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Many people don't know that Profiles is carried over from Netscape 3.x days (IIRC). Code powering Profiles is probably is much more convoluted than people have

Many people don't know that Profiles is carried over from Netscape 3.x days (IIRC). Code powering Profiles is probably is much more convoluted than people have realized. Addendum: The earliest reference I can find is around 2000 (https://math.vanderbilt.edu/schectex/wincd/tips_netscape.htm https://math.vanderbilt.edu/schectex/wincd/tips_netscape.htm), which coincides with Netscape 3/4 era.

reddalo 3y ago
And, if I remember correctly, the whole Profile things was initially hidden in Firefox. I remember you couldn't easily switch profile without using the command line.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  Yes, it was there, but not really supported. We had to (ab)use the feature for some stuff, but everything was read-only and locked down by enterprise profiles, so it was not a big problem for us. I think profiles are not supported as first class citizens, still. Shall that be improved? Yes. Will that be easy? I don't think so.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
If they have the resources to constantly revamp the Firefox and Thunderbird UIs, they have the resources to rewrite the profile system.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  Did you see the code? Do you know how deep it goes? I don't have the definitive answer, so if you have some insight, I'll love to hear it. UI is top of the proverbial iceberg. It's relatively easy to modify it.
- xp84 3y ago
  UI reboots are so sexy though -- if this is like any company I've been involved with, they hire/promote a new design boss every couple years, and that person spends 6 months making a sexy Illustrator/Sketch/Figma (in that order over the years) document showing how hott things would look if we changed all the fonts and aped whatever widgets had been redone in last year's iOS. Instant greenlight. Try getting that kind of C-suite buy-in for a boring under-the-hood fix!
  - doubled112 3y ago
    This constant redesign with no real improvement cycle irritates me to no end.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Actually Thunderbird Supernova and Firefox’s latest iteration all very good both in space efficiency and performance. I’m saying this as a lover of 90s dense interfaces, like Eclipse.

reddalo 3y ago

And, if I remember correctly, the whole Profile things was initially hidden in Firefox. I remember you couldn't easily switch profile without using the command line.

bayindirh 3y ago
Yes, it was there, but not really supported. We had to (ab)use the feature for some stuff, but everything was read-only and locked down by enterprise profiles, so it was not a big problem for us. I think profiles are not supported as first class citizens, still. Shall that be improved? Yes. Will that be easy? I don't think so.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

If they have the resources to constantly revamp the Firefox and Thunderbird UIs, they have the resources to rewrite the profile system.

bayindirh 3y ago
Did you see the code? Do you know how deep it goes? I don't have the definitive answer, so if you have some insight, I'll love to hear it. UI is top of the proverbial iceberg. It's relatively easy to modify it.
xp84 3y ago
UI reboots are so sexy though -- if this is like any company I've been involved with, they hire/promote a new design boss every couple years, and that person spends 6 months making a sexy Illustrator/Sketch/Figma (in that order over the years) document showing how hott things would look if we changed all the fonts and aped whatever widgets had been redone in last year's iOS. Instant greenlight. Try getting that kind of C-suite buy-in for a boring under-the-hood fix!
- doubled112 3y ago
  This constant redesign with no real improvement cycle irritates me to no end.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Actually Thunderbird Supernova and Firefox’s latest iteration all very good both in space efficiency and performance. I’m saying this as a lover of 90s dense interfaces, like Eclipse.