How To - Thunderbird in system try (KDE 4)

Recently I moved back to KDE 4.2 because, it seems more promising to me compare to GNOME 2 now. It is more polished and close to the Windows functionality, which most of us are very use to of. Well its really a matter of choice and I'm not gonna start debate on which is better ....... because if you google you'll find 100s of pages and I dont want to add another one in it ;)

Well after switching to KDE, I installed my favorite email application Mozilla Thunderbird, everything worked except I wasn't able to minimize it in system tray. In GNOME I was using New Mail Icon add-on and it was working fine, I was able to minimize it to the GNOME system tray but in KDE4.2 it is not working and I believe that this add-on is written specifically for either GNOME or KDE 3 (that I didn't test)

I was struggling for a day and then I found a way in KDE that can keep any application in system tray, which is super cool because I'm not dependent on add-on or any other extension. Follow the steps to start Thunderbird or any other application to sit in KDE system tray

1. Start Yast and search for the "Alltray" utility and install it
2. Right Click on the "Kick Off Application Launcher"
3. Select Menu editor
4. Go to Internet->Mail->Thunderbird
5. On the right hand side in "General" tab you'll find "Command" which will have the command "thunderbird"
6. Replace the command with the "alltray -s -l thunderbird %u"

Thats it!!!! you are all set, no just go to the kick off menu and start Internet->Mail->Thunderbird

You'll see the Thunderbird in the system tray. I hope this will help many people like me who want some applications to be available in system tray.