the email. This includes a limited preview of the email. So while a _smaller_ excerpt might be doable by removing some lines, it is currently not possible to make it bigger, as the information is just not there, I’m sorry :)

  23. Damien says:

    Do you know if this app supports Priority Inbox? I tried specifying that as a label in the app itself, but it stopped sending me notifications. At the moment, I get all my email pushed to my Liveview, but I’d ideally only want Priority emails

  24. Nanne says:

    I didn’t look at it before, but it seems that the priority inbox uses the “important” label. Very logical indeed, I know.

    Didn’t test it as my liveview is at home, but a quick look at the Gmail feed implies that this works, so I’m fairly confident.

    So try the “important” label, and let me know how it turns out :)

  25. Damien says:

    Ah! Obvious really :)

    I’ve applied that label name and will let you know what happens. Thanks for the speedy response!

  26. Damien says:

    OK, just tried that and it still doesn’t work. Priority/important emails still aren’t being seen by the app – I sent myself a test email and I ran the Simplegmail tester and it said I had no unread email. As soon as I removed the ‘important’ label (and left the label field blank), email notifications started up again.

  27. Nanne says:

    I’m testing it now, and I see the same thing happening.. Strange, it does work with ‘normal’ labels, but there should be a way to get this working I hope. I’ll check it out and get back to you when results appear :)

  28. Nanne says:

    I have found the issue: the authenticated GMail feed I use has a handy-dandy field called “fullcount” that shows how many new mails there are in the feed. If this is 0 I obviously stop looking for mail….

    It seems that for the ‘special’ labels (like important) this number is _always_ 0. I’ll have to make a workaround for that.

  29. ennaN says:

    I think I fixed it, give me a bit of time to test it and check if I didn’t mess something up in all the haste, and then I’ll throw it on the market :)

  30. Damien says:

    Awesome, thanks! And thank you for being such a helpful developer! I’ve only just gotten my Liveview and it’s great to see people continuing to support it. Thanks again!

  31. ennaN says:

    I’ve uploaded the new version, it should fix your problem :)

  32. Damien says:

    Downloaded it last night and it appears to be working fine! I’ll let you know if I run into any issues. Thanks again!

  33. sacbalz says:

    The only feature I would like to see is a push notification. I have this set to 10 minute update frequency, but would like it faster. Polling every minute may use too much battery power. Also, these MN800 versions are selling on ebay now for $40 because SE released their new smart watches. You should expect to get an influx of new users. Most modern phones have ICS on them and your plugin is one of the few that actually works in ics. The default calendar notifications do not work. I would be willing to pay for a plugin that has calendar and gmail push notifications.

    You need to add Extends:com.sonyericsson.extras.liveview to your description in Google Play also. Your app was very hard to find. I will write a review and add it there to test if the search works that way. I expect most users search from the liveware app which just searches market with that string.

    If you need a beta tester for ics let me know. Thanks and great work!

  34. ennaN says:

    Hey Sacbalz, thanks for that ;)

    Good point about the description, I knew that and then saw a shiney pebble somewhere and forgot about it, I’ve added it!

    I am planning, but didn’t have the time for, the implementation a new method that uses the ICS label-unread function. Problem is that there is no snippet available then, but that might be solved by polling the mail only when there is new mail.

    When I have new release and need beta-testing I’ll think of you, I have some devices around for testing, but more hands = more bugs to find.

  35. sacbalz says:

    You plugin shows up on the search now from liveware plugin search!

  36. ennaN says:

    Missing that was quite silly of me :)

  37. Wosiek says:

    Hi
    I’ve just read this forum. As I well understood Your plugin works as a simple e-mail client. It checks my e-mail box and sends to me the unread messages. It works apart from the stock gmail client. This method causes high consumption of the data transfer. It would be better if the plugin worked in push mode or if it read e-mails received by stock gmail client. Is it possible ?

  38. Nanne says:

    Well, as stated above, there is no method to use the stock gmail client. There just isn’t. (Well, there used to be a method that ‘abused’ an undocumented feature, but that feature was shut down somewhere around 2.2 or 2.3 if I remember correctly. So no, the stock Gmail client is not an option.

    As for it being an email client: not really, it’s closer to an RSS reader actually. It retrieves only new mail, and only a small part of the message, so it should not cause, as you say “high consumption of the data transfer”.

    I haven’t checked push, but that might not be the best answer. For the newest version there might an option to use one of the introduced API’s, but that remains to be seen. I am looking in to it though.

  39. tobbbie says:

    I really like the plugin for my LiveView and now I also understand on what you depend. This rules out some requests I had, but possibly one could be done? At the bottom of each notify there is an option to fire up “something linked” for the item currently in view. This works for twitter, facebook and alike – however not for your notifier. If it is not possible to fire up the native gmail app with the right mail loaded, next option would be (I rather prefer this) to fire up the browser and access the inbox – preferrably with the previewed item opened. You could even make that configureable (app or browser).
    Since you stated that you depend on an rss feed from gmail, is there anyhing that can be configured on the user account side – so on how much shall be exported via rss?

  40. Nanne says:

    Interesting point. I had allready looked into opening a certain message, but as there is no real “message id” available (and also no “intent” for the app to open a certain message) I am afraid we’re also limited for the app. It boils down to that the gmail app has no real connection to the rest of your device, apart from plain “opening” the app.
    While I can open the browser on the gmail page, I can’t really direct you to the message I think. There is some sort of message ID visible in the url-bar, but I don’t think I can access that.

    So what CAN I do? I can open the gmail app, and I can open the browser and point it to gmail.com. I can even make it a setting you can choose which of these you want. I’ll put it on the list to check out, If I can find some time maybe even a quick in-between update for this.

  41. tobbbie says:

    Huh.. freekin’ fast you are my friend :-)
    You rule the LiveView with that!

  42. tobbbie says:

    Another one I just checked: subscribing my own gmail with an RSS reader delivers a link to the message with:
    http://mail.google.com/mail?account_id=@googlemail.com&message_id=13944a9396b80ded&view=conv&extsrc=atom

    When browsing on the PC the same message delivers as URL:
    https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/13944a9396b80ded

    So if you get the ID as well with your Plugin to Liveview – there you are?!

  43. ennaN says:

    If I can get the same ID in ‘my’ rss then we’re set for the browser version ofcourse, but I’ll not make any promisses: the “I am logged in” versions (you’re using a session in that case) versus the ‘open’ variant I’m using (relatively open ofcourse, it obviously does need a log-in) might be slightly different. But as soon as I have an actual moment to check it out and make a new release, I’ll see what I can do :)

    (quick response is one thing, quickly releasing is another ofcourse :) )

  44. tobbbie says:

    Hmm.. can’t I be notified when you post a new reply? How would I know if a new version is out for beta – my email is posted along (though not public) with this reply as the tool requires it.

  45. Nanne says:

    You can check the comment-feed for this post via http://androblip.huiges.nl/blog/simplegmail-plugin-for-liveview/?feed=rss2

    If I have something to beta-test, I’ll give you a ring!

  46. Rafael Lira says:

    Congratulations plugin, and it really useful for Live View. Do you have plans to create other plugins, such as making calls or open shortcuts to any application?

    hugs,
    Rafael Lira – Brazil

  47. ennaN says:

    No real plans at the moment, you have anything specific in mind that needs making?

  48. PTORico7 says:

    I downloaded the the plugin for my Galaxy Note 2 and the test fails everytime. I’m sure all my account information is correct… No idea what it could be.
    “Failed to pen stream. Might be an authentication or connection error. No authentication challenges found”

  49. Nanne says:

    hmm, tricky. have you anything special (like 2-step verification, apps-for-business, something like that?)

  50. Dominic says:

    Nice work. Unfortunately, It was working great until I had upgraded to KitKat (android 4.4) yesterday. Now, I am getting the error “Failed to open stream. Might be an authentication or connection error. https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom“.

    I’ve tried this link in my desktop browser and it works!

  51. Nanne says:

    strange? and if you open it in your browser on your mobile? I have no clue really, other then network error (or something fishy with your password?)

  52. Dominic says:

    Thanks for your reply. I can open the link and access the feed on the browser of my phone (of course, after entering username/password). So, it should have nothing to do with the account/password.

    Also, I also tried re-installing the SimpleGmail app, clear data / cache. But it still doesn’t work. Any other ideas?

    I’d really want to get your app working on my liveview. It’s such a neat app. If you want to test anything, please let me know.

  53. mawjoud dima says:

    hey do you still need to get google play account?

  54. Mark says:

    What if I do have 2-step verification enabled?

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