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Thunderbird in 2019

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#131

Post by amaccuish »

devereaux wrote: post #110
amaccuish wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally found z-push very buggy. Also you need your own DAV servers for calendar and contacts AFAIK. I found Horde and SOGo much more reliable, I went eventually with SOGo as I thought it was weird using PHP for a long running server. With php stuff (horde and z-push) I had to edit too many timeouts etc.

Thanks, I was also considering sogo but I thought z-push would be more reliable as it is older.

I mean, people use it, it's not terrible, I just found it unreliable since at the end of the day it's a PHP app. Though Horde (which is also PHP) was miles better. I think z-push uses the php imap library, which is quite ineffecient. See https://wiki.horde.org/activesync#toc29

SOGo being written in obj-c means it's fundamentally much better suited to this task.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#132

Post by shay_ker »

An email client that doesn't have a mobile companion app is an immediate thumbs down for me. I want a consistent experience for something as important as email, whether I'm on a laptop or on my phone.

Sigh. That probably means Thunderbird mobile is going to take till... 2021? 2022?

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#133

Post by wpietri »

shay_ker wrote: post #132

An email client that doesn't have a mobile companion app is an immediate thumbs down for me. I want a consistent experience for something as important as email, whether I'm on a laptop or on my phone. Sigh. That probably means Thunderbird mobile is going to take till... 2021? 2022?

Could you say more about why that is?

For me it's like a Swiss Army knife versus my full kitchen. I use a basic email client on my phone for on-the-go stuff (seeing what has come in, making quick replies). But for doing anything serious, I want a full keyboard and reasonable screen real estate. I don't think it's possible to have a particularly consistent experience, so I'm fine with using a different client on my phone.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#134

Post by int_19h »

superkuh wrote: post #37
zmix wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird is an XML+CSS+Javascript app. Just like Electron (well, Electron is not XML).

By that definition would you call Firefox before version ~40 a javascript app? It obviously isn't despite using XUL and the elements implicit in that. The same is true of Thunderbird.

The underlying rendering engine is in C++, of course. As is the JS implementation.

Which is to say, exactly like Electron. The only relevant difference that I can see between XUL and Electron is that the former had its own non-HTML-based markup language for UI.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#135

Post by sublupo »

one thing I'm really hoping for is more support for calendars. I see no way to view / change the color of events. while I can add them to categories, it is much easier for me to color code them.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#136

Post by ahartmetz »

xte wrote: post #96
RealDinosaur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem I see is entrenchment... it's an app where nothing can change. They can't go ahead and just do a Chrome 69 with it. What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app, and do it well. Electron has a bad rap, but it's mostly due to being misused. Electron can be used well (VS Code for example). Mozilla LightningBird for example. I could get on board with that. Heck, I'd…

You have an a bit cached but true point, that's is: there was a so big push to web tech that actual local graphics libraries was left in an old era without real updates. That's the case even of Qt and their QML mess. That's the case of GTk mess etc. However have a browser as a framework and environment for anything is even worse than actual X server architectures. So yes, we need to rethink desktops, perhaps looking…

Explain how QML is a mess? I've been using it almost as long as it exists - which is much longer than the life of the average hot JS framework - and didn't notice the mess. It has problems and limitations like everything, but overall it's very productive.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#137

Post by hallman76 »

ben509 wrote: post #63
RealDinosaur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem I see is entrenchment... it's an app where nothing can change. They can't go ahead and just do a Chrome 69 with it. What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app, and do it well. Electron has a bad rap, but it's mostly due to being misused. Electron can be used well (VS Code for example). Mozilla LightningBird for example. I could get on board with that. Heck, I'd…

A total rewrite almost sank Netscape[1] long ago. It's still generally a bad idea. There's an electron based mail client called Mailspring[2], and having used it for a few months, I definitely understand the antipathy towards electron. You might like it. [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... [2]: https://getmailspring.com/

It's incredible how much this still holds true today. Thanks @spolsky!

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#138

Post by ahartmetz »

slondr wrote: post #117
RealDinosaur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem I see is entrenchment... it's an app where nothing can change. They can't go ahead and just do a Chrome 69 with it. What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app, and do it well. Electron has a bad rap, but it's mostly due to being misused. Electron can be used well (VS Code for example). Mozilla LightningBird for example. I could get on board with that. Heck, I'd…

Thunderbird is a XUL implementation with a lot of JavaScript being used for its UI. It's as close as you can get to being the Electron of Firefox without being in a PPA. The most recent version (Thunderbird 60) introduced sweeping UI changes that went much deeper than even Chrome 69's.

There is a big difference between using an object model designed for UIs and using the DOM or canvas, even with the same language (JS). An appropriate model can vastly simplify and accelerate layout and painting. I'm thinking of QML here - the performance situation is probably similar with XUL, ugly as it may be.

Re: Thunderbird in 2019

#139

Post by nikeee »

kuon wrote: post #38

I love thunderbird because it's the only email client that does everything I want. I tried CLI clients, they are great and customizable, but CLI is a bit bare for email (images, html, fonts...) Things I'd like to see improved: - Native CardDAV and CalDAV support (there is caldav, but no discoverability of calendars). - Native PGP. - Better search, the UI is horrible and the search string is hard to get right (need fu…

I'd like to add the account settings section to the list. Whenever I want to change or review the server settings (IMAP/SMTP/POP), I always have to look for it like 30 seconds, since they are not in the same location (which is technically okay, since they are different services).
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