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Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

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Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#111

Post by auxym »

notatoad wrote: post #72
qznc wrote: post #10

A redesign is a great symbolic move to fight "Thunderbird’s key problem is being perceived as either dead or stagnant". Still, Thunderbird needs a bigger vision. What does Thunderbird want to be? The cross-platform Outlook? Then merge Lightning into core. The native Gmail? Then get a conversations view. The backwards-compatible, easy, and secure mailer? Then merge Enigmail into core or make SMIME easy to use or get s…

Thunderbird's problem, i think, is that their userbase contains a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant. Thunderbird is the email client for people who want email to work exactly like it did ten years ago. that's their value-add, and it really should be their vision.

While this describes me pretty well, I have to admit an (optional) conversations view would be pretty useful.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#112

Post by SubiculumCode »

notatoad wrote: post #72
qznc wrote: post #10

A redesign is a great symbolic move to fight "Thunderbird’s key problem is being perceived as either dead or stagnant". Still, Thunderbird needs a bigger vision. What does Thunderbird want to be? The cross-platform Outlook? Then merge Lightning into core. The native Gmail? Then get a conversations view. The backwards-compatible, easy, and secure mailer? Then merge Enigmail into core or make SMIME easy to use or get s…

Thunderbird's problem, i think, is that their userbase contains a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant. Thunderbird is the email client for people who want email to work exactly like it did ten years ago. that's their value-add, and it really should be their vision.

Internal fork, maintain both. The old version should be east to maintain.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#113

Post by mwambua »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #11
mwambua wrote: post #3

Sounds awesome! I'm pretty happy with Thunderbird as is, but a modern interface potentially means more users... and hopefully as a result, a longer life. Here's a quick link to the survey: https://thunderbird-design.typeform.com/to/f7wiiq?utm_referr...

Those survey questions are completely irrelevant to interface design. I use TB every day as my main private mail client and the picture they show me doesn't even look like what I use. Then they ask a bunch of marketing BS questions that have absolutely nothing to do with usability. I hope these people stay the hell away from my favorite mail client.

I have to agree that the questions could have been better. For instance, they asked "Does this interface look trustworthy". What does that even mean?

I believe it's trustworthy because it's open source and backed by Mozilla. The only aspect of the interface that would lead me not to trust it is advertisements.

That being said, with good luck they'll get more useful feedback to the open-ended questions.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#114

Post by commoner »

auxym wrote: post #111
notatoad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird's problem, i think, is that their userbase contains a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant. Thunderbird is the email client for people who want email to work exactly like it did ten years ago. that's their value-add, and it really should be their vision.

While this describes me pretty well, I have to admit an (optional) conversations view would be pretty useful.

Try the Thunderbird Conversations add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-con...

It resembles the old Gmail interface, and it's open source.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#115

Post by romwell »

notatoad wrote: post #72
qznc wrote: post #10

A redesign is a great symbolic move to fight "Thunderbird’s key problem is being perceived as either dead or stagnant". Still, Thunderbird needs a bigger vision. What does Thunderbird want to be? The cross-platform Outlook? Then merge Lightning into core. The native Gmail? Then get a conversations view. The backwards-compatible, easy, and secure mailer? Then merge Enigmail into core or make SMIME easy to use or get s…

Thunderbird's problem, i think, is that their userbase contains a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant. Thunderbird is the email client for people who want email to work exactly like it did ten years ago. that's their value-add, and it really should be their vision.

>a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant.

Stagnant is a negative characteristic. Keeping things that work the way they are isn't.

MSPaint hasn't been "stagnant" for decades, it was the way people liked it.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#116

Post by harlanji »

I've just started using Thunderbird again this last year, comforted by it. It's definitely better than it used to be. The survey is a joke, I don't trust product management/design if they're asking people to donate their time to this survey. Is this grainy screenshot of downloading a ton of email rather confusing or "clear"... I can't help but laugh at the confirmation that is being begged for and stop taking the survey.

I guess a fork will come out if it goes the way of Ubuntu.

I love Mozilla's products and mission.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#117

Post by mc32 »

notatoad wrote: post #72
qznc wrote: post #10

A redesign is a great symbolic move to fight "Thunderbird’s key problem is being perceived as either dead or stagnant". Still, Thunderbird needs a bigger vision. What does Thunderbird want to be? The cross-platform Outlook? Then merge Lightning into core. The native Gmail? Then get a conversations view. The backwards-compatible, easy, and secure mailer? Then merge Enigmail into core or make SMIME easy to use or get s…

Thunderbird's problem, i think, is that their userbase contains a large portion of people who value thunderbird for it's stagnancy, but at the same time get angry if you suggest that thunderbird might be stagnant. Thunderbird is the email client for people who want email to work exactly like it did ten years ago. that's their value-add, and it really should be their vision.

There was Eudora for that.

I think one thing that maybe kept ThB from innovating was that people took webmail to heart. It's few people who want a thick client or even want to go thru the config. What port, what server, etc.

On a mobile device, the UI walks them through the scenarios (Google, Microsoft, etc) so they usually don't have to guess or have "IT" set it up for them.

Plus, what ships with MAC and Windows is good enough for most people who do want some kind of thick client.

Regardless, ThB was the ugly child at Mozilla since ever. They should have taken the Opp when Eudora was finally killed, but I don't think Moz had the energy.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#118

Post by geezerjay »

Tomte wrote: post #54

This redesign is just playing around with colors, background images and minor visual adjustments to the message view. Nobody needs this. I was hoping for a redesign of the UI, the ways you interact with your mails. This is one of those „look, I played around in Illustrator“ things, not „I thought about the problem“.

> This redesign is just playing around with colors, background images and minor visual adjustments to the message view. Nobody needs this.

Some UI components do need rework. Redundant search fields, password dialogs that fail to track the login state, etc.

It also strikes me as very odd that someone states that nobody needs UI work on a GUI app, particularly when GUI components make between 50% and 75% of thjs sort of app's code base

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#119

Post by geezerjay »

plopz wrote: post #58
SyneRyder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the column with the list of emails in the currently selected inbox. (2nd column from left.) Some email clients have multiple rows of information in that column - the first row might have name & subject, the next row might show the first two sentences of the email. Or it might have the subject on a separate line, so the column can be kept narrow but still show the full subject line. Think of the iOS Mail or…

I hope they don't go in that direction, I like my emails compact on 1 line.

I agree. Call me old fashioned, but I believe subject lines should be a line with the subject.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#120

Post by Tomte »

commoner wrote: post #114
auxym wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this describes me pretty well, I have to admit an (optional) conversations view would be pretty useful.

Try the Thunderbird Conversations add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-con... It resembles the old Gmail interface, and it's open source.

And you can't move whole conversations, for example. That's a huge pain point for me.

It seems to be a totally different thing than the regular message list, and only some actions work in Conversation mode.

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