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Thunderbird’s Future Home

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Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#91

Post by Thlom »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #49
Consultant32452 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try finding the first email you ever got from Amazon (or any common sender). In Outlook this would be trivial. from: Amazon, sort by date. With Gmail you can search by the sender, but you have to click through page after page to find the oldest one.

Right. Well, now I'm sad because I realized that indeed I had this problem occasionally; the way GMail implements search I don't exactly even trust them that the first mail they show me is actually the first mail, and not search bugging out. I guess I forgot about that because I very rarely need to do such a search. You also reminded me of another e-mail annoyance - people sending PGP signatures in attachments make i…

You can search by attachment size, which might help a bit.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#92

Post by tracker1 »

In my mind, there are a handful of things that are essential to getting Thunderbird back to a usable state... some of these could be plugins...

First, the exchange/calendar integration options clearly suck... establishing a clear calendar interface as a built-in with extensible points for plugins for authentication/sync of calendars would be a good start.

Second, likewise with calendar auth/sync would be an extensible interface for folder sync and authentication, so that a cleaner integration for common providers based on an underlying IMAP can be used... this way the conventional "junk, spam, inbox, sent" folders could be presented the correct way as well as the underlying storage for a given provider.

Also, along with calendar/email would be more extension points for scheduling, contacts, etc...

As it stands, even if there were different plugins for a google calendar and an exchange/o365 calendar, contacts, etc... if the underlying pieces can be shared, it would be a better user experience.

Moreover would be some serious reconsideration regarding the UI/UX... I'm a big fan of material design, but some variation on that coming a lot closer to a Gmail app for desktop would be a really nice start... but getting a calendar/task/contacts integration points and primitives for extension would go a long way here. Having the core UI going the same direction as Servo, and having most of the UI/Extensions being HTML/JS based would be nice.

Likewise, NPM compatibility for extensions' modules would be nice as well.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#93

Post by abritinthebay »

ashark wrote: post #80
TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use e-mail client (Outlook) at work. Two reasons: - it's very convenient for accounts you check only in one place - it's infinitely more convenient than any browser-based interface besides GMail that I've seen so far I'd be using a client for my personal mail too, if configuring Emacs to work with GMail wasn't such a pain. Also, don't tell me that on your phone you check your e-mail through a browser!

> Also, don't tell me that on your phone you check your e-mail through a browser! Basic-html gmail, yes.

I'd use gmail's native app for this but it's just awful.

All my fav native email clients get bought and killed by larger companies.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#94

Post by Psilidae »

tracker1 wrote: post #92

In my mind, there are a handful of things that are essential to getting Thunderbird back to a usable state... some of these could be plugins... First, the exchange/calendar integration options clearly suck... establishing a clear calendar interface as a built-in with extensible points for plugins for authentication/sync of calendars would be a good start. Second, likewise with calendar auth/sync would be an extensibl…

Regarding NPM compatibility: I'd be worried about potential security issues with something like npm. I recognize that one must already put a lot of trust on developers when using extensions, but I'd worry NPM would make it a lot easier for a nefarious developer to add malicious code to a really deeply buried dependency.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#95

Post by tracker1 »

Psilidae wrote: post #94
tracker1 wrote: post #92

In my mind, there are a handful of things that are essential to getting Thunderbird back to a usable state... some of these could be plugins... First, the exchange/calendar integration options clearly suck... establishing a clear calendar interface as a built-in with extensible points for plugins for authentication/sync of calendars would be a good start. Second, likewise with calendar auth/sync would be an extensibl…

Regarding NPM compatibility: I'd be worried about potential security issues with something like npm. I recognize that one must already put a lot of trust on developers when using extensions, but I'd worry NPM would make it a lot easier for a nefarious developer to add malicious code to a really deeply buried dependency.

Maybe it's just a matter of using node/npm tooling to develop/package an extension... using a bundler.

Of course, at this point, it might be worth re-doing the whole thing using electron as a base.. the more I use VS Code, the more inclined I am to feel that it may be good enough, and if it's a react app, maybe target react-native for phone/tablet platforms, and electron for desktop.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#96

Post by Sophistifunk »

tjoff wrote: post #76
elipsey wrote: post #35

My CS instructor once asked everyone in the class to "raise you hand if you still use an email client." My hand was the only one that went up, and a couple of people laughed and said "really?" I think that was almost 10 years ago.

I don't get how anyone (that are somewhat computer savvy) can live without one. Sure, webmail is an awesome backup for when you don't use your main device. But seriously, gmail and the like are absolutely horrible to use compared to a real client. I guess the sad state of affair in regards to email syncing protocols (POP3 and IMAP) are partly to blame, JMAP might help a little but I guess it's too late.

For me, it's search. Search is absolutely terrible in every email client I've ever tried, except Google.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#97

Post by djsumdog »

newscracker wrote: post #56

Last year when donating specifically to Thunderbird was made possible on mozilla.org, I donated to the project because it has provided a lot of value over the years. Recently I started looking at the discussions on the tb-planning mailing list and it looks like we'll get a revamped (fully rewritten) Thunderbird. That sounds like a very long project to me - probably a few years just to bring it to what Thunderbird alr…

I still use Evolution with its Exchange provider for work e-mail and Thunderbird for personal e-mail.

I like Thunderbird and have used it for well over a decade, and I really hope development continues on it. There aren't a lot of mature open source desktop e-mail clients out there these days and I hope Thunderbird stays maintained for a long time.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#98

Post by djsumdog »

tjoff wrote: post #76
elipsey wrote: post #35

My CS instructor once asked everyone in the class to "raise you hand if you still use an email client." My hand was the only one that went up, and a couple of people laughed and said "really?" I think that was almost 10 years ago.

I don't get how anyone (that are somewhat computer savvy) can live without one. Sure, webmail is an awesome backup for when you don't use your main device. But seriously, gmail and the like are absolutely horrible to use compared to a real client. I guess the sad state of affair in regards to email syncing protocols (POP3 and IMAP) are partly to blame, JMAP might help a little but I guess it's too late.

Gmail's IMAP implementation is terribly buggy and broken. I got sick of every saved draft turning into part of an e-mail thread/conversation.

I switching to running my own e-mail server around 2013 and have had a much better experience using just Thunderbird and occasionally RoundCube.

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#99

Post by djsumdog »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #40
TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use e-mail client (Outlook) at work. Two reasons: - it's very convenient for accounts you check only in one place - it's infinitely more convenient than any browser-based interface besides GMail that I've seen so far I'd be using a client for my personal mail too, if configuring Emacs to work with GMail wasn't such a pain. Also, don't tell me that on your phone you check your e-mail through a browser!

There's still some major features missing in gmail. The biggest, for me, is "sort by." I use this feature at least once a week in Outlook and for the life of me can't figure out why this relatively simple feature hasn't been added to gmail.

When I deleted my gmail accounts in 2013 (post Snowden leaks) they still didn't have partial word search. I had to connect to Gmail using Thunderbird and Google's terrible IMAP implementation just to search for parts of words .. in 2013 .. from the e-mail provider that's a search company. O_o

Re: Thunderbird’s Future Home

#100

Post by djsumdog »

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #2

I don't use Thunderbird, but I like that it exists and I hope they survive. Perhaps because it's my life boat if I need to abandon spying web hosted clients (gmail etc).

I quit gmail due to the spying in 2013. Running my own e-mail server has been a bit troublesome. The big providers don't often like to accept e-mail from small personal servers, even if you have the correct SPF, reverse-dns, DKIM and DMARC records:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made-...

Then again, towards the end of my time with Gmail, I'd still have friends tell me mail sent from my gmail address ended up in spam. So maybe e-mail is just shit now.

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