Installation

Prerequisites

BiDi Mail UI supports Thunderbird v1.5.x-2.x, Mozilla Suite Mail&News v1.7.x - v1.8.x and Seamonkey Mail&News 1.x-2.x (previous versions of BiDi Mail UI supported earlier versions of Thunderbird and Mozilla Suite). It has been successfully tested under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux+X.Org. It is most likely, though we can't guarantee it, to work fine with other versions and operating systems.

Installation under Thunderbird

Installation under Seamonkey/Mozilla Suite

The Extension for Thunderbird
(version 0.9.1)
The Extension for Seamonkey/Suite 1.x
(version 0.9.1)

The Extension for Toolkitized Seamonkey/Suite 2.x
(version 0.9.1)
  1. Right-click the download link above
  2. Save the XPI file to your hard drive
  3. Launch Thunderbird
  4. Open the Tools menu and choose Add-ons
  5. Click Install
  6. Browse to the folder where you've saved the XPI file, select it, then confirm
  7. Restart Thunderbird when prompted

  1. If previous BiDi Mail UI versions are installed, make sure to remove them as described in section 3
  2. Click the download link above
  3. Confirm the installation when prompted
  4. Choose whether you wish to install the extension in your personal profile folder or globally, in the application folder. Installation in the profile folder has a few advantages: There is no need to have root user privileges (in operating systems such as Linux) and there is no need to reinstall the extension after updating Seamonkey to a new version. However, with operating systems that are oriented toward single user mode (such as Windows 98), but that are accessed by several users, it is preferable to install BiDi Mail UI in the Seamonkey application folder, so that everyone can utilize it. This global installation may require root privileges in some operating systems. Note that installing the extension as root also requires to restart Mozilla as root.
  5. Once the installation is finished (with a 'success' or a 'need to restart' message) - you must restart Mozilla. Make sure to close all the program's windows - Browser, Mail&News, Composer et cetera.

To overcome possible difficulties in step #3, it may be worthwhile to run the installation locally. Simply right click the XPI file, save it to your hard drive and double click it to start the installation.


Installation of the previous BiDi Browser UI

Users of old versions of Mozilla Suite, Firefox and Netscape may be interested in the previous (browser-oriented) extension:

The Old Browser Extension (version 0.3.7)

There is no need to install this extension in newer browser since its functionality is now built in. It is usually much preferred to install a new browser than to install this extension in an old one.

Removing the Extension

Below are instructions for removing (uninstalling) the BiDi Mail UI extension. If, for any reason, your experience with the extension has been less than satisfactory, please let us know. You can find our contact details above.

Removal from Thunderbird

Open the Extensions manager (Tools | Extensions menu item). Locate the BiDi Mail UI entry and click the Uninstall button.

Removal from Seamonkey/Mozilla Suite

Newever versions of Mozilla Seamonkey (2.0a1 and above) have a similar add-on infrastructure to Firefox and Thunderbird, so the extension may be removed as per the above. Earlier versions of the Mozilla suite do not have a built-in uninstaller for extensions, but you can try using the Multizilla extension, which allows disabling extensions.

If you want to `physicall' remove the extension, you can do it manually: follow the instructions that correspond to your chosen installation method (i.e. application folder or profile folder).

Manual Removal from the Seamonkey/Mozilla Suite application folder

The following instructions only apply to Seamonkey, not to Thunderbird.

Note: This procedure must be followed carefully, since manually deleting or modifying files in the applicationdirectory can be dangerous. Do not delete or modify anything you are not absolutely certain you should be deleting or modifying!

  1. Close Seamonkey.
  2. Open Seamonkey's chrome folder
  3. Edit the file installed-chrome.txt and delete any line that contains the string bidimailpack.jar.
  4. Delete the file bidimailpack.jar .
  5. Delete the folder overlayinfo and everyting it contains.
  6. Delete the file chrome.rdf .
  7. Start Seamonkey again (in Linux, do it as root if needed). Seamonkey will now regenerate the deleted overlayinfo folder and the chrome.rdf file.

Manual Removal from the Your User Profile Folder

The following instructions only apply to Seamonkey/Mozilla Suite, not to Thunderbird.

Note: This procedure must be followed carefully, since manually deleting or modifying files in your profile directory can be dangerous. Do not delete or modify anything you are not absolutely certain you should be deleting or modifying!

  1. Close Seamonkey.
  2. Open your profile's chrome folder - the files mentioned below are all located there.
  3. Delete the file bidimailpack.jar.
  4. In the chrome directory there is a subdirectory named overlayinfo, which in turn has several sub-directories of its own. Some of these contain a file named overlay.rdf. Edit this file in all subdirectories of overlayinfo: delete the tags beginning with <RDF:Seq RDF:about that contain the word bidimailpack (note these may be multi-line tags!).
  5. Edit the file chrome.rdf in the chrome folder: Delete the lines that begin with RDF:li and contain the word bidimailpack (not the tags containing them, just the lines themselves); also, delete the tags that begin with <RDF:Seq RDF:about and contain the word bidimailpack (these too may be multi-line).
  6. Start Seamonkey again.