Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thunderbird 115

thunderbird.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 358 posts

Re: Thunderbird 115

#141

Post by folkrav »

pmontra wrote: post #87
jraph wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calendar in the mail client is very useful since invitations are sent by mail. You click accept, the recipient knows you did and the event is added to your calendar. But indeed if you don't use it it does not get in the way, which is perfect.

I read mail first on my phone with K9 (the old UI) a few times per day and accept invitations there to put them on my phone, which is always with me. Then I download mail with Thunderbird a few times per week. I use my domain providers POP3 servers. Yes, they bundle a mailbox with each domain. It's also IMAP and webmail but POP3 is better for my use case.

> It's also IMAP and webmail but POP3 is better for my use case.

I'm curious as to why, if you don't mind! Are you specifically looking for "download only once then get rid of it"?

Re: Thunderbird 115

#142

Post by eps »

AnonC wrote: post #106
danpalmer wrote: post #92

I can't believe how janky this still looks after a UI overhaul. Text is misaligned in lots of places, the icons are fuzzy, spacing and padding is inconsistent even within the same areas, there are 3 sets of 3-dot icons in the sidebar in two different axes. It's just careless. Most users don't care about the alignment and spacing and so on in isolation, but they do get a sense of quality from the overall impact. This…

You can participate in the Thunderbird UX discussions on Topicbox (and also through email) and provide your suggestions/critiques at https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/ux

Do they listen to the opinions of random newcomers?

Re: Thunderbird 115

#143

Post by nerdponx »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #95
cortic wrote: post #80

Wonder what the hard-drive footprint this takes now, my version; 60.9.1(32-bit) takes 126MB and i consider that bloated for what it is. At the Thunderbird 60.9 release mark; Pegasus footprint was 30MB, Opera Mail was 38MB, Sylpheed was 28MB, even the Bat was only 50MB. I run Thunderbird portable from a data pen, which is why this metric is important to me (i realize it won't be for the majority of users). Edit; Okay…

I'm glad they aren't spending dev cycles trying to optimize on-disk footprint. 2TB SSD go for $100 and 4Tb go for $200. Nobody installs so many different software that the software itself, even at 200MB, could take up any significant percent of the storage.

> Nobody installs so many different software that the software itself, even at 200MB, could take up any significant percent of the storage.

This isn't true, but I agree that it shouldn't be high priority for a resource-constrained team.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#144

Post by danpalmer »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #134
andix wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good software also looks good. Looking good can't make up for bad functionality. that's true. But good UX design is an important part of software.

Misaligned lines are not bad UX. They are bad design/UI, but misaligned dots have no impact on the UX.

If software doesn't appear "trustworthy" people won't use it, particularly if it's holding sensitive personal data such as email. The worst UX is people never using the software.

Design plays a big part in how people perceive trustworthiness. It implies effort and understanding. The reason people spot fake products on AliExpress is not because they're intimately familiar with the legit versions, but because typically there are numerous design aspects that are just slightly weird.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#145

Post by nerdponx »

donatj wrote: post #50
smarkov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand this. It already looks a little too clumped to me, what's the benefit to further putting things closer to one another? It's not like you're doing some kind of additive transformation and you need to quickly jump between lines, each email is its own thing and you can only read one at a time. If you need to find specific ones you can always categorize them or use the search functionality. I'm…

Being able to quickly scan a large list of emails without scrolling is practical and useful. All whitespace achieves is aesthetics, which are meaningless beyond initial adoption. My work email rarely exist in a vacuum, they exist in the context of all my other work emails. The ability to actually cross reference and get work done quickly should always trump aesthetics. These modern “spaced out” UIs are infuriating, t…

Spacing is useful for me because it helps each individual piece of text stand out from the others. Too dense and it all looks like a jumble to me that I can't easily scan visually. Too much whitespace I agree is bad for the reasons you described. But everyone has different taste here. The ideal scenario is an option to change spacing.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#146

Post by danpalmer »

andix wrote: post #123
danpalmer wrote: post #92

I can't believe how janky this still looks after a UI overhaul. Text is misaligned in lots of places, the icons are fuzzy, spacing and padding is inconsistent even within the same areas, there are 3 sets of 3-dot icons in the sidebar in two different axes. It's just careless. Most users don't care about the alignment and spacing and so on in isolation, but they do get a sense of quality from the overall impact. This…

At least it is a step in the right direction. Let's hope they will continue the journey and gradually improve it. "Just" aligning margins, paddings and font sizes should be a much easier task.

That's true! And the mockups look great so hopefully they're still working in that direction.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#147

Post by hbossy »

smarkov wrote: post #34
nabogh wrote: post #6

I hope I can opt back into the more dense display that we currently have. Some other parts look quite nice however.

I really don't understand this. It already looks a little too clumped to me, what's the benefit to further putting things closer to one another? It's not like you're doing some kind of additive transformation and you need to quickly jump between lines, each email is its own thing and you can only read one at a time. If you need to find specific ones you can always categorize them or use the search functionality. I'm…

each email is its own thing and you can only read one at a time

That's not true. Majority of my interaction with inbox is scanning through dozens of automated e-mail notifications and spam in search of the one I'm interested in. Most of the messages gets deleted or marked as read without ever being opened. And no, you cannot solve this with filtering, there's just too many edge cases.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#149

Post by tentacleuno »

cortic wrote: post #80

Wonder what the hard-drive footprint this takes now, my version; 60.9.1(32-bit) takes 126MB and i consider that bloated for what it is. At the Thunderbird 60.9 release mark; Pegasus footprint was 30MB, Opera Mail was 38MB, Sylpheed was 28MB, even the Bat was only 50MB. I run Thunderbird portable from a data pen, which is why this metric is important to me (i realize it won't be for the majority of users). Edit; Okay…

> Edit; Okay i know i could buy a bigger data pen, but i also do weekly backups to the cloud and am limited to 7mbps upload, 2g takes 40 minutes, so every bit i can shave off helps. But i want to emphasize i realize it won't be important for the majority of users

Curious here: so you continuously upload your Thunderbird executable to the cloud? Why? Most upload+sync solutions worth their salt (FreeFileSync, Syncthing) have competent diffing algorithms that don't upload the same file twice.

Re: Thunderbird 115

#150

Post by orra »

elric wrote: post #89
orra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just jumping in to say I'm also incredibly happy to see this change (and the other expected improvements). Thunderbird currently looks dated, and I'm glad to see it brought into the 2020s. Sometimes current users can be dismissive of UI changes, so it's good to see fellow users who are happy. Moreover, let's not forget the new users, who were previously put off by the dated UI.

I guess I'll be that dismissive current user. I don't like random UI changes in a tool I use as frequently as a mail client. The new icons don't look too bad, even if I dislike their flat nature. I don't think TB looks dated. It looks functional. Which is exactly what I want from a mail client. If I want something that looks modern but is dysfunctional, I'll just switch to Outlook.

I obviously don't begrudge the fact Thunderbird currently works for you. But there are a few issues with the current UI:

* Dark mode didn't exist for a long time, and I'm glad it does, but messages are still displayed brightly.

* The list of emails always has a columns and a header; there's no simplified vertical view.

* There's a threading view, but IIRC it doesn't combine sent and received messages into the same thread view.

Post reply on HN