Finally updated to Thunderbird 115

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I try to avoid being on the bleeding edge of software updates.  So when TBird 115 came out I changed my update settings to check for updates but not install them.  And then I watched as the application went through numerous updates.  I don’t remember which AW member said it but it didn’t seem like TBird 115 was “fully baked”.  As long as security updates were being made to the 102.15 release I was content to wait.  And I waited up to 102.15.1

When I noticed TBird 115.3.1 included a security update that had not been back-ported to 102.15 I updated to 115.3.1.

So far my only gripe is that the unified view of the Inbox does not persist my desired column sort order.

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They have not got unified view working as I’d like so I’ve got my folder view at the top and the unified underneath for thins I might miss.

cheers, Paul

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As long as they place the menubar beneath the unified action bar, Thunderbird will always be somewhat half-baked, IMO. The menubar goes up top. Always has.

Fortunately, I know a little bit about CSS, and I was able to fix it well enough for my own use. The UI now looks much like it did in 102. All of these redesigns just keep resulting in a worse and worse UI… at least TB has mostly avoided all of that, presumably because of the limited resources. Firefox has redone theirs three times!

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Lars220

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I agree with Ascaris that the Menu bar goes on top, always has. Why Mozilla Thunderbird 115 decided to lower it, is something of a mystery. I have experimented with TB 115.3.0 Portable, separate from my current 102.15.1 just to see if I liked it, and I think 115.3 is still “Beta” half done at this time. I found instructions to create CSS stylesheet userChrome.css file to put the Menu bar back on top where it belongs at following AskVG website:
https://www.askvg.com/tip-how-to-move-menu-bar-at-top-in-mozilla-thunderbird/
Might be helpful for anyone who likes the “Normal look of Menu bar on Top”.

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I have to admit, that is a lot simpler and better than the solution I came up with. I used margins to push the menubar up and everything else down.

Edit: Just tried it, and at least on my Linux setup, it’s not enough to just add that one line of CSS and be done with it. The window controls (close, maximize, minimize) are still on the unified toolbar after you move the menubar up to the top, so now they are out of position, below the menu bar and not in the upper right corner.

If you uncheck the option for hiding the system window titlebar, then everything looks fine, but you have a titlebar that you may not have wanted.

I am pretty old-school in my GUI preferences, so I have the titlebar enabled, but for people who intend to use it in the default titlebar-less setup, some more tweaking will be needed. The Aris mods for TB (which I was not aware existed until I read the message here) will surely take care of that if you make use of them. I have used and recommended these quite a bit in Firefox. Aris’ knowledge of CSS compared to mine is like a beach vs. a sandbox.

In my own userChrome.css, I also added the order: -1 !important; line to the tab bar, to move that up above the unified toolbar. I was not sure if the numbering was absolute or relative, so I just tried it with -1 (assuming it was relative, meaning “move it up one line”) and tried it. It works!

So now the file contents of userChrome.css look like this:

#toolbar-menubar{order:-1 !important;}
#tabs-toolbar {order: -1 !important;}

You will get the menu bar, then the tab bar, then the unified toolbar, from top to bottom. If you want the unified toolbar in between, don’t add the tabs-toolbar line.

If you want to recolor the various toolbars, you can easily do that via CSS, and if you are up to it, you should not be afraid to experiment (no matter how screwed up it gets, delete userChrome.css and it all goes back to default), but if that sounds too daunting, the Aris set is probably your best solution.

 

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Anyone who wants to make UI changes to Thunderbird should check out the work done by Aris:

Thunderbird Custom CSS Tweaks – source info

https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforTb

(These are the same people who made Custom CSS Tweaks for Firefox.)

I used the tweaks to put the menu on top, make the active tab have color and fix the appearance of the TB Menu button (what should be the hamburger on the right).

 

 

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JC Zorkoff wrote:

I used the tweaks to put the menu on top, make the active tab have color and fix the appearance of the TB Menu button (what should be the hamburger on the right).

I looked at this link. I am interested only in making the active tab have color. I used AskVG’s instructions for putting the menu bar at the top, so I already have set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to True, I have a chrome folder inside the Thunderbird profile folder, and I have a userChrome.css file inside the chrome folder which contains the statement to put the Menu Toolbar at the top.

To make the active tab have color, do I need to add statements inside this userChrome.css file to do that? If so, just what are those statements? I don’t seem to be able to find this specifically in the link you posted.

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WCHS,

Looking at the Custom Tweaks site in my link, there are important instructions
further down the page as to how to make changes to the .css files. Please
read them.

You will also notice, in the far right column there is a link:
“Classic CSS tweaks for Thunder…” Latest

Click that link and you will see the page titled:
Classic CSS tweaks for Thunderbird v3.0.0 (115+ only)

Look down the page to find the link: custom_css_for_tb_v3.0.0.zip

Click that link to download the full set of .css files.

Now look through the userChrome.css and userContent.css files to see what
changes you wish to enable. Follow the instructions I mentioned in the top
paragraph.

I enabled the classic_squared_tabs.css file in the css/tabs folder.

In the Tab Appearance section (about line 139) I made this change

#tabs-toolbar:not(:-moz-lwtheme) .tabmail-tab[selected] {

background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(255,218,97,.4), rgba(255,218,97,.8) 50%), /* Lt Orange */

linear-gradient(to top,rgba(0,0,0,.4),-moz-dialog 1px, -moz-dialog) !important;

order-bottom: 1px solid rgba(130, 130, 130, 0.7) !important; /* */
}

I could not make this code look good in this reply, sorry.

It is possible that this may work by directly adding it to the
userChrome.css file, if you want to try.

I hope this helps!

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WCHS

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Is this what it’s meant to look like?

#tabs-toolbar:not(:-moz-lwtheme) .tabmail-tab[selected] {
	background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(255,218,97,.4), rgba(255,218,97,.8) 50%), /* Lt Orange */
	linear-gradient(to top,rgba(0,0,0,.4),-moz-dialog 1px, -moz-dialog) !important; 
	order-bottom: 1px solid rgba(130, 130, 130, 0.7) !important; /* */ 
}

cheers, Paul

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Yes!!!

How did you get the alignment set within the code tags?

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Change to Text edit mode (click the Text tab)
Add <pre></pre> tags.
Viola!

cheers, Paul

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JC Zorkoff

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Maybe I’m just old-fashioned but I don’t understand the emphasis on constantly changing application UI for the sake of eye-candy like rounded window corners in Win11 and the default removal of the window title bar in TBird 115 or the position of TBird’s menu bar.

In my opinion, the default removal of the window title bar in TBird for the desktop is a very odd choice.  Considering the amount of screen real estate available for modern systems I am left to wonder why someone thought this was a good idea.  The bizarre change to the menu bar needs no further comment.

Apparently the software industry has concluded that cosmetic changes create the illusion of progress and the “fear of missing out” will stimulate the user base to upgrade.

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I guess it depends on your use case. For years, I have turned off the menu bar in many applications, especially Thunderbird and Firefox (ESR) as I prefer to have the additional screen real estate for displaying content (thus Firefox is always in full screen mode). But it’s also because I use keyboard shortcuts a lot instead of the mouse that can bring up the menu bar or functions on it when needed. Examples: pressing the Alt key shows the menu bar, then use arrow keys to navigate. Or Alt+letter of menu function (ex. Alt+F for File, Alt+V for View, etc.) then arrow keys to navigate.

Also see this Thunderbird blog post and video for information for the major rebuild/redesign:

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/the-future-of-thunderbird-why-were-rebuilding-from-the-ground-up/

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The disgust software developers, er, develop for the convoluted “patches stacked on patches” nature of mature software, and the resultant desire to start over, can be dangerous. That was what the Netscape devs were doing after the release of Netscape Communicator 4.7. While they were rewriting, the product already shipped was getting farther and farther behind, and that allowed an opportunity for Internet Explorer to exploit. Netscape was considerably ahead in the browser market, but this long pause helped IE, and before too long there was no Netscape.

Fortunately, TB does not seem to be going that far. Refactoring code and removing cruft is a necessary part of the process of software development, so it is not a bad thing that it is being done. More worrisome is the desire to change the UI because it “looks old.” Fashion is not what I consider to be a valid reason to redesign a given UI. Thunderbird is a tool, and tools are meant to be useful, not pretty.

The desire to make tools look pretty or modern often, or perhaps usually, results in them being less useful for their intended tasks. The developers always state that they will manage both aesthetics and usability at once, but in practice, it seldom works out that way. The desire to make the thing aesthetic overrides all perceptions of usability.

When I saw the young developer’s vlog post a while back about the upcoming TB re-do, I could see “it” coming again. By now, I have seen so many UI refreshes of so many programs, and it is rare that a given application with a very usable UI retains that quality through the refresh.

Thunderbird’s UI changes were not universally terrible. The title-bar-less UI by default is a big trend these days, and not one I appreciate, but at least it can be corrected with a click of a box. The weird positioning of the menu bar and the unified toolbar is a head-scratcher, but is also fixable (though not as easily as it should be). The appearance of the dropdown menus and context menu is just another trendy bit… rounded corners are the rage once again! Blah. And on Linux at least, the coloration of the entire “header bar” (menu bar, tab bar, unified toolbar, with no titlebar) to look like a GNOME CSD is IMO a big step in the wrong direction.

The biggest issue I have with UI refreshes is that the old UI should remain a selectable option, but it seldom is. The devs want you to use their new baby, not the old one, and no one wants to maintain the old, dated looking thing that just worked better. So when you hear them expressing disdain for the UI you like, it’s another “here it comes again” moment.

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Speaking of Microsoft’s user interface efforts I thought that this developers take was an interesting perspective The Quest for the Ultimate GUI Framework

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I have always thought the Thunderbird UI looked old and dated. It was one of many reasons I never considered using it when I was on Windows and used Outlook instead (always had access to a licensed version via my employer). Then when I switched to Linux Mint and actually started using Thunderbird it was even more apparent how it not only looked old but also operated like old software in particular the calendar. So I welcomed their efforts to rebuild and modernize the UI and installed 115 when it was first available and then used most of the steps in the guide below to enable the new Supernova UI. Of course backed up my profile first so I had something to restore/fall back on if needed.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/08/make-thunderbird-yours-how-to-get-the-thunderbird-115-supernova-look/

The ONLY item I really didn’t like was putting the search option in the title bar, something that Microsoft also has done recently in Outlook 365 that I have to use at work. But unlike Microsoft, Thunderbird allowed me to easily change/modify it to remove search from the title bar, along with numerous other options to customize the Thunderbird UI to my liking/taste including dark mode that blends perfectly with dark mode of Linux Mint. Also really like the changes to calendar, it looks and operates a lot better.

Granted Supernova is still a work in progress, as the Thunderbird development team has made clear from the start. But to me, the new UI not only looks better but overall is more functional. So I look forward to see what they do going forward. Below is taken from the blog post that I linked to above on the rebuild/redesign.

“Improvements to the UI and UX will continue for the next 2 years, with the objective of creating an interface that can adapt to everyone’s needs. A UI that looks and feels modern is getting initially implemented with version 115 in July, aiming at offering a simple and clean interface for “new” users, as well as the implementation of more customizable options with a flexible and adaptable interface to allow veteran users to maintain that familiarity they love.

A renewed attention to usability and accessibility is now part of our daily development process, guaranteeing easy discoverability of all the powerful features, as well as full compatibility with assistive technologies to make Thunderbird usable by everyone.

And yes, absolutely: the constant addition of new features that some of our competitors have had for years, as well as the creation of some amazing and innovative solutions that will improve everyone’s experience.”

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The TB devs did not really put the search bar into the title bar. They disabled the title bar, then put the “unified” toolbar up at the top, above the tab bar, which is a strange choice (if used, the menubar always goes at the top). It looks like a title bar with a search bar in it, but it’s not a title bar, because it does not show the title. It would be nice if that (the title content) was an option among the things that can be dragged onto the unified toolbar. It would open some interesting customization options. CSS can surely do this.

If you look in the application settings, you will find that the option for “hide OS title bar” is checked. If you uncheck it, you will see the actual titlebar above the unified toolbar with the search bar in it.

With most of the “spaces,” the unified toolbar shows only a search bar by default, but for the main TB mail view, it is supposed to have a series of buttons… from left to right, get mail, write a message, address book, previous unread, next unread, reply, reply all, forward, delete, junk, and quick filter.

That was how it looked on two of my three laptops after updating to 115, while on the third, it showed only the search bar in the mail space. I am not sure why it did that. I saw something similar when I momentarily disabled the titlebar on the XPS, and the unified toolbar went to the search-only configuration… but when I went to the customization screen to fix it, the default buttons as described above were all present., and when I exited the customization screen and went back to the main UI, it was fine again (showing all the buttons). This appears to be a bug.

On that search-only unified toolbar, most of the functions of the missing buttons are duplicated by other buttons on the screen, but not all of them. You miss out on the previous unread, next unread, and reply all. You can, of course, add those and any others you wish to the unified toolbar, but that will make it look less like a titlebar than ever.

Once you put the menubar back on top where it belongs and add the actual titlebar back in (which moves the close/minimize/maximize buttons to the actual titlebar and off of the unified toolbar), there isn’t much that is different about the UI than it was before. The colors up top are changed, as the menubar and unified toolbar are colored as if they are part of the titlebar (in the style of the GNOME CSD header bars, which are a definite step backward in usability), which they are not, but that can be fixed with a new theme easily enough, or with userChrome.css.

It is true that Thunderbird has the customization potential to fix the appearance issues you mention, but so did all the older versions, all the way back to the beginning of Thunderbird as a standalone email client. The potential to not make it look “old” was there too.

As for the calendar… I’ve never used it, so I don’t know if it is any better.

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WCHS

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I’ve been studying this new Supernova, learning all the terms for bars, panes, etc. I’ve click on every thing to see what’s under the Menu tabs, under the 3 dots wherever they are, looked under the hamburger, looked at all of the Setting options, experimented to see what happens when boxes are ticked or not, etc. I’ve also look at some of the helpful links appearing in some of the recent posts about 115 and I am planning to move the Menu Bar to the top and to make the active tab have color. I’d like to venture into using suggested file contents of userChrome.css, too. Figuring out how to use the Calendar is a far-off goal. I tried to set it up in 102, but I couldn’t ever get it to connect to my AT&T/Yahoo calendar, and I’m not yet ready to try it again in 115. That can wait.

There is frequent mention of the TB mail view and I’ve seen it in some 115 screenshots in some posts. But, I have yet to figure out how to get it — there is supposed to be a series of buttons… from left to right, get mail, write a message, address book, previous unread, next unread, reply, reply all, forward, delete, junk, and quick filter. Where/how to you get this TB mail view???

This is what my screen looks like. Can I not get this TB mail view because my TB is set up to access only 1 email account? Or is there something I have to do to get this TB mail view and the series of buttons?

Mozilla touts a “clean and simple” interface for 115, but this is a VERY complicated piece of software, IMHO, maybe getting more complicated as time moves on, and I wouldn’t say that it has a “clean and simple” look. It’s very busy everywhere and not easy to figure out.

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WCHS wrote:

But, I have yet to figure out how to get it — there is supposed to be a series of buttons… from left to right, get mail, write a message, address book, previous unread, next unread, reply, reply all, forward, delete, junk, and quick filter. Where/how to you get this TB mail view??? This is what my screen looks like. Can I not get this TB mail view because my TB is set up to access only 1 email account? Or is there something I have to do to get this TB mail view and the series of buttons?

You have that mail view, sort of… look to the right of the search bar in the unified toolbar, the thing above the menubar. You have those buttons in the same order, but they are not all shown because there is not enough room. If you go to the Customize… option by right clicking the background of a toolbar, you can drag the unwanted items off the toolbar, or move them to another place on the search bar. If you remove tag and the search bar, then move Quick Filter to the right, you will have the setup described.

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WCHS

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I got moved to Thunderbird 115 on my Kubuntu system a couple of days ago. So far it hasn’t been too bad; for example, I do like the colored-in circles that indicate how many emails are unread. Haven’t run into issues with missing/moved buttons and the like. (Time will tell…)

However, one thing that definitely bothers me is the spaced-out inbox listings. I can see many fewer emails at a glance without having to start scrolling. Is there a way to restore the more compact view? I’ve looked around the settings and haven’t found how to adjust the line spacing.

Note that this is not a matter of font size, but rather of the spacing between lines, both within a particular email item and from one email to the next.

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In the menu bar, select View > Density > and select Compact

This should help.

 

 

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Cybertooth

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Thanks JC. I went into that setting and it turns out it was already selected to Compact. But this “Compact” setting isn’t nearly as compact as what I had before. The Default and Relaxed options are even more spread out, of course.

Anyplace else I can look to tighten the line spacing? Maybe some hidden about:config flag, as in Firefox?

 

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WCHS

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Cybertooth wrote:

Note that this is not a matter of font size, but rather of the spacing between lines, both within a particular email item and from one email to the next.

Probably to accommodate touch screens.

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Cybertooth wrote:

Note that this is not a matter of font size, but rather of the spacing between lines, both within a particular email item and from one email to the next.

If you search online you will find solutions (for Windows) about TB spacing that involve creating a profile with userChrome.css file.

example : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1314785

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Cybertooth

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Alex5723 wrote:

f you search online you will find solutions (for Windows) about TB spacing that involve creating a profile with userChrome.css file….

@Cybertooth’s post is about the spacing of lines in the inbox listings in the Folder Pane (where there are colored-in circles that indicate how many emails are unread.)

The link in @Alex5723’s post at #259335 is for the spacing in the Messages List Pane.

I wonder if the addition to the userChrome.css file will change the line-spacing in both places, and not just in the Messages List Pane.

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Cybertooth

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Since I’m not all that familiar with the nomenclature and some of them sound very much alike to me, let indicate precisely what I have in mind.

In your post #2591292, you helpfully provided a shot of your TB screen. It has three panes side by side: the one on the left listing the email folders, the middle one showing the subject and date for the most recent emails, and the rightmost one giving a preview of the selected email.

This looks a lot like my TB screen, except that I have a fourth pane over on the right, showing items on my calendar. The pane where I would like to tighten up the listings is the second one that gives the subject and date of the emails. I would like these items to be closer to each other vertically so that I can see more listings per screenful.

The rest of the panes look all right to me.

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Cybertooth wrote:

The pane where I would like to tighten up the listings is the second one that gives the subject and date of the emails.

That’s in the Message List Pane ( not Message Pane — which is for the preview of messages in the 3rd column)– at least that’s the name I have given it. I say that because you can put a header at the top of the Message List and it’s called a Message List Header, so from that I have figured that the entire column top to bottom, everything including the header and whatever else, is called the Message List Pane.

That code in @Alex5723’s post is for tightening up the vertical spacing in the Message List (or maybe the entire column/Pane).

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Cybertooth

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Hello,

I have been looking for an answer to this question and haven’t been able to locate one, so hopefully someone who already has experience with Supernova can help. I haven’t upgraded my TB to this newest version because I really don’t like either the Classic or the Vertical views that I’ve seen.

My current TB looks like this:

Very clean – no overlapping boxes, individual emails open in separate tabs, composing an email opens a separate window, no previews of emails showing, no calendar on the same view etc.

Is such a view possible with the new TB Supernova, or does everything have to be visible on one “page” as in the images I’ve seen? Or will we be stuck with that newer interface and not be able to customize it to clear away the clutter?

And a related question – if I have a backup of my computer and download the new TB and don’t like it, will reverting the image with the backup restore TB as it was before I tried Supernova – all emails and settings intact?

Thanks!

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WCHS

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My layout in Thunderbird 115.3.1 looks exactly like yours and the actions are as you described.

As you noted by my previous posts I use the Aris Custom CSS tweaks to get it to look this way with the tabs above the unified function bar.

Clearing the clutter is built into the normal user interface through the menu options.

As for the backup to jump back if you don’t like it, yes you can. But be careful that any emails you read from Supernova may not be there if you use a POP mail connection. However I see that you are using Gmail, so you are probably using an IMAP mail connection and that will be fine for going back to TB 102.xx.

 

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Thanks! That’s great to know since the views I’ve seen are so busy and so jumbled that I was very reluctant to do this upgrade.

I do have POP3 for my TB set-up, so maybe a roll back would need to be carefully planned so that I don’t lose anything.

And I have another thought/question if anyone knows. Can I download a portable version of Supernova on a thumb drive and try that on my laptop without it interfering with the installed version of TB that I have. That might be a way to test it to see if I like it before putting my current install in jeopardy!

Thanks again!

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Lars220

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Yes you can use the portable version. That is what I did.

I suggest that you copy your TB profile to the portable folder’s Data/Profile sub-folder so you will see what you would get if you installed TB 115.xx.

 

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JC Zorkoff wrote:

I suggest that you copy your TB profile

Is this the folder named j9ey9wzy.default-release? Mine (v 115) is 6.28 GB (907 files and 36 folders).

I’ve already moved to v 115, but I’d like to know how to create a portable version that looks just like my installed version.

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LHiggins

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To know what is the Thunderbird profile you’re using, click on Help and then Troubleshooting information, scroll down to Profile Folder, click open. It will take you to the profile you’re using.

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Yes, that looks like the naming convention used by TB.

The post above by Andy M should confirm this.

 

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I should add that TB portable uses the sub-folder named data/profile instead of the folder named “ykkjamy1.default” or something similar.

So you need to copy the contents of “ykkjamy1.default” to the folder named “profile” to be sure that all your settings and stored emails are shown in the portable TB.

One way to do this is to copy “ykkjamy1.default” to portable TB sub-folder “data” and rename it to “profile”.

Also, portable TB does not like to run if the installed TB is open. So if you want to see both versions at the same time just open portable TB first and the installed version next. They both seen to play together just fine.

 

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JC Zorkoff wrote:

Also, portable TB does not like to run if the installed TB is open. So if you want to see both versions at the same time just open portable TB first and the installed version next. They both seen to play together just fine.

Great tip – thanks!

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JC Zorkoff wrote:

Yes you can use the portable version. That is what I did. I suggest that you copy your TB profile to the portable folder’s Data/Profile sub-folder so you will see what you would get if you installed TB 115.xx.

I think I’ll look into doing that. Never ran a portable app before, but if I can get a good look at how the new version will work, it sounds worth it.

Thanks!

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Lars220

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LHiggins wrote:

Can I download a portable version of Supernova on a thumb drive

I have been using Thunderbird Portable on a 32 GB thumb drive installed in the Portable Apps Platform that also has, for me, another 72 Portable programs. The Official website hosts “Over 450 Real Portable Apps” to choose from. My 73 Apps on the thumb drive take up 16.8 GB leaving some free space. Take a look at the 450 apps, and maybe you might like to use the “Platform” because “Thunderbird, Portable Edition can run from a cloud folder, external drive, or local folder without installing into Windows. It’s even better with the PortableApps.com Platform for easy installs and automatic updates.”
https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable
Read about the Portable Apps Platform here:
https://portableapps.com/platform/features
It is easy to Update all the Portable Apps from within the Platform.

Thanks to all who are commenting on this new Thunderbird 115.3.x. It does seem like there is a hopefully small “Learning Curve” to adjust to.

My Linux Mint 20.3 has updated my Thunderbird to version 115.3.1 and I have been experimenting with it. After using the userChrome.css to put the Menu bar back on top, where it belongs, I have been playing with different Add-on Themes and have decided that I like the New Dark Bird theme because it goes along with my Firefox B theme, logo wise, at top right of the programs. Also the dark mode for emails does seem a little easier on my old eyes. Here is a picture of ‘Mozilla Logos’ in case anyone might be interested in experimenting with themes for your Mozilla programs:

Two WiFi engineers got married. The reception was fantastic.

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LHiggins, WCHS

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Thanks to everyone who helped with running Supernova as a portable app. Worked great and gave me a chance to try various tweaks without impacting my current Thunderbird version.

I think I have it looking quite similar to the version I have. I moved the toolbar, but still have a question about the toolbar colors. I’d like that bar to be a light blue like in my post above, but so far haven’t found the tweak for that. Will keep looking, but for now – it all looks fine and not as scary as the initial look.

Thanks again!

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LHiggins wrote:

I’d like that bar to be a light blue

I get the light blue bars using the Windows 7 Basic theme. See my post here. I have since moved the Menu Toolbar to the top. And, the content of each of the two other bars may be different from yours. I also have the Window title bar showing at the very top. But you can see the light blue in the bars.

You can get that theme from Tools > Add-ons & Themes > type “Windows 7 Basic” in the searchbox. It will come up for you to add to TB.

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LHiggins

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And voila – it worked!! Thanks!

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WCHS

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I’ve encountered a problem with TB 115. I don’t know if the problem existed in TB 102, because I hadn’t worked with it much at that time. But now I’m in TB 115.3.2. I have tabs in the Tab Toolbar for e-mail messages.

In 115, I’ve observed that when there is no TB tab for an email message and I’ve deleted the message in the ISP mail, it disappears from the TB Messages List, too.

But, when there IS a TB tab for an email message and I’ve deleted the message in the ISP mail, the tab does NOT disappear in TB and the message does NOT disappear from the TB Messages List.

The TB message and TB tab will disappear only if I close TB and open again.

Is there a way to “refresh” TB that would have the same effect as opening and closing TB – maybe, something like ‘reload’ in Firefox when you click on the ‘undo’ icon, which is for ‘reload current page’? I’d like to not have to close and open TB to get rid of the ISP-deleted TB message and TB’s related tab.

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Quick note – I just finished updating Thunderbird on two Windows 10 laptops. Both went well, and the finished products were not nearly as “scary looking” as some of the advance warnings. Both machines pretty much used a similar layout as the previous version, and besides a few minor tweaks, both seem to be fine. Interestingly, they are each a little different – as were the two previous versions. Not sure why, but fine in both cases.

One thing to note for anyone who has multiple accounts in TB. On one of my machines there was a “Get Messages” box  on the Menu Bar line next to the Write icon. Be careful with that since clicking it will download messages in all accounts. I found that out the hard way – and it isn’t something I want (I’ve found there are issues with TB downloading the same message to two different computers – it only does the first one).

There is a smaller “cloud with arrow icon” above the accounts/folders list next to the New Message box – that is for downloading messages just to the selected account.

Seems OK so far – fingers crossed…

ETA: Also found a handy list of keyboard shortcuts that may be of interest.

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oldfry, WCHS

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And another interesting thing – the update on my second laptop did not even have a search bar that needed to be moved. This is how it looked right after the restart. The only tweaks I made were removing the “Get Messages” button and the  Import/Export tool button – the rest is how it looked. And I don’t see a way to search for a message.

ETA: Here’s what it looked like before the update – there is a search box in the older version. Wonder what happened to it.

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Click the “Quick filter” button on the right side of the toolbar and the filter message field will appear as in the old version.

The menu bar down there just looks weird, and I don’t know why they did it that way.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11)

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LHiggins

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Ascaris wrote:

Click the “Quick filter” button on the right side of the toolbar and the filter message field will appear as in the old version.

Perfect – thanks so much! And yes – the new layout does take a bit of getting used to – not “beautiful” as they are saying it is!

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You can reorder the bars to be as they were in your original Thunderbird. Mine are in that order on TB 115.

As for “beautiful,” I posted about this back in February.

I wrote:

I watched the linked video, and I am a little dismayed by the derisive attitude that the narrator (supposedly one of the Thunderbird UI devs) takes about those people who (apparently erroneously) think that the UI of Thunderbird is efficient as it is. He mockingly accuses them of thinking that the Windows 95 GUI was “the pinnacle of UX design,” as if that is so obviously wrong that we should all have a laugh at people with such outlandish ideas.

I’ve come to have something of a flinch response when I see it referred to as “UX design.” The people who call it that always seem to have the wrong priorities (aesthetics before usability). They would probably tell you they prioritize them both the same, but human minds can’t really do that. It’s clear that they’re putting aesthetics first, then convincing themselves that the usability is just fiiiine (because they could not stand the idea of allowing something far more usable but less “pretty”).

The Windows 95 GUI was a quantum leap ahead of any UI Microsoft had featured until then, and this was for a very good reason. Microsoft spent a great deal of time and effort watching and studying how people (beginners especially) use computers, and learning about their assumptions about what the UI is telling them. A lot of Microsoft’s prior Win 3.1-era assumptions were wrong… and to their credit, they listened to the test subjects. The Win 95 UI was the result.

The Win 95 UI was designed for maximum usability and ease of use, in a time when most people were not familiar with computers, but they now needed to be. The internet had just gone mainstream, and everyone was getting on board. There were no smart phones then, and for most people, the onramp to the “information superhighway” was traversed via a PC running Windows 95,

Aesthetically, Win 95 was not what a UX designer would call “beautiful.” Gray was the default UI color, and the controls were designed for easy legibility and the ease with which one could intuitively tell that a given UI element would do something if you clicked on it. Buttons looked like actual 3d buttons like you would see in the real world, and windows had edges that were made to resemble raised edges, and there was a visible shadow behind it. These would immediately signal to even the most computer illiterate person that the window was distinct from what was behind it, and was layered on top of it.

Humans have been dealing with 3d objects in space for millennia, and our brains are wired to be good at that. The Win 95 interface was skeuomorphic enough to tap into that part of our brains to make it easy to understand the UI, but not to the absurd degree that some applications would take in that era. Just enough to communicate the metaphor… it doesn’t have to have a leather-bound cover and dog-eared pages.

Helping those new PC owners people use their PCs by making things as simple as possible, but without oversimplifying to the point that anyone who had used a PC more than a few days would be frustrated, was the clear design intent of 95, and that was a thing of beauty.

That is the legacy of Windows 95 that the Thunderbird guy is mocking. Is he even old enough to understand what a leap forward 95 was? If he lacks that understanding, how can he properly carry forward the lessons of usability from Windows 95, if all he sees is a dated, old-looking UI that he would dismiss out-of-hand as an “obvious” example of an obsolete interface?

That video gave me a definite “here we go again” kind of feeling. I’d seen several Firefox remakes that each left me appalled. Yeah, I was one of those who thought the TB interface was pretty optimal before the remake. There are a few rough edges that could be smoothed out, but by and large, it was good as-is. When something is just as you like it already, and someone comes along telling you how bad it is and how it’s going to be completely redone by the very people who think it is horrible now, the odds are it’s not going to be great when you see what they’ve done.

Truth be told, Thunderbird 115 wasn’t as bad as I had expected, though the placement of the toolbar, menubar, and tab bar can only be called “bizarre.” I don’t think they actually gave much thought to the idea that people would still be using the menubar (or the titlebar, which I also still use)… after all, like concerns about usability, that’s SO 1995!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, KDE Neon
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, KDE Neon (and Win 11)

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WCHS, Cybertooth

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Lost all of my visual/toolbar settings. Now I have to start over again. Frustrating.

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Good Day,

Is there any chance someone is able to solve this dilemma in TB? My column heading is missing, I cannot access the icon to set columns. So far, I can only find help if trying to add / move columns which I know how to do if I have the column icon, but it’s missing after last update.

Please help,

Marie

 

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View > Layout > Message List Header

cheers, Paul

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