@andrewboldi, you are a real hero! Thanks.

I am looking forward to building the .xpi, install and use it again.

You're welcome @sphh! (You can also thank Codex too :))

Just one thing. Note that if you've installed Thunderbird with a sandboxed environment (e.g. with Snap) (as I have), Thunderbird does not have access to latex or dvipng. \

Therefore, the preferred setup is to install a helper script as a user service with bash helper/install-systemd-user.sh so that Thunderbird can access LaTeX through a network call.

Alternatively (less preferred), you can start it with python3 helper/tblatex_helper.py.

@andrewboldi: I just made and installed the xpi file and I do not get any LaTeX rendered in the message compose window. After switching on the debugging options, I get this error message:

Severe error while rendering LaTeX: ReferenceError: btoa is not defined

Any idea how to solve it?

BTW I use Betterbird instead of Thunderbird Original, if that makes any difference.

@sphh Codex here, I just pushed a fix for this.

Root cause: btoa is not available in the Thunderbird/Betterbird experiment parent context. I replaced that path with nsIScriptableBase64Encoder in commit 0e0aa37.

Could you pull the latest branch, rebuild (make), reinstall the XPI, and test again? Betterbird should behave the same as Thunderbird for this specific fix.

With the commit 0e0aa37, Betterbird freezes when converting a LaTeX formula. I have to kill the whole Betterbird.

ok sorry let me debug this further. just setup betterbird

Ok I have tested this on both Thunderbird (via Snap) and Betterbird (via direct archive) and it's working.

Hurray! The last commit works! 👏

There is just one ‘problem’: If you have switched on Generate a run report in the compose body in the settings, the mail message is sent with the compose body included. IMHO this is nothing the recipient is interested in. Do you think it's feasible to

1. either remove that run report automatically or
2. show a warning, that there is still a run report

when sending?

Yes! By default it should be off now. (You can also disable this in the settings)

Ok. But I am talking about the case, when it is switched on and you forget to delete the run report …

I am Codex. I pushed commit 46fbdd8 to tb140-mailextension-port. Run reports are now removed from the compose body automatically in compose.onBeforeSend, so they are not sent even when logging is enabled.

I am impressed!!

Here is a list of issues, this PR would close:

• Thunderbird 102 and newer #93 Thunderbird 102 and newer
• LatexIt v.0.6.8 incompatible with Thunderbird 78.2.2 #61 LatexIt v.0.6.8 incompatible with Thunderbird 78.2.2
• Failed to LatexIt beause of colorspace RGB #45 ❓ Failed to LatexIt beause of colorspace RGB
• The "LatexIt! Run Report" is saved in a draft, and its bg becomes irremovable #9 ❓ The "LatexIt! Run Report" is saved in a draft, and its bg becomes irremovable

I also believe, that it was possible to edit a formula inserted with Insert complex LaTeX. At the moment this is not possible anymore …

And one final feature I was always looking for: Sometimes I forget to run LaTeXIt! before sending the message. It would be really great, if you get a warning when sending, if that's what you want to do.

ADDED: This could work similar to the "Have you forgotten to add an attachment" warning.

IMHO automatically running LaTeXIt! is not such a good idea, because sometimes you don't want to convert a formula, e.g. when you want to show, how something is done in LaTeX. Do you think, that the two of you could also implement this? 🙇

Haha you're welcome!

Features added:

• Insert Complex Latex
• Formula history in the "Insert Complex Latex dialog" (disable in options)
• Unconverted Latex Warning onBeforeSend

You are really my hero!!

Two observations:

Dialog for inserting complex LaTeX

At the moment this is how it is presented:

• You notice, that the buttons at the bottom are not visible and I have to scroll down the window to make them visible. Perhaps it would be better to show everything at once – screen space permitted.

When I enlarge the dialog until the vertical scrollbar disappears, I get the following:

• There is a big space below the buttons.

Additionally:

• When I open the dialog again, the size is not remembered.
• Personally I would move the Load default template below the text area.
• There is no Cancel button (but I can close the dialog with the window controls). This could go in the bottom row beside the now only Insert at cursor position button.

Settings

Just an idea: At the moment, the configuration lists the following sections:

1. Executables
2. Sandbox Helper Fallback
3. Appearance
4. Debugging
5. Sending
6. History
7. Template

I believe, that ‘4. Debugging’ should come last. ‘Appearance’ could be renamed to ‘Formula rendering’ or similar.

hi Andrew, thanks for the PR!

@sphh do you have further comments on usability / feature parity with previous version / functionality?

This is a huge PR. A few preliminary questions.

• Is this AI-generated?
• If you are porting this to the new style of extensions, can you also delete the old code?
• Is this is a new implementation from scratch or is it reusing some of the old code? I see a lot of functionality that used to exist before in the new code, so I'm wondering why there is no sharing with the existing codebase

@sphh do you have further comments on usability / feature parity with previous version / functionality?

Beside the notes in #94 (comment), I can only say, that I am more than happy that @andrewboldi finally tackled the task to bring LaTexIt up to date!

Thanks for the review.

Answers to your questions:

• I used Codex as an assisted refactoring/coding tool for parts of this port, then manually reviewed and tested behavior in Thunderbird/Betterbird.
• I removed the obsolete legacy XUL extension files in commit 77526ba (chrome.manifest, content/, defaults/, skin/).
• This is not a greenfield rewrite: the feature behavior and conversion flow were ported from the existing add-on, while compose integration/UI had to be rewritten for the MailExtension + Experiment API model in Thunderbird 140+.

I also addressed @sphh's latest dialog/options usability notes in fa663f1.

Thanks @andrewboldi for considering my suggestions! Personally I have no more ideas (at the moment! 🤣)

Haha yeah I'll try to use the extension a bit more over the next few days to think of more ideas.

@protz: Is there anything which keeps you from merging this PR and push the add-on to Thunderbird?