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This doesn't look all that different to the existing calendar really. They have moved the events section to the side instead of at the top and changed some of t

This doesn't look all that different to the existing calendar really. They have moved the events section to the side instead of at the top and changed some of the sectioning going for the material view where the distinction between elements is just replaced with background coloured space. I am largely indifferent to this change, it doesn't look like its big or important or functionally impressive in any way. I am not going to collapse the weekends and it seems to be the only other new feature being offered is messing with colours for categories. I suspect most people use calendars for categories already, this may be an improvement for some people but its really not worth trying to merge calendars for this purpose as an existing user unless they make that easy (which there is no suggestion they will). Change for fashion sake and nothing that users have been asking for, sums up all development out of Mozilla at the moment.

krick 4y ago
Yeah. Honestly, I guess I cannot speak as a Thunderbird calendar user anymore, but precisely for that reason: it sucked so much compared to ubiqotuos Google Calendar, that I somehow couldn't justify using it anymore. Then I stopped using Google too, but I use desktop email client much less anyways now. I'm not sure what really changed here. Maybe I should try and see it, but... really, I wish they'd just copied Google Calendar UI completely, making it an offline copy. Surely it's not perfect, but it was so, so much more fluent the last I tried. I mean, for me, it kinda did everything I wanted to, the only problem I ever had with it was that it's Google.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Accacin 4y ago
It's easy to say that, but I've had friends and colleagues not want to use Thunderbird because of it's UI. Honestly I think this would be enough to make them take a second look. The fact that you are indifferent (as am I) is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.. They've made it more attractive to new users and also haven't alienated their existing user base.
- PaulKeeble 4y ago
  There are so many things that could be better though that users actually request. Fixing the whole event -> View -> Edit that appears in windows (instead of tabs like emails) would be nice. Being able to select drag when you want to view as well since the top left calendar becomes largely useless. They could clear up the start/end display so events not crossing days didn't display the date twice. Would be nice to be able to review an event quickly just by clicking on it once instead of having to open and close a window, summaries have too much burden to them to appear modern. Its a really old UI style from the 1990s and I am not seeing anything in this suggesting that will change. People will very quickly realise it does not behave in a modern way once they try to use it.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    I wonder if people reporting issues is a negative signal for the priority of fixing them? Like if someone cares enough to report an issue, they're probably invested and will stick around. If they didn't care, they wouldn't bother to report the issue. You need to fix the issues that cause people to just give up and go elsewhere - the issues that don't get opened!
malfist 4y ago
I completely disagree with you. Should we go back to 90s website design just because users didn't ask for modern design practices? Thunderbird's calendar redesign brings it in line with what customers expect from a calendar app and make it more user friendly.
- qu4z-2 4y ago
  Oh god, can we? Please?
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  > I completely disagree with you. Should we go back to 90s website design just because users didn't ask for modern design practices? So, a bunch of text with the content you want/need and a photo? And we replaced that with multi-megabyte javascripts, autoplaying video ads, floating bars, breaking infinite scroll, breaking ajax, refresh that returns you to another page, not-working "back" buttons, popups asking to signup for a newsletter, to register, to fill out a survey, cookie popups, a bunch of sliders to disable all of them, notificiation request popups, location requests, etc? Yeah, i like even this: https://www.spacejam.com/1996/ https://www.spacejam.com/1996/ a lot more than: https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/
  - tomtheelder 4y ago
    There were plenty of terrible, unusable sites in the 90s, and there are tons of great ones now. People look back with crazy rose tinted glasses at these sorts of things.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      cnn.com is ~23 megabytes today. https://twitter.com/elonmusk https://twitter.com/elonmusk is 8.5mb, two bottom bars (accept cookies and login/signin), and after scrolling a page and a half down, i get a popup forcing me to login/signup. Even relatively empty google is 1.8mb This page (HN) is one of the few, that are not bloated, and allow you to read stuff without giving your personal data.
rhaway84773 4y ago
Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware. It needed a UI refresh. The fact that they’ve managed to do this and make it look fresh while still not changing the workflow and the functionality drastically, so it won’t trouble long time users, is a great achievement.
- atoav 4y ago
  It certainly doesn't feel like it tho.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware. The type of person who cares about that will not be using it anyway. Trying to be hip is how firefox when from 30% market share to 3%. Stop going after people who don't care but are very loud.
- pmontra 4y ago
  I can keep working with the current (and past) Thunderbird interface forever. Some software is done and it needs updates only to keep up with changes to the OS and to protocols. Thunderbird is one of them IMHO. I don't even use IMAP, nor calendar. I download from POP3 servers and use the calendar on my phone instead.
  - Certhas 4y ago
    So you're not the target audience for this at all then. If they get to a point where Android and Desktop Thunderbird have email, contacts and calendars synced, with a UI that's as nice as this mock it will be fantastic.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      Sounds like OP is exactly the type of person who thunderbird should be targeting because it's impossible to compete on UI churn against google/facebook/apple. They have legions of graphics designers who need to do something to keep being employed. Open Source seems to have become a resume item for second rate devs to get hired into closed source companies.
brnt 4y ago
I for one am glad with this visual cleanup. Thunderbird looks cluttered, and at least for me most of the clutter isn't useful, unlike certain other very busy, dense interfaces.
yakubin 4y ago
The last redesign (the mail client, not the calendar) is what prompted me to finally abandon it. Each redesign in Mozilla products, be it Firefox or Thunderbird, seems to make them worse. At that point I don't know of a good GUI mail client for Linux[1]. I'm spending more and more time on Mac these days, where in the case of mail clients I'm using Mailmate and am very satisfied.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  I've moved to mutt on emacs. I don't want change for changes sake. I want something I can use that gets out of the way.
- TylerE 4y ago
  When’s the last time a UI made any major software product better?

krick 4y ago

Yeah. Honestly, I guess I cannot speak as a Thunderbird calendar user anymore, but precisely for that reason: it sucked so much compared to ubiqotuos Google Calendar, that I somehow couldn't justify using it anymore. Then I stopped using Google too, but I use desktop email client much less anyways now. I'm not sure what really changed here. Maybe I should try and see it, but... really, I wish they'd just copied Google Calendar UI completely, making it an offline copy. Surely it's not perfect, but it was so, so much more fluent the last I tried. I mean, for me, it kinda did everything I wanted to, the only problem I ever had with it was that it's Google.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Accacin 4y ago

It's easy to say that, but I've had friends and colleagues not want to use Thunderbird because of it's UI. Honestly I think this would be enough to make them take a second look. The fact that you are indifferent (as am I) is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.. They've made it more attractive to new users and also haven't alienated their existing user base.

PaulKeeble 4y ago
There are so many things that could be better though that users actually request. Fixing the whole event -> View -> Edit that appears in windows (instead of tabs like emails) would be nice. Being able to select drag when you want to view as well since the top left calendar becomes largely useless. They could clear up the start/end display so events not crossing days didn't display the date twice. Would be nice to be able to review an event quickly just by clicking on it once instead of having to open and close a window, summaries have too much burden to them to appear modern. Its a really old UI style from the 1990s and I am not seeing anything in this suggesting that will change. People will very quickly realise it does not behave in a modern way once they try to use it.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  I wonder if people reporting issues is a negative signal for the priority of fixing them? Like if someone cares enough to report an issue, they're probably invested and will stick around. If they didn't care, they wouldn't bother to report the issue. You need to fix the issues that cause people to just give up and go elsewhere - the issues that don't get opened!

malfist 4y ago

I completely disagree with you. Should we go back to 90s website design just because users didn't ask for modern design practices? Thunderbird's calendar redesign brings it in line with what customers expect from a calendar app and make it more user friendly.

qu4z-2 4y ago
Oh god, can we? Please?
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> I completely disagree with you. Should we go back to 90s website design just because users didn't ask for modern design practices? So, a bunch of text with the content you want/need and a photo? And we replaced that with multi-megabyte javascripts, autoplaying video ads, floating bars, breaking infinite scroll, breaking ajax, refresh that returns you to another page, not-working "back" buttons, popups asking to signup for a newsletter, to register, to fill out a survey, cookie popups, a bunch of sliders to disable all of them, notificiation request popups, location requests, etc? Yeah, i like even this: https://www.spacejam.com/1996/ https://www.spacejam.com/1996/ a lot more than: https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/ https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  There were plenty of terrible, unusable sites in the 90s, and there are tons of great ones now. People look back with crazy rose tinted glasses at these sorts of things.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    cnn.com is ~23 megabytes today. https://twitter.com/elonmusk https://twitter.com/elonmusk is 8.5mb, two bottom bars (accept cookies and login/signin), and after scrolling a page and a half down, i get a popup forcing me to login/signup. Even relatively empty google is 1.8mb This page (HN) is one of the few, that are not bloated, and allow you to read stuff without giving your personal data.

rhaway84773 4y ago

Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware. It needed a UI refresh. The fact that they’ve managed to do this and make it look fresh while still not changing the workflow and the functionality drastically, so it won’t trouble long time users, is a great achievement.

atoav 4y ago
It certainly doesn't feel like it tho.
thrown_22 4y ago
>Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware. The type of person who cares about that will not be using it anyway. Trying to be hip is how firefox when from 30% market share to 3%. Stop going after people who don't care but are very loud.
pmontra 4y ago
I can keep working with the current (and past) Thunderbird interface forever. Some software is done and it needs updates only to keep up with changes to the OS and to protocols. Thunderbird is one of them IMHO. I don't even use IMAP, nor calendar. I download from POP3 servers and use the calendar on my phone instead.
- Certhas 4y ago
  So you're not the target audience for this at all then. If they get to a point where Android and Desktop Thunderbird have email, contacts and calendars synced, with a UI that's as nice as this mock it will be fantastic.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Sounds like OP is exactly the type of person who thunderbird should be targeting because it's impossible to compete on UI churn against google/facebook/apple. They have legions of graphics designers who need to do something to keep being employed. Open Source seems to have become a resume item for second rate devs to get hired into closed source companies.

brnt 4y ago

I for one am glad with this visual cleanup. Thunderbird looks cluttered, and at least for me most of the clutter isn't useful, unlike certain other very busy, dense interfaces.

yakubin 4y ago

The last redesign (the mail client, not the calendar) is what prompted me to finally abandon it. Each redesign in Mozilla products, be it Firefox or Thunderbird, seems to make them worse. At that point I don't know of a good GUI mail client for Linux[1]. I'm spending more and more time on Mac these days, where in the case of mail clients I'm using Mailmate and am very satisfied.

thrown_22 4y ago
I've moved to mutt on emacs. I don't want change for changes sake. I want something I can use that gets out of the way.
TylerE 4y ago
When’s the last time a UI made any major software product better?