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Thunderbird, like Firefox, can be themed, and many are available. Well, until they finish killing XUL... what an awful decision. Point being that it's a mail cl

Thunderbird, like Firefox, can be themed, and many are available. Well, until they finish killing XUL... what an awful decision. Point being that it's a mail client for power users, and generally requires a little customization.

nkkollaw 10y ago
It's deeper than the theme. It's the paradigm, the absence of automatic sorting of emails (priority/promo, etc.), failure of prioritizing common actions in the UI (everything is the same, the spam folder and the inbox folder are given the same importance, "compose" is not prominent, etc.). I could go on forever. IMO, it's kind of how good software was made 10 years ago, but now we're used to much better.
- thesmallestcat 10y ago
  Compose is C-n, and the "Write" button in the default toolbar. Not sure what priority/promo is, but Thunderbird certainly can sort by any field by default. It sounds like you want a client that is tightly coupled with Gmail's features, and you're not going to get that with a non-Google client. Note that some customizations, like Firefox, require accessing about:config. Also, as with Firefox, most Thunderbird users will benefit from perusing extensions. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some extensions that offer the more Gmail-centric experience you want.
  - nkkollaw 10y ago
    I don't have time right now to explain myself better, it's the minimalism and some features like snoozing emails, quickly marking them as done/low-priority and similar things, which is definitely not something that is connected to Google technology. > It sounds like you want a client that is tightly coupled with Gmail's features I actually don't like Gmail that much. > you're not going to get that with a non-Google client. Google Inbox used be called Sparrow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client)), which was a regular app that Google acquired. I used it since the beginning. It was a new paradigm back in 2011, which is now the standard in modern clients. Thunderbird needs to rethink their approach. They need less buttons and more focus on important features over other ones you barely use. In Thunderbird, everything is given the same importance in the UI. There's a toolbar with 100 buttons of the same size: "Write, Chat, Reply, Reply all, Archive, Address book, Get email, Tag, Quick filter". Why is "Chat" the same size as "Write", and right next to it like it's the most common feature in an email client? Why is "Address book" even there, given the same importance as "Write"? Who browses his address book randomly? Why can't they just show suggestions when I'm in the compose window and I type the first few letters of the person's name or email? I could go on forever.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      There's a toolbar with 100 buttons of the same size: "Write, Chat, Reply, Reply all, Archive, Address book, Get email, Tag, Quick filter". My main Thunderbird toolbar has get mail, write new message and quick filtering. It took me perhaps 10 seconds back when I first installed it on this computer to hide a couple of other buttons like chat that I don't use myself. The second toolbar when I have a message open has just 5 buttons (reply, reply all, forward, mark as junk, delete) and I use all of them frequently. I agree with your general point that clean UIs that prioritise more important features tend to be nicer to use, but I think you're dramatically overstating the problem here. Why can't they just show suggestions when I'm in the compose window and I type the first few letters of the person's name or email? That's exactly what it does, and has for as long as I can remember.
      - nkkollaw 10y ago
        > My main Thunderbird toolbar has get mail, write new message and quick filtering. It took me perhaps 10 seconds back when I first installed it on this computer to hide a couple of other buttons like chat that I don't use myself. That's not how it works. The authors have to take the time to study the situation, talk about it, make hard decisions and cut out features that are useless or barely useful, and have the balls to ship a product with just the right features instead of all the features in an attempt to please everyone. Not the user. It shouldn't be the user who has to waste time and energy trying to figure out how to clean up the UI. That's exactly why people like myself are abandoning software like Thunderbird and moving to simpler, more thought-out stuff. I don't know how much Mozilla cares about people using their product, but that I doubt that's how you get people to use your product.
        Silhouette 10y ago
        The authors have to take the time to study the situation, talk about it, make hard decisions and cut out features that are useless or barely useful, and have the balls to ship a product with just the right features instead of all the features in an attempt to please everyone. Not the user. You're perfectly entitled to that view, and for someone who holds that view a product like Thunderbird is obviously not a good fit. There are, however, other views, and for someone who doesn't want simple UIs with no flexibility or configurability and doesn't have a problem with spending a few seconds customising something to get a result they are happier with, a product more like Thunderbird is a better fit.

nkkollaw 10y ago

It's deeper than the theme. It's the paradigm, the absence of automatic sorting of emails (priority/promo, etc.), failure of prioritizing common actions in the UI (everything is the same, the spam folder and the inbox folder are given the same importance, "compose" is not prominent, etc.). I could go on forever. IMO, it's kind of how good software was made 10 years ago, but now we're used to much better.

thesmallestcat 10y ago
Compose is C-n, and the "Write" button in the default toolbar. Not sure what priority/promo is, but Thunderbird certainly can sort by any field by default. It sounds like you want a client that is tightly coupled with Gmail's features, and you're not going to get that with a non-Google client. Note that some customizations, like Firefox, require accessing about:config. Also, as with Firefox, most Thunderbird users will benefit from perusing extensions. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some extensions that offer the more Gmail-centric experience you want.
- nkkollaw 10y ago
  I don't have time right now to explain myself better, it's the minimalism and some features like snoozing emails, quickly marking them as done/low-priority and similar things, which is definitely not something that is connected to Google technology. > It sounds like you want a client that is tightly coupled with Gmail's features I actually don't like Gmail that much. > you're not going to get that with a non-Google client. Google Inbox used be called Sparrow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client)), which was a regular app that Google acquired. I used it since the beginning. It was a new paradigm back in 2011, which is now the standard in modern clients. Thunderbird needs to rethink their approach. They need less buttons and more focus on important features over other ones you barely use. In Thunderbird, everything is given the same importance in the UI. There's a toolbar with 100 buttons of the same size: "Write, Chat, Reply, Reply all, Archive, Address book, Get email, Tag, Quick filter". Why is "Chat" the same size as "Write", and right next to it like it's the most common feature in an email client? Why is "Address book" even there, given the same importance as "Write"? Who browses his address book randomly? Why can't they just show suggestions when I'm in the compose window and I type the first few letters of the person's name or email? I could go on forever.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    There's a toolbar with 100 buttons of the same size: "Write, Chat, Reply, Reply all, Archive, Address book, Get email, Tag, Quick filter". My main Thunderbird toolbar has get mail, write new message and quick filtering. It took me perhaps 10 seconds back when I first installed it on this computer to hide a couple of other buttons like chat that I don't use myself. The second toolbar when I have a message open has just 5 buttons (reply, reply all, forward, mark as junk, delete) and I use all of them frequently. I agree with your general point that clean UIs that prioritise more important features tend to be nicer to use, but I think you're dramatically overstating the problem here. Why can't they just show suggestions when I'm in the compose window and I type the first few letters of the person's name or email? That's exactly what it does, and has for as long as I can remember.
    - nkkollaw 10y ago
      > My main Thunderbird toolbar has get mail, write new message and quick filtering. It took me perhaps 10 seconds back when I first installed it on this computer to hide a couple of other buttons like chat that I don't use myself. That's not how it works. The authors have to take the time to study the situation, talk about it, make hard decisions and cut out features that are useless or barely useful, and have the balls to ship a product with just the right features instead of all the features in an attempt to please everyone. Not the user. It shouldn't be the user who has to waste time and energy trying to figure out how to clean up the UI. That's exactly why people like myself are abandoning software like Thunderbird and moving to simpler, more thought-out stuff. I don't know how much Mozilla cares about people using their product, but that I doubt that's how you get people to use your product.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        The authors have to take the time to study the situation, talk about it, make hard decisions and cut out features that are useless or barely useful, and have the balls to ship a product with just the right features instead of all the features in an attempt to please everyone. Not the user. You're perfectly entitled to that view, and for someone who holds that view a product like Thunderbird is obviously not a good fit. There are, however, other views, and for someone who doesn't want simple UIs with no flexibility or configurability and doesn't have a problem with spending a few seconds customising something to get a result they are happier with, a product more like Thunderbird is a better fit.