Why did we redesign Thunderbird?(monterail.com)

http://monterail.com/blog/2016/the-power-of-email-clients-why-did-we-redesign-thunderbird/?utm_campaign=Thunderbird&utm_medium=social&utm_source=hackernews

5 comments

aq3cn10 anni fa

> Currently, Thunderbird faces the problem of simultaneously showing a vast amount of information on one screen and we hope we addressed that.

> Whole work was focused on adding some white space, inserting new typography an equalizing colors, but still keeping in mind branding and character of Thunderbird. That’s why the redesign was based on FirefoxOs Style Guide to keep its identity somehow coherent.

Please keep options open. I really don't understand why people prefer it that way. In the world of small screen laptops, vertical space of screen is very precious to me. I use 11' macbook air on the go and I always have preferred the most compact one line layout. Google also recognizes this and has given three different types of layouts.

It isn't just small screen, but some people prefer and are used to seeing lot of information at once. I am one of them. I am not favoring toolbar or side layouts, I always keep them disable and access everything through keyboard shortcuts. But my requirements are:

1. maximum number of emails on screen at once in one line, no preview pane

2. all email account's folder with highlighted unread emails

I am glad someone is picking up this project, but please keep options open.

ThatGeoGuy10 anni fa

I for one very much dislike the three column design. If you're like me and try to maintain "Inbox Zero", and archive everything useless or not requiring a reply in the immediate future, then a UI like this is wasted as there ends up being a very empty column in the centre.

Further, in tiling setups (tiling WM or just having more than one full-screen window open at once on one screen), this approach is even more wasteful, as you may not have 100% of your screen width to accommodate such a UI. TI get that people want more and more of their interfaces to be consistent with the "simple" mobile app design from the last 2-5 years, however I can't help but feel that the re-design provided by the article is more suited for people with vastly different email usages. As another comment has said, keep options open.

mc4210 anni fa

This looks absolutely wonderful.

However, Thunderbird seems to be stuck in a development limbo... I legitimately wish that the 'Mozilla Core' approach like they originally created Thunderbird from either needs to be done again from Firefox once proper multi-process via Electrolysis is enabled in mainline, or for them to simply clean-slate a new mail client.

I remain skeptical though, as there simply isn't the resources or interest to pour into Thunderbird as they had when it was first created.

jlgaddis10 anni fa

Mozilla certainly has the resources to "pour into Thunderbird" to make it even better.

Unfortunately, they instead prefer to devote those resources towards other projects for a couple of years, before then "giving up" on those projects and finding something new to pour their resources into.

With just one or two full-time developers, Thunderbird could be an absolutely awesome e-mail client. I already think it's pretty decent and I use it every day and, unless I'm not seeing something, I don't think there's any need to constantly introduce new features into it. E-mail doesn't really change all that much so it would mostly be maintenance and support, fixing bugs, etc., instead of constantly pumping out new versions with "killer features".

What would Thunderbird be like today if a fraction of the resources devoted to Personas, Hello, Firefox OS, and so on had instead been put towards Thunderbird?

Jaepa10 anni fa

Its worth mentioning that PostBox is a fork of Thunderbird.

stevewillows10 anni fa

Postbox is great. I do wish it would minimize to the menubar instead of the dock with OSX -- but this is a common request for OSX mail clients.

wanderr10 anni fa

This looks nice, Thunderbird was certainly looking incredibly dated last time I used it, but the reason I ultimately gave up on it was performance. Once you have a massive amount of email it can be unpredictable and sluggish.

shirro10 anni fa

I find Thunderbird unusable unless I turn off indexing. Once I do that I find it compares well to alternatives.

I have standardised on a 13" screen and I remove as much of the Thunderbird interface as I can. I can conceive of a UX redesign making it more useful but it wouldn't look like anything in this article. I don't care how pretty it looks. It is a list of folders, emails and messages not a painting.