Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!jr@bbn.com
From: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs
Subject: Re: mail beep
Message-ID: <39946@bbn.COM>
Date: 15 May 89 15:32:13 GMT
References: <GHH.89May15093238@clarity.princeton.edu>
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Reply-To: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson)
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Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA
Lines: 33
In-reply-to: ghh@clarity.princeton.edu (Gilbert Harman)

In article <GHH.89May15093238@clarity.princeton.edu>, ghh@clarity (Gilbert Harman) writes:
>Is there a way to get (display-time) or some other process
>to beep when mail first arrives, in addition to displaying
>"Mail" in the mode-line?

In time.el, look for the following two lines in the defun of
display-time-filter:

  ;; Install the new time for display.
  (setq display-time-string string)

Just before them, insert:

  (if (and (string-match "Mail" string)
           (not (string-match "Mail" display-time-string)))
      (ding t))

Now execute the defun with ^X^E, or copy it into your .emacs, or
byte-compile all of time.el in your $EMACS/lisp if all your site wants
this change.

Caveats: I haven't tried this.  The ding may be a little disconcerting
if it happens in the middle of your typing away at something.  The
argument to ding prevents its clobbering something you may have been
in the middle of.  This code depends on the behavior of
$EMACS/etc/loadst (that it puts "Mail" in the string when mail is
present) - not a serious problem.  To make this a real change to
time.el it probably needs a config variable, similar to
display-time-day-and-date.
--
/jr
jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr
C'mon big money!