Gmail notification in Ubuntu's native mail icon

Question

So, new Ubuntu 10.04 up and running. Playing with the interface eventually got me curious about something. Up until now, I've only used the chat and broadcasting functionalities of the mail icon in Ubuntu's top panel, mostly because I take care of my mail on firefox so I don't need one more program (evolution) running on my poor little netbook. I'm currenty using gnome-gmail to set gmail as my default mail client in Ubuntu. But, when I click on the "Set up mail" item, inside the Panel's Mail icon, it simply brings up empathy.

My question is: Is it possible (in any way whatsoever) to have my gmail notifications up there, configured so that clicking it will just take me to a gmail tab in Firefox? (instead of opening up evolution)

This is really just some frivolous interest of mine, nothing important. Right now I'm using check-gmail to notify me of new mail, but the panel is really cramped up on my netbook, so it'd be nice to free up some room by getting rid of check-gmail and only using Ubuntu's mail icon.

Ok, hope I was clear enough.

Answer 1

There's an applet called gm-notify that uses the built-in indicator and can launch either Gmail or your desktop mail client. It's not in the default repositories (yet?), but it seems safe enough to install: http://bleedingpaper.com/gm-notify/

Oh, and Empathy is the chat client. I think you meant Evolution :)

Answer 2

I use Gmail Notifier: or try to go in Applications -> Add/Remove (or Software Center) and then type in the search box "gmail".

Answer 3

Not familiar with gnome gmail, but an excellent notification addon is the "checkgmail" which uses atom. It's in the repositories, I think you need to manually add it to startup application though