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Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

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Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#11

Post by AndyMcConachie »

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.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#12

Post by mi100hael »

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…

> or get some Rust code in

lol

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#15

Post by spystath »

I get it that Thunderbird looks unhip but I feel like the heavily padded lines waste too much space. The gmail "compact" setting is a much better compromise between space and legibility.

But unless they move Thunderbird to WebExtensions (which would be a total productivity disaster) it can always be modded.

Although an UI update is always welcome there are more important issues to address in Thunderbird, like better calendar synchronisation and an overhaul to its search capabilities.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#17

Post by bhauer »

cs702 wrote: post #7

Former Thunderbird user here. Much more important than shiny new UI, what I'd like to see is seamless out-of-the-box syncing with online calendars and contacts . (At one point, I tried all the available add-ons for syncing with Google's apps; none of those add-ons worked well for me.)

Importantly, since this is a Mozilla project, that service should be self-hostable [1] to disintermediate the multi-device synchronization platform. It should not be necessary to have a third-party observe all my contacts and calendars.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-services/

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#18

Post by SyneRyder »

qznc wrote: post #14

Why does the survey ask "does it look trustworthy"? I voted the middle "4", because I don't understand the question.

I think it means "does it look like an app that you would trust with your email workflow".

If the design looks broken or amateurish, maybe that would lead you to not trust the application because you feel it is poorly made and will lose your data one day.

Or maybe the new design is so focused on stickers & gifs* that you don't trust the application to reliably handle your professional business communications with clients anymore.

* (I'm looking at you, Skype, with this comment...)

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#19

Post by discreditable »

It's pretty meh. It looks like a simple reskin of Thunderbird which doesn't solve any of its problems if you ask me. Thunderbird could certainly use some design love (a conversation view like Gmail could be neat), but I like TB beta's theme better than this.

Re: Thunderbird Starts Working on Improving Its Interface

#20

Post by bhauer »

spystath wrote: post #15

I get it that Thunderbird looks unhip but I feel like the heavily padded lines waste too much space. The gmail "compact" setting is a much better compromise between space and legibility. But unless they move Thunderbird to WebExtensions (which would be a total productivity disaster) it can always be modded. Although an UI update is always welcome there are more important issues to address in Thunderbird, like better…

Agreed. In my response to their survey, I pointed out that with a communication platform, information density is important. A design should not squander space (ala Slack) just to be hip.
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