How can I make Thunderbird start automatically with MX Linux?

[Housesitter1962]

Versuche seit Tagen beim Start von MX Linux auch Thunderbird mit automatisch starten zu lassen. Bekomme es aber einfach nicht hin. Unter Ubuntu ist das alles kein Problem aber bei MX schaffe ich es einfach nicht. Wäre für jeden Tipp dankbar
I've been trying for days to get Thunderbird to launch automatically when I start MX Linux, but I just can't seem to get it to work. It's no problem under Ubuntu, but I just can't seem to get it working under MX. I'd appreciate any advice.

Danke and Thanks

[CharlesV]

Welcome in!

Your in an english forum, so lets keep in english please :-)

With all help requests, Please post your QSI. ( MX Menu, Quick System Info, Copy for Forum, Paste here )

If your running xfce, then you can run the Session and Startup application ( MX Menu ) and then change to the Application Autostart tab. Click the + Add button and then under command put in

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/usr/bin/thunderbird %u
 

If you have installed thunderbird at some other location, then use that other location path.

Also, I usually just leave thunderbird open when I shut down, and I have my machine remember what is open, and then it launches automatically the next restart.

[Eadwine Rose]

Moved to help forum. No tip or trick shared.

[MXRobo]

I added a delay to allow for the VPN to connect.

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sh -c 'sleep 20 ; /usr/bin/thunderbird %u'

And I think the %u is not necessary - not sure, don't know, but I think fehlix said it's for a url, and I believe that there is a difference between the upper and lower case %u - %U.

Cheers!

[/df]

Is there any point launching TB with a %u/%U? There's nothing to substitute for it if the program is being invoked at session start, so I would expect it to result in an error/warning message in the session log.

Review the output of

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man thunderbird

to see if there are any parameters that should be specified: maybe '-mail' to show the mail folder view if wanted.

[fehlix]

Is there any point launching TB with a %u/%U? There's nothing to substitute for it if the program is being invoked at session start, so I would expect it to result in an error/warning message in the session log.

Review the output of

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man thunderbird

to see if there are any parameters that should be specified: maybe '-mail' to show the mail folder view if wanted.

That's probaly b/c thunderbird is also a RSS news reader. Hence the default starter does include the URL place holder for the RSS-feed,
which might get populated in case user want's to "open with" thunderbird, which get passed to the entry of desktop-file.

But in the case of OP's desire to just start Thunderbird after login, %u place holder might not be needed.
Also instead of the fixed delay period with help of the "sleep Nseconds" in front of the start,
we can use nice feature within X11, to start an application after xfcedesktop for Xfce
is available like this:
Instead of waiting a fixed period of say 20 seconds with this

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sh -c 'sleep 20 ; /usr/bin/thunderbird'

we can have this:

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sh  -c "timeout 20s xdotool search --sync --onlyvisible --class xfdesktop >/dev/null;  thunderbird"

which starts thunderbird as soon as the desktop is visible (and functional) with the fallback of 20 seconds.
The trick is the "search --sync" with the xdotool, as it waits until the desktop shows up.
So only an Autostart entry (Session & Startup) needs to be created with the correspondin cmd.

I do it this way for starting conky, so I don't wait a fixed number of seconds
but start conky as soon as the desktop is shown in Xfce this way.
My conky-startup.sh file (~/.conky/conky-startup.sh) looks like this:

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#!/bin/sh

#sleep 6s
timeout 6s xdotool search --sync --onlyvisible --class xfdesktop >/dev/null;
killall -u $(id -nu) conky 2>/dev/null
sleep 1
cd "$HOME/.Conky/MX-CowonTangram"
conky -c "$HOME/.Conky/MX-CowonTangram/MX-Cowon_Tangram_kernel_live_hostname" &
exit 0

where I start my adjusted conky.

[/df]

The '%'-parameters are defined by the Freedesktop.org desktop-entry specification. They only make sense in a desktop action (invoking from desktop menu, or via a file association); otherwise '%'-parameters will be passed literally. I'm not sure whether session 'Application Autostart' is such a context.

[fehlix]

The '%'-parameters are defined by the Freedesktop.org desktop-entry specification. They only make sense in a desktop action (invoking from desktop menu, or via a file association)

Thats correct.

... ; otherwise '%'-parameters will be passed literally. I'm not sure whether session 'Application Autostart' is such a context.

Thats not correct. The startup is still going the the desktop-entry/file spec, And the system will replace %-like parameter accordingly,
which means %u will be replaced with an empty string.
+++EDIT+++
Adjusted with some clarifications.

[Discostu]

In case you are using KDE you can just add it to the autostart list in system settings.