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Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

mail.mozilla.org

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Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#31

Post by smonff »

problems wrote: post #28
cakeface wrote: post #11

Does anyone actually have any problems with Thunderbird? I feel like it is "done" software. It works, perfectly, for all my needs. It's fast. It has great UI. It lets me read and write email.

I feel the same way personally. I feel like I see tons of people complaining about it, but it's just what I want out of a mail client. The UI is a great, the GPG integration is great with enigmail, it's a very polished product. Not only that, but making one based on web technologies that moves away from the native look and feel it currently has would truly be a loss in my opinion. I'd probably give Claws Mail and alp…

Same. I did quite dirty stuff with Thunderbird and it always behave well and it never crash. Plus, it's quite ergonomic.

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#32

Post by js8 »

cakeface wrote: post #11

Does anyone actually have any problems with Thunderbird? I feel like it is "done" software. It works, perfectly, for all my needs. It's fast. It has great UI. It lets me read and write email.

I haven't used Thunderbird for a long long time, but the feature I was missing the most when I moved to Gmail ages ago was some sort of automatic categorization (machine learning) based on content of the emails. One application would be spam filtering, but I would actually appreciate if it could be applied more broadly to classify other emails.

Is something like that now available in Thunderbird?

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#35

Post by pjungwir »

cakeface wrote: post #11

Does anyone actually have any problems with Thunderbird? I feel like it is "done" software. It works, perfectly, for all my needs. It's fast. It has great UI. It lets me read and write email.

It works great for me. :-)

Search could be smarter (and faster). Also I remember I had to do something tricky to make search default to "date" sorting instead of "relevance", and that should really just be in the preferences dialog somewhere.

But basically I have no complaints!

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#36

Post by bengotow »

sidlls wrote: post #27

"JavaScript is the best choice." (Citation Needed). This proposal identifies serious legitimate concerns with Thunderbird development going forward, but the proposed solution looks more like a hammer seeking a nail than a thoughtful approach to addressing the concerns.

Well, the author seems thoughtful, but I'm sure he's seeking replies on the mailing list. You could propose something else!

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#37

Post by fao_ »

Kenji wrote: post #29

I wish I could freeze the program Thunderbird in time to keep it precisely how it is right now for the next couple of decades. I literally want not change. I know, I know. It's a pipe dream, the surrounding environment changes, breaking the program as the OS and libraries evolve. But this constant resolving of perfectly solved problems annoys me.

  git clone
^ there you go. A stable thunderbird branch that will work mostly forever. Every time an API changes just shove it in another iteration of a virtual machine :P

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#38

Post by 5ilv3r »

bengotow wrote: post #22
5ilv3r wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no no you missed what I am saying. I use horrible hardware appliances with built in md5 ssl certs for remote administration. I am not a web developer. I need to be able to access them to secure them and to work on hardware problems. This isn't even on the internet, this is on a local lan serving a small business. We're not going to buy new hardware because my browser updated, so I'm stuck having to boot up a mint…

Ahh I see! Sorry, I totally misread your message. Wow, that's a rough situation... If things get really bad, I think you could use a HTTPS proxy like Charles ( https://www.charlesproxy.com/ ) to decrypt the traffic and re-encrypt it with a newer SSL cert before viewing it in Firefox. I'm not sure about Firefox, but you can run Chrome from the command line with `--allow-running-insecure-content --ignore-certificate-er…

I've been working on a proxy for my retrocomputers, using it at work would be a pretty sad solutions. :( No one builds things to last more than 2 years anymore...

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#39

Post by 5ilv3r »

mbell wrote: post #30
5ilv3r wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no no you missed what I am saying. I use horrible hardware appliances with built in md5 ssl certs for remote administration. I am not a web developer. I need to be able to access them to secure them and to work on hardware problems. This isn't even on the internet, this is on a local lan serving a small business. We're not going to buy new hardware because my browser updated, so I'm stuck having to boot up a mint…

> I need to be able to access them to secure them If they are using md5 ssl certs, it's unlikely securing them is possible. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a dozen or more security vulns in such outdated devices.

You secure them by firewalling them off after you change the default passwords. Old school but solid.

Re: Proposal to start a new implementation of Thunderbird based on web technologies

#40

Post by acemarke »

deckiedan wrote: post #7

Interesting that mithril.js gets a mention. I really like it.

Was that mentioned in one of the replies? I don't see any specific libraries mentioned in the linked message, or the other replies I searched through.

edit: Scratch that, it was in this reply: https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2017-March/00... . "I'd suggest using TypeScript, Mithril.js, Tachyons, and Node.js for the base technologies -- probably with Mocha/Chai for testing. Later we can make a more stand-alone desktop version with Electron or such. We could use socket.io to push notifications for changes in real or virtual folders and then use Mithril.js (a vdom library) to quickly rerender changed data the client UI requests (or is pushed)."

Worth noting that reply looks more like a wishlist of stuff than a meaningful viable proposal.

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