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Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

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Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#101

Post by encom »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #95
ttoinou wrote: post #73

Do the people who style their app actually use their app on a daily basis for long amount of time ? It seems to me the basic design of app are often the best for eye fatigue, frequent usage, recognizing which information is where fast, contrast, low margin / good usage of space etc. The current design of Thunderbird is not pretty, but it's effective. I used Thunderbird everyday for 10+ years with 100k+ emails in 10+…

Generally if I care enough to style/mod an app it’s because I’m using it a lot and its stock UI isn’t doing the trick. Sometimes it can also drive me to switch to a different app, like with Firefox. FF used to be my secondary browser, but Zen (a Firefox fork) aligns with my needs and preferences better and doesn’t require userChrome mods and addons that are likely to break after some random update some day, so I swit…

As someone who thinks browser UI peaked in 2008, Zen just feels like Firefox UI designers on ritalin. Had to about:config hack it to show the KDE system titlebar. This software is not for me.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#102

Post by encom »

danbruc wrote: post #30
diggan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where we are now (tabs on top, no wasted space) Tabs at the top is wasted space, I much prefer my tabs on the side instead, as most web content is taller than it is wide, and I have a widescreen monitor. I understand the choice of tabs on top when 640x480 was the most common resolution, but for desktop usage today? Tabs on top seems like an outdated layout choice.

There are browser - Vivaldi for example - that allow you to place the tab strip on any edge you want. To me personally it just looks and feels wrong, maybe just because of years of exposure to tabs on the top, but I can not get used to it, even though I have to admit that the tab labels are much nicer to read on the left if you have sufficiently many tabs open.

Not only does Vivaldi allow you to do that, but you can customise every menu in the program. I've modified the context menu to have exactly the things I want, in the order I want them. This is what Firefox should have been.

It's too bad I'll have to dump Vivaldi soon, now that Google is killing adblockers.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#103

Post by cosmic_cheese »

encom wrote: post #101
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally if I care enough to style/mod an app it’s because I’m using it a lot and its stock UI isn’t doing the trick. Sometimes it can also drive me to switch to a different app, like with Firefox. FF used to be my secondary browser, but Zen (a Firefox fork) aligns with my needs and preferences better and doesn’t require userChrome mods and addons that are likely to break after some random update some day, so I swit…

As someone who thinks browser UI peaked in 2008, Zen just feels like Firefox UI designers on ritalin. Had to about:config hack it to show the KDE system titlebar. This software is not for me.

Since a couple of the machines I use regularly have small screens (12-13”), hiding the standard titlebar and collapsing browser UI elements into the titlebar area were among the userChrome mods I had been applying to Firefox, so that particular bit of UI design in Zen is desirable for me.

On desk-bound machines hooked to 27” displays, this isn’t really necessary, but the UI being built around vertical tabs as the standard (as opposed to most browsers, where vertical tabs are a tacked-on afterthought if they’re even supported without addons) is still a relevant selling point.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#104

Post by hammyhavoc »

Is there any extension for Thunderbird that can handle "External Accounts" per-address signatures and sending identities already configured on a Gmail account?

I always go "I'll check out Thunderbird again" then "nope" out when I see it can't handle this kind of set up in the OOBE and most extensions don't receive ongoing support and thus stop being compatible.

I use Gmail on my phone and Pixel Watch, so ditching this setup is a non-starter as reconfiguring something as basic as email every time I get a new device or switch distros isn't my idea of a good time.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#105

Post by hammyhavoc »

ttoinou wrote: post #73

Do the people who style their app actually use their app on a daily basis for long amount of time ? It seems to me the basic design of app are often the best for eye fatigue, frequent usage, recognizing which information is where fast, contrast, low margin / good usage of space etc. The current design of Thunderbird is not pretty, but it's effective. I used Thunderbird everyday for 10+ years with 100k+ emails in 10+…

Something not making my eyeballs bleed is part-and-parcel to me actually wanting to use it. I value function over form, but Thunderbird has never been a looker. Plenty of UX friction too. It's just convoluted and messy.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#106

Post by hammyhavoc »

KetoManx64 wrote: post #85
ttoinou wrote: post #73

Do the people who style their app actually use their app on a daily basis for long amount of time ? It seems to me the basic design of app are often the best for eye fatigue, frequent usage, recognizing which information is where fast, contrast, low margin / good usage of space etc. The current design of Thunderbird is not pretty, but it's effective. I used Thunderbird everyday for 10+ years with 100k+ emails in 10+…

Yes, I style my LibreWolf/Floorp desktop applications to suit my preferences/workflow and I spend 8+ hours a day using them. I hide elements I don't need, make my sidebar tabs auto collapse/expand when I hover over them, change the scaling factor. While yes, the basic design is good and works for 90% of people that use Firefox, I have over the last decade developed a personal a workflow that works very well for me, a…

If you ever document it, I'd love to read about your workflow. me@hammyhavoc.com

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#107

Post by hammyhavoc »

JohnFen wrote: post #74
diggan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where we are now (tabs on top, no wasted space) Tabs at the top is wasted space, I much prefer my tabs on the side instead, as most web content is taller than it is wide, and I have a widescreen monitor. I understand the choice of tabs on top when 640x480 was the most common resolution, but for desktop usage today? Tabs on top seems like an outdated layout choice.

Options are good. I hate having tabs or other controls vertically on the side. I like them at the top. There's no reason we can't both be happy.

I want both via a single button-press, or defaults per-monitor.

What I want on an ultrawide isn't what I want on a portrait 16:9 side monitor.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#108

Post by 1718627440 »

accoil wrote: post #87
markasoftware wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just tried installing it in case last time I tried it >5 years ago was during the "rough". I was impressed that it correctly inferred the IMAP and SMTP settings for my custom domain name, but after using it for ~30 seconds random old emails started appearing at the top of the email list, above my latest emails. Maybe I'll try again in another 5 years. edit: someone thinks i didn't wait for imap to finish. I did. My l…

I get something like that in the initial IMAP sync. Some of my old emails will surface to the top with the current date as today. Never really bothered looking into as it only happens once, but I've been assuming that the date header on those emails were missing.

Yes, I also had that problem and this is exactly the cause. When you resync the mailbox later it gets redated again. It is actually really stupid, because there are only TWO mandatory headers: Date and From. Getting this wrong seams to be really incompetent of the sender software.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#109

Post by laxd »

chartered_stack wrote: post #6
paintbox wrote: post #2

I understand that search bar position is not changeable by theming, it's a Thunderbird team's decision, but it irks me to see it take up so much premium space. It was the same with browsers, it took many years and iterations to get where we are now (tabs on top, no wasted space) and I think those lessons should be carried over.

The Thunderbird search bar really sucks. Advanced search with the actual functionality is hidden away behind some weird menu while the big honking bar at the top of each page does basic text search and offers nothing more.

The search bar does filtering in the current folder. Fast, simple, and what I most commonly want.

Re: Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design

#110

Post by hulitu »

paintbox wrote: post #2

I understand that search bar position is not changeable by theming, it's a Thunderbird team's decision, but it irks me to see it take up so much premium space. It was the same with browsers, it took many years and iterations to get where we are now (tabs on top, no wasted space) and I think those lessons should be carried over.

> tabs on top, no wasted space) and I think those lessons should be carried over.

hell no. I want the title bar, the scrollbars and the window border back. I work with more than one window.

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