Does anyone know of a way to get persistent Gnome 3 panel notifications in Gnome 3 in Oneiric? It's one of the few things holding me back from using Gnome 3 regularly.
I've actually found a way of moving the notifications from the (usually) hidden bottom bar to the top, but it does not move the Thunderbird icon. The icon also only tends to appear the first time mail is received. I'm very surprised this basic piece of functionality doesn't exist for Gnome Shell.
Just switched from unity to Gnome Shell, and I came across this very problem.
there is this script made by @tanwald that you can get on github. all that is left to do is to install th "install.sh"
(if you're not sure how to do it, follow these instrunctions here)
Thunderbird is integrated with the messaging indicator, so you will get notified of new email as long as Thunderbird is running.