iFaces is small Mail.app utility add-on program that will display unread mail's sender pictures on your desktop. It helps you determine if you need to actually open Mail and read the message (or continue working on something else). Inspired by the X11 xFaces program, this Cocoa driven program should make life easier--well, at least more chock-full-o-information on your desktop!

iFaces is free software. It falls under the name of donationware as the author needs to sustain his technophilia. Please donate if you find this program useful. One caveat is that iFaces may not be sold in any form or included in any package. Contact the author for licensing/vending information.

Stable Release Panther build 1.0.3: download

Beta Release Panther build 1.1pre1: download

1.1 Change-Log

1. Global Transparency Option Added in preferences.
2. Customizable Unknown Sender Image.
3. Domain Database of images added. This nice feature allows you to customize iFaces to display an image per domain if the sender is not in your address book. For example, if you want to know when you receive email from someone at cs.jhu.edu then you would add an entry with a picture to represent this domain.
4. The window location does not move when new mails are received or read.
5. An Always On Top preference has been added.

For source code please contact the author.

1.0 releases should function on OS 10.2+.
1.1 releases will only function on OS 10.3+.

• (NOTE, irrelevant for 1.1 and higher versions of iFaces. A new script was added to fix this deficiency.) Important note regarding usage - iFaces uses Mail.app to determine your messages. It communicates through Applescript (i.e. Mail.app will be launched by iFaces and will remain open). Also, the size of your inbox is important. If you keep more than a few hundred messages in your inbox than iFaces will act unresponsive when it is scanning through them (i.e. often). This is not a bug; it's a workaround until a better technique is available to communicate with Mail.app (see below).
• Since Apple has not released any public Mail API, I have resorted to communicating with Mail.app through Applescript. This is a slow workaround, but the only one available. When a public Mail API has been released, iFaces will be upgraded.
• iFaces interfaces with Mail.app directly and checks your "inbox". Currently this is not configurable, but will be in future releases. iFaces knows nothing about IMAP or POP servers but will also query them if their inboxes are part of the "In" box in Mail (this is my configuration, actually). So, iFaces, will poll mail from multiple accounts.
• For sender address and email subject information click on the picture in iFaces. The popup will disappear in a short amount of time (the length of which is configurable in the Preferences).
• iFaces uses Applescript to check the mail and thus pauses during the communication. If the size of your inbox is large, then this pause will increase. I can do nothing about this delay and we must all wait until a better interface with Mail.app is provided for the public by Apple.

1. Better Mailbox support
2. Support for other Mail Readers? or Usenet?
3. Add an option to only display emails from people in the address book. [ contrib: S. Ahten : 23 nov 2003 ]
4. Alternate view: option to remove the iFaces panel and have the icon on the dock cycle through the pictures. [ contrib: S. Riggins : 23 nov 2003 ]
5. Instead of displaying the same sender twice for 2 unread emails, display it once with an icon badge. [ contrib: S. Riggins, A. del Sorbo : 23 nov 2003 ]
6. Different transparency levels for the main window and the info (subject and sender email) window. [ contrib: J. Estelle : 23 nov 2003 ]
7. BUG The window moves as emails are read and added. [ reported: 18 nov 2003, v1.0.3,v1.1pre1 ]
8. BUG Empty image appears for an email. Seems like a bug in retrieving the picture from a sender in the address book if the sender has not picture. [ reported: 23 nov 2003, v1.0.3,v1.1pre1 ]
9. Preference for max number of pictures iFaces will display in the list. [ contrib: S. Lee: 24 nov 2003 ]
10. Preference for new unread mail update interval. [ contrib: J. Corso: 24 nov 2003 ]

You can do some hacks to customize the operation of the software. Most of these hacks will be added as features in future versions.

• To change the image that is displayed if the sender is not in your adress book, replace the tif file name "unknown.tif" in iFaces.app/Contents/Resources/.
  Functionality included in 1.1
• The applescripts are not precompiled (so you can customize them) and instead are compiled at launch time. If you need to change the name of the mailbox to something other than "inbox" edit iFaces.app/Contents/Resources/unread_list.applescript. Replace the "inbox" on line 15 to the name (in doublequotes) of some other mailbox. This hack will not be possible if/when a Mail API is released from Apple and iFaces switches to non-applescript (which is wholly better).
  [ see news for 15 mar 2005 above ]
• If you make any other changes to the applescript, make sure that it still returns a list in the same format or iFaces will not function.