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Thunderbird: Fluent Windows 11 Design
- paintbox 1y agoI 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.
- dazzawazza 1y agoI agree with you but it irks me more that the search doesn't find the content I'm looking for. Apple Mail search feels much more useful.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoQuick filters have almost completely replaced search for me. While that does speak to the strength of TB’s Quick filters it’s also an indictment of its search
- runxel 1y agoThat we can search at all is nearly a miracle given the old and bad infra. At least they work hard (I hope) on replacing the old system with a real database. That should enable the conversation view (Gmail-like), too!
- 1718627440 1y agoHow would that look like and how does it differ from the conversation view Thunderbird already has?
- runxel 1y agoThe current "conversation view" is misnomer. There really is nothing like that. Again, just think of Gmail and how it's handled there. This is how it would look like, e.g. you actually see your own response, too. Currently this is impossible because Thunderbird does not actually know what messages belong together. It just applies some ugly hacks to even find the ingoing emails. It's a trainwreck, but I believe it will get better and we will finally have some decent mail software out there.
- 1718627440 1y ago> just think of Gmail >> How would that look like? I wouldn't describe it as a hack, it uses the references in the messages themselves, as long as they are accurate it will work perfectly. This is the same way, Thunderbird knows if you have replied/forwarded messages. > you actually see your own response I do see the response, why wouldn't I that's what the feature is for. Not sure if there is a bug for you.
- runxel 1y agoIt's not my words. There is a 1.5 hour long video of a maintainer chat uploaded to their YouTube channel a while ago. There one dev explains it very carefully and in depth – "ugly hack" is their words, not mine! Seems a lot of work to untangle that mess. They are already a long time over their estimates of how long it would take. Not sure what you mean by that you see your own response. In the current "conversation" (thread) view the chain will only display incoming answers, but never your own outgoing emails – which well... would make it a true conversation view.
- 1718627440 1y agoFair enough, the implementation can be messy, which I know nothing about, while input and output data can still be clean and well defined. It absolutely displays outgoing mails, that's what I was saying. It hasn't ocurred to me that it potentially couldn't, then it would be kind of worthless. Not sure why you have this bug, but that isn't normal, maybe you can report it?
- diggan 1y ago> 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.
- criley2 1y agoHaving a widescreen monitor is irrelevant to me unless I fullscreen my browser (which I don't and I assume most don't). My (multiple) browser windows on my very big wide screen are all roughly in 4:3 ~square shape and top tabs make a lot more sense. And unless you have a browser full of tabs, vertical tab lists usually have massive amounts of purely wasted white space and are generally much less space efficient overall. Every once in a while I wouldn't mind for a specific window to have vertical tabs with nested tabs, as a psuedo live-bookmark organization system for a current project. But it's not a daily driver for me.
- pbmonster 1y ago> Having a widescreen monitor is irrelevant to me unless I fullscreen my browser (which I don't and I assume most don't). Are you kidding? I'm willing to bet 99% of users run their browsers fullscreen. Using the drag-and-drop feature that splits the screen between two GUIs already marks the office power user, a third windows on a single screen brings us into the territory of the hardcore nerds running tiling window managers.
- doublerabbit 1y ago> I'm willing to bet 99% of users run their browsers fullscreen. I've never had my browser in fullscreen unless it's media content. I too prefer tabs at top than to the side, as I have four screens, 2x32' and 2x27' -- having the tabs at the top of my top screen feels more natural.
- bombela 1y agoIt used to be possible to run web pages and applications not full screen. But moderne UIs are so wasteful of space, with massive icons, it has become almost impossible.
- chartered_stack 1y agoThe 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.
- laxd 1y agoThe search bar does filtering in the current folder. Fast, simple, and what I most commonly want.
- Calzifer 1y ago> I understand that search bar position is not changeable by theming, It is changeable. With enough dedication you can go a long way just with CSS. In this case it is even rather easy because the "unified toolbar" the thing containing the search box, the menu bar (if shown) and the tab bar are three elements in the same flex box. They can be reordered by setting the order property. Only downside in this case is that (if client side decoration is not disabled in the settings) the window buttons (close, minimize) are also part of the unified toolbar and would end (without further fixes) below the tab bar. As a quick (and dirty) experiment I moved the tab bar left to the search bar in the same row just with: #titlebar { flex-direction: row; > unified-toolbar { order: 2; width: 50vw; } #tabs-toolbar { order: 1; width: 50vw; } } And a hacky way which often works good enough is to reposition and hardcode stuff with position:absolute/fixed/sticky. Finally Thunderbird's own customization dialog can be used to fill the empty space around the search bar. By default it has a spacer left and right but that is easy to change even without custom CSS.
- hulitu 1y ago> 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.
- eviks 1y agoHow do scroll bars help manage multiple windows?
- userbinator 1y agoMakes it much easier to see where one window ends.
- eviks 1y agoThat's what borders are for? Style them better to make them fulfill their role?
- eviks 1y agoThere is plenty wasted space in browser tabs, from close buttons to padding to rounded/non-rect corners
- BobbyTables2 1y agoIndeed. Take a look at late 1990s software, even things with complex toolbars (Word, Corel Draw, etc). At 640x480 resolution, the toolbar was tiny but powerful. Now at 1920x1080 resolution the toolbar is relatively huge and dumbed down. All the benefits of higher resolutions and larger monitors have been lost on stupid UI trends.
- hk1337 1y ago1. Didn't realize Thunderbird was still available 2. Windows 11 design on macOS would be trippy.
- t0bia_s 1y ago1. There is no better open-source alternative for Windows for mail/calendar/contacts client.
- nopcode 1y agobetterbird has "better" in the name
- wongarsu 1y agobecause barely anybody is making desktop mail/calendar/contacts clients anymore. There is very little development in that market as most people have moved to web interfaces
- mschuster91 1y agoAnd even Outlook is a web app these days, with "performance" to match.
- yuters 1y agoThere really isn't even if you don't need all the bells and whistles. I want my email client to be as simple and minimal as possible and Thunderbird seemed like the last candidate for this. Surprisingly it's the only one I could theme and strip down enough to meet my need.
- hk1337 1y agoPlain and simple is why I like macMail but it's a bit too simple and really mostly useful if you use iCloud email primarily. macMail is _okay_ with fastmail
- RockstarSprain 1y ago
- thesuitonym 1y agoIt's a good looking theme, and definitely fits the design, but I'll never understand why people want to make Thunderbird look like Outlook.
- ape4 1y agoMaybe I am the only one who didn't know this. It seems "fluent" doesn't refer to a fluent interface in programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface but rather its a name of a Microsoft style https://fluent2.microsoft.design https://fluent2.microsoft.design
- xpressvideoz 1y agoPerhaps embarrassingly, I knew the second one, but not the first.
- tummler 1y agoLove the theme. Now if only Thunderbird weren’t a clunky POS. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve given it another chance after people swear “it’s really better now” again. Still refuses to follow chosen settings for how much mail data to download/store locally (it always eventually downloads everything).
- nailer 1y agoJMAP support has been open for 9 years now: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1322991 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1322991
- sylens 1y agoIt's wild to me they won't prioritize this. We have good JMAP providers like Fastmail, we just need client support
- RussianCow 1y agoIsn't Fastmail basically the only one? What other well known provider supports JMAP?
- StalwartLabs 1y agoSoon Thundermail by Mozilla!
- snozolli 1y agoit always eventually downloads everything I have the opposite problem: I absolutely cannot get it to download everything. What it does do, however, is constantly re-download mail, to the point that it's extremely slow and regularly pops up "folder cannot be compacted because another operation is in progress" errors when I'm just trying to click on folders.
- Dennip 1y agoWhy oh why can't the search default to "view as list" weeps
- bluedino 1y agoHad you told me back in 1995, that in 30 years we'd have 4K screens and I would only be able to see 10 emails in my inbox at one time... Netscape 2.02 or Microsoft Mail client from back then looks amazing by comparison.
- ghosty141 1y agoThats just a setting in thunderbird. Indont see the problem with personal preference to show less emails
- dotancohen 1y agoThis isn't Thunderbird. This is a Thunderbird theme. Normal Thunderbird still gets two to three dozen email subject lines on the screen. I absolutely love it, I've been using it for over 20 years through the rough and through the good. We're in a good period now, and it's been a good period for quite some time.
- nullgeo 1y agoNot a fork of thunderbird. It's custom CSS that renders the thunderbird "chrome".
- dotancohen 1y agoCorrected, thanks.
- markasoftware 1y agojust 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 latest email appeared at the top. Then 30 seconds later some ancient emails popped up above it, seemingly triggered by scrolling in the email list pane.
- accrual 1y agoI agree with others about the search bar, kind of looks like a fallen tree in an otherwise pristine field of aero grass. I love the translucency look of "Fluent" design though. Windows Terminal has a "Use acrylic material in the tab row" which I like to enable. It feels like a callback to Windows 7's Aero which I miss. Perhaps together with Microsoft's Fluent/acrylic design and Apple's WIP Liquid Glass UI, and with projects like this Thunderbird theme bringing the design to OSS projects, we can bring back some of the optimism and beauty of those early glass designs.
- Jean-Papoulos 1y agoI love how much unused spaces this adds, I really needed more blank pixels in my mailbox instead of distracting text.
- Calzifer 1y ago> Also, note that some areas of ThunderBird are rendered outside of the influence of userChrome.css in a "Shadow DOM" - as such, it is not possible to fully theme all elements of Thunderbird. With some limitations it is possible to restyle Shadow DOM elements. It is just a lot harder to select the right element if it is inside a shadow dom. I found a workaround (don't remember where I found it) which I use extensively in my personal userChrome.css. The basic concept (afair) is that you can write selectors which match inside the shadow dom as long as they do not need to "cross" the shadow dom "boundary". A good starting point for me is often to select by tag and part attribute, e.g. image[part="icon"] { ... } Now the trick to style a particular instance of a web component (shadow dom instance) is to use variables and defaults. With a selector which targets the "root element" of the shadow dom I set variables for any value I want to change and with a selector which is fully inside the shadow dom I add styles using the variable (which is then only defined for that particular instance) or a default which effectively cancels my custom style anywhere else. As concrete example the dialog to create new calendar events has a drop down box to select the calendar where each entry is prefixed with a dot with calendar color. The menulist has a shadow dom and the menupopup another. I styled those dots as squares (for fun and because I think the modern web is to round). So to set the variables on the "outside" I have: menulist#item-calendar { --parthack-boxmarker-radius: 0; --parthack-boxmarker-image-size: 1em; --parthack-boxmarker-border: inset 0 0 0 1px color-mix(in srgb, black 20%, transparent); } and to apply it menuitem.menuitem-iconic > hbox.menu-iconic-left > image.menu-iconic-icon { border-radius: var(--parthack-boxmarker-radius) !important; width: var(--parthack-boxmarker-image-size, revert-layer) !important; height: var(--parthack-boxmarker-image-size, revert-layer) !important; box-shadow: var(--parthack-boxmarker-border, none); } (the variable prefix "parthack" has no special meaning; it just evolved because I initially used it to hack styles onto shadow dom elements over the part attribute) Now this will change only the icons only in the menulist with id 'item-calendar' and leave others unchanged. Whether I use revert-layer as default or something else depends on what style the element has by default and try and error.
- notpushkin 1y agoWould it be possible to make a PostCSS plugin for this?
- AdmiralAsshat 1y agoI'm still using the Monterail theme for Thunderbird [0], which sadly seems to have never really progressed beyond the proof-of-concept stage and hasn't been updated in eight years. [0] https://github.com/spymastermatt/thunderbird-monterail/ https://github.com/spymastermatt/thunderbird-monterail/
- huhtenberg 1y agoSo much padding So much wasted space Such low information density Will collect many votes on Dribbble though.
- Night_Thastus 1y agoScreens these days are huge and high resolution, and my eyes aren't getting any younger. I'm finding that I like more white space and padding as time goes on. For normal Thunderbird, I swapped from the more compact options to the most loose/padded options.
- creshal 1y agoScreens are huge, that's why I want to take advantage of it and fit more windows on them, not less. But with how foamy modern apps are, it can be a struggle to have two windows side by side on a 2560px wide 27" screen and not have content cut off that would've been perfectly visible on an 800px screen 20 years ago.
- eviks 1y agoFor your eyes you'd better have larger text instead of wasting the same space with floating
- Night_Thastus 1y agoI do both.
- eviks 1y agoBut the design we're discussing doesn't
- carlosjobim 1y agoThere's a lot of padding in the screenshot, but you can also see that any user can reduce it by resizing the sidebar and inbox column.
- ttoinou 1y agoDo 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+ email boxes, never once did I think about changing the design
- bshacklett 1y agoI would love to know what software Atlassian uses to maintain documentation, because I have a hard time believing they’re eating their own dog food.
- girvo 1y agoConfluence, and DAC mostly
- stronglikedan 1y ago> It seems to me the basic design of app are often the best Considering the plethora of options, I'd say it's impossible to say what is better until an alternative is tried. And then you can only say that particular alternative is not better than basic, but you still can't say basic is best. People that style their apps try many alternatives, and often find things that work better than basic for them.
- KetoManx64 1y agoYes, 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, and i would argue is much more efficient than the average users. The advantage of open source software is that you can mold them into the shape that suits your preferences.
- guluarte 1y agoLooks cool, but the last thing I want to do is have my Thunderbird look like Outlook.
- kookamamie 1y ago> Thunderbird Ahh, does it still have the bug that may accidentally delete/corrupt all your emails?
- neogodless 1y agoAt first glance, it's visually pleasing... but I need to see a screenshot with 20-50 folders next! (I use a modified https://johnnydecimal.com/ https://johnnydecimal.com/ for email folders, and have probably close to 100 folders, though most stay collapsed so you might see ~20 at one time.)
- hammyhavoc 1y agoIs 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.
- MortyWaves 1y agoUsing CSS and not using the native implementation of the operating system is going to lead to very brittle and hard to fix problems.
- Calzifer 1y agoIt is apparently also hard to maintain over time. I heavily customized my Firefox and Thunderbird and it is annoying how often GUI components which should be equal (e.g. toolbar buttons in different places) look the same* but have multiple different CSS rules. Some widgets, or rather the repeated reinventions of widgets in HTML+CSS, use variables and the next equally looking widget has none, or other variables with the same values. From an outsider perspective it looks like a mess. * or almost the same with minimal, likely unintended, differences like one button has a slight border when hovered but another button right next to it has none