Calling Thunderbird from other programs

From MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Revision as of 08:53, 6 February 2006 by Tanstaafl (talk | contribs) (added link to x-mozilla-status headers and gnu mail library)
Jump to navigationJump to search
This article was written for Thunderbird but also applies to Mozilla Suite / SeaMonkey (though some menu sequences may differ).


Thunderbird supports SimpleMAPI, which is a Microsoft standard way for a third party application to send email messages using the default email client. SimpleMAPI can be called from C , C++ and Visual Basic.

XPCOM (Cross Platform Component Object Model) is Mozilla's framework for writing cross-platform, modular software. Despite some obvious similarities, Microsoft COM and XPCOM components are not compatible or interchangeable. XPCOM components can be written in and used from C, C++, Perl, Python, and JavaScript.

Thunderbird supports command line arguments to open the compose message window and fill in the headers, the message body and attachment(s), but you'd still have to press the send button.

Thunderbird doesn't have a scripting capability. Its functionality can be modifed using XUL based extensions. It does not support traditional plug-ins.

See also

External links