6 ms·

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.

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.

dazzawazza 1y ago
I 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 ago
  Quick 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 ago
  That 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 ago
    How would that look like and how does it differ from the conversation view Thunderbird already has?
    - runxel 1y ago
      The 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 ago
        It'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 ago
        Fair 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?
        runxel 1y ago
        Mh, yeah. You are right. It's flaky tho for me... Sometimes it displays my own messages, sometimes not. I won't open a bug for that right now. I just keep my fingers crossed we get the better implementation. What is still missing now (even if or when it works), is a continous display for me. Currently you have to go email by email, which can be a bit cumbersome to navigate, because then you'll never get the "full picture" for a quick glance, if you get my drift.
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 ago
  Having 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 ago
      It 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 ago
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.
- laxd 1y ago
  The 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 ago
  How do scroll bars help manage multiple windows?
  - userbinator 1y ago
    Makes it much easier to see where one window ends.
    - eviks 1y ago
      That's what borders are for? Style them better to make them fulfill their role?
eviks 1y ago
There is plenty wasted space in browser tabs, from close buttons to padding to rounded/non-rect corners
BobbyTables2 1y ago
Indeed. 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.

dazzawazza 1y ago

I 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 ago
Quick 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 ago
That 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 ago
  How would that look like and how does it differ from the conversation view Thunderbird already has?
  - runxel 1y ago
    The 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 ago
        It'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 ago
        Fair 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?
        runxel 1y ago
        Mh, yeah. You are right. It's flaky tho for me... Sometimes it displays my own messages, sometimes not. I won't open a bug for that right now. I just keep my fingers crossed we get the better implementation. What is still missing now (even if or when it works), is a continous display for me. Currently you have to go email by email, which can be a bit cumbersome to navigate, because then you'll never get the "full picture" for a quick glance, if you get my drift.

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 ago
Having 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 ago
    It 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 ago

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.

laxd 1y ago
The 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 ago
How do scroll bars help manage multiple windows?
- userbinator 1y ago
  Makes it much easier to see where one window ends.
  - eviks 1y ago
    That's what borders are for? Style them better to make them fulfill their role?

eviks 1y ago

There is plenty wasted space in browser tabs, from close buttons to padding to rounded/non-rect corners

BobbyTables2 1y ago

Indeed. 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.