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What’s New in Thunderbird 78

blog.thunderbird.net

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Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#41

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

waheoo wrote: post #22
addicted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of the flat buttons but I strongly disagree about the single/multi line TO situation. I doubt there will be a single person for whom Thunderbird is their first email/messaging type app. Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least. All of them will be comfortable with multiple users in a single To line, while having multiple lines for multiple users will actually appear alie…

Perpetuating bad UX choices (or at least trade offs made under the mobile constraint) from mobile into the desktop doesn't help anyone. I use thunderbird because I want an email client, not a dumbed down web experience built for mobile.

I wholeheartedly disagree. The new "To" field is much, much easier to use, and I'd be curious why you think it's the result of 'trade offs made under the mobile constraint'.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#42

Post by _sbrk »

addicted wrote: post #16
LeoPanthera wrote: post #12

Many of these UI changes seem like backward steps. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/compose-compariso... Old: Clear that you can enter multiple "To" addresses. Obvious that the formatting buttons are buttons. New: Single-line "to" implies you can only enter one address. "Flat" buttons don't look like buttons. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/account-setup.png Extra white space makes the window nea…

Not a fan of the flat buttons but I strongly disagree about the single/multi line TO situation. I doubt there will be a single person for whom Thunderbird is their first email/messaging type app. Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least. All of them will be comfortable with multiple users in a single To line, while having multiple lines for multiple users will actually appear alie…

> I doubt there will be a single person for whom Thunderbird is their first email/messaging type app. Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least.

You'd be wrong. I, grudgingly, moved from mutt to Thunderbird after it was clear that email was turning into MIME-encoded web pages.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#43

Post by AnonHP »

The integration of GPG into the client was a great move. The addition of dark mode is also good to keep up with the times. After all this while, the best thing I love about this release is the simplification of the To (and also CC and BCC) list into one field instead of being multiple rows (it was always painful to scroll).

I used to use Thunderbird as my only mail client for many years and still prefer it for personal accounts. I loved global search when it was launched, but that was not improved over time for accurate searches, especially for large mailboxes (I struggle to find mails with it in mailboxes that are a few Gigabytes in size).

Thunderbird has not focused on built-in MS Exchange support (especially including calendar), which, combined with environments where IMAP is disabled, makes it a no-go. I know of one commercial extension (Owl) that works with MS Exchange/Office 365, but that extension requires the purchase to be made by providing which email address one wants to use it for. It’s a privacy concern that the developer said they wouldn’t fix. So I’m stuck with Outlook Web Access at work (I refuse to use the Outlook client).

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#44

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

ronjouch wrote: post #14
LeoPanthera wrote: post #12

Many of these UI changes seem like backward steps. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/compose-compariso... Old: Clear that you can enter multiple "To" addresses. Obvious that the formatting buttons are buttons. New: Single-line "to" implies you can only enter one address. "Flat" buttons don't look like buttons. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/account-setup.png Extra white space makes the window nea…

Agreed about the flat buttons sadly following the OS-cohesiveness-hindering flatness fad instead of adhering to standard OS styling which can be recognized across apps by users. Disagreed about the To/Cc redesign, the new design is much more efficient when you have multiple recipients, making good use of horizontal space. The old design did lead to: 1. Tons of wasted horizontal space (as each line is a recipient, on…

At least in the Mail.app on macOS, clear buttons are still used in the toolbar and the window bar when you compose a new message. I definitely think theres new thunderbird buttons are both a downgrade in terms of usability, but also because, aesthetically, I think they look way worse. The icon design is really quite bad. The "A" char is poorly rendered, the stroke width and proportions seem to be all over the place, and the italics "A" looks particularly bad.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#45

Post by aneutron »

I skimmed through the features and was very excited for the dark mode announcement. But that quickly went down the drain when I couldn't find how to force it from the setting, because I'm using i3wm, and there's no "dark mode" per se.

The other thing I'm wondering about is how this will integrate with OpenGPG, more specifically if it will allow the use with smartcards. And it looks like it planned ![1]

Great work Team Thunderbird. Been a fan for the past 5 years, will be for the foreseeable future.

[1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Status

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#46

Post by AnonHP »

kbumsik wrote: post #28

Out of curiosity, what UI toolkit does Thunderbird use? GTK or the UI system derived from Firefox?

It used to be XUL, but since that was deprecated and Firefox doesn’t support it, for a while Thunderbird was still using it with a plan to switch out. The larger plan for Thunderbird is to use “web technologies” (meaning HTML, CSS and JS). IIRC, this move is already in progress.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#47

Post by wvenable »

greggman3 wrote: post #34

To each their own but I find it hard to fathom using a non-cloud based email system. I regularly access my email from 7 computers.

I have native apps for email on the various machines I own (between phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops that's at least 5). And, in a pinch, I can still use webmail.

I'm not sure why "cloud" matters for email -- it's always been hosted on a server somewhere.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#48

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

aneutron wrote: post #45

I skimmed through the features and was very excited for the dark mode announcement. But that quickly went down the drain when I couldn't find how to force it from the setting, because I'm using i3wm, and there's no "dark mode" per se. The other thing I'm wondering about is how this will integrate with OpenGPG, more specifically if it will allow the use with smartcards. And it looks like it planned ![1] Great work Tea…

Likewise. I know it is merely a cosmetic change, but it is just easier on my eyes.

For me Thunderbird is a way to slowly attempt to disentangle from Google. Thus far it has not been a disappointment. No welcome screen, no problem, there is an option for that. You don't want stuff to be compacted every time it starts, no problem; change one value to false. If only most programs were like that today.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#49

Post by atq2119 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #24
waheoo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perpetuating bad UX choices (or at least trade offs made under the mobile constraint) from mobile into the desktop doesn't help anyone. I use thunderbird because I want an email client, not a dumbed down web experience built for mobile.

Who said it's a difference made under mobile constraints? I've literally never used a mail client that didn't do multiple emails on the same line. On Desktop or Mobile. And it's never been an issue.

I've had issues editing email addresses in clients with multiple mails per line.

As long as everybody is on your address book it's fine, but if they're not, things tend to get awry.

I haven't tried the new Thunderbird, but I am suspicious of this change as well.

Re: What’s New in Thunderbird 78

#50

Post by jsilence »

I really wish TB would store mails in Maildir by default and operate on that storage according to the standard so that the local mailstore becomes compatible with other mail clients.

Right now one can manually switch the storage to maildir, but it is not safe to use that storage with other maildir compatible software.

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