4 ms·

Been using Thunderbird for a few years after using mostly webmail and it has been a mostly good experience. The UI revamps have definitely split the room somewh

by jchw 2y ago

Been using Thunderbird for a few years after using mostly webmail and it has been a mostly good experience. The UI revamps have definitely split the room somewhat, but honestly, Thunderbird's UI progression feels much better than Firefox's, and I have actually gotten used to the way Thunderbird looks and functions without too much pain. The information density is still generally alright, the tabs look like tabs, etc. The only thing that really tripped me up is the inconsistent hierarchy between the tabs and the sidebar, and I am not really that torn up about it, to be honest. What I really think Thunderbird could use is account sync. For me on NixOS (how do you know if somebody uses NixOS? Don't worry, they'll tell you) I might just set up some secret data in SOPS and have an activation script ensure the accounts are all present, and then IMAP can take care of the rest. But for the general user, and maybe even still me, Firefox Sync support for accounts and extensions and more would be amazing. Speaking of IMAP, JMAP support is another thing I'd love to see.

cpmsmith 2y ago
I believe account sync is among their higher priorities: https://blog.thunderbird.net/tag/thunderbird-sync/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/tag/thunderbird-sync/
- jchw 2y ago
  I am aware, since I was looking forward to it in 115. Unfortunately, I kind of suspect it might not really be on the way, as last time I looked into it it seemed like it was in a bad state. I guess it's not a big deal, though.
animaomnium 2y ago
"on NixOS" is the new "arch btw"
- jchw 2y ago
  There is one difference. Arch users will tell you, "I use Arch. You should try it." and NixOS users will tell you, "I use NixOS. You should probably not try it. You should try Arch."
  - noirscape 2y ago
    For me it's more often than not been the opposite. Although it's not just that you should use nix, you need to use their specific subflavor of nix features and anything else is heresy. It doesn't matter if the way it's documented is a mess, it makes sense to them. I'm pretty sure that picking a religious denomination is less aggressive than hearing nixos users talk about how superior their system is.
    - jchw 2y ago
      Well, you won't hear this from me. Right now, NixOS is probably not worth the time for the vast majority of people. It's hard to quantify because while the benefits of Nix are immensely clear once you have things working, the amount of effort it takes and the complexity you have to deal with to get there is downright insane. It's not that I think other people are simply incapable of understanding it, not at all; I think people are but I'm not sure if everyone who does will be pleased with how they spent their time. However... There are people among us who don't care about whether something is "worth it" or not. We want a complete, 100% solution to some of our problems. Not a half-measure, not a hack over the top, a from scratch, 100%, complete solution. What NixOS and GuixSD do solve, they solve very, very completely. The problem is that doing it is very hard, and in my experience Nix sometimes makes things much harder and more complex than it necessarily needs to be. Of course, making things as simple as they possibly can be is hard work, and so I don't blame anyone. A good example of a system where people are clearly unhappy is kernels, the way kernels are built in NixOS is pretty unsatisfying, and the knock-on effects of it can be pretty confusing to new users who wonder why changing which kernel they use makes it so that none of their kernel options are applied anymore. (Silently! No error, just, your kconfig options stop working!) This is on top of the fact that the community is split on things like flakes, leaving Nix in a bit of a precarious position, where there are multiple solutions to a problem and yes, people don't agree on which one. And also, it's built on top of functional programming paradigms, which I contend makes a lot of sense when everything clicks, but that's an additional hurdle for the vast majority of people, even programmers. Even if Nix was as simple as it could be, what it tries to solve is a very wide problem space that is complex by its nature, and it is harder to hide that complexity the way that many Linux systems try to. So, I don't suspect it will be worth it for most people to bother learning Nix. I think that the people who know they want Nix are probably going to figure out it's what they want eventually. There's a type of person who will invest in solar panels happily without caring much about the break-even; I feel like Nix is a bit like that. So why do people evangelize NixOS so much, when surely they know it's vastly complicated? I can't say for sure, but I can tell you one thing: when NixOS first started to "click" for me, it felt like I was experiencing a future of operating system design that is still years off. Whether Nix is the future, remains to be seen.
thesuitonym 2y ago
The thing I like most about Thunderbird's new UI is that I can switch back to the old one. The thing I like least about it, is that the switch is not in the View menu, but in it's own, very small button, out of the way, next to the Quick Filter buttons. What a choice!
rekabis 2y ago
> What I really think Thunderbird could use is account sync. NOPE. For account sync to be reliable and largely pain-free, credentials would also need to be synced. Which is a massive security no-no, as you don’t control the cloud they’re synced across. It’s why I still rock a pre-cloud version of Mailwasher. Besides, aside from initial set-up, how frequently do your account settings need to be updated? I have run the same Thunderbird setup without any major changes for about 15 years now. A good ⅘ of my accounts in TB are unchanged since initial set-up in 2004.

by jchw 2y ago

cpmsmith 2y ago

I believe account sync is among their higher priorities: https://blog.thunderbird.net/tag/thunderbird-sync/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/tag/thunderbird-sync/

jchw 2y ago
I am aware, since I was looking forward to it in 115. Unfortunately, I kind of suspect it might not really be on the way, as last time I looked into it it seemed like it was in a bad state. I guess it's not a big deal, though.

animaomnium 2y ago

"on NixOS" is the new "arch btw"

jchw 2y ago
There is one difference. Arch users will tell you, "I use Arch. You should try it." and NixOS users will tell you, "I use NixOS. You should probably not try it. You should try Arch."
- noirscape 2y ago
  For me it's more often than not been the opposite. Although it's not just that you should use nix, you need to use their specific subflavor of nix features and anything else is heresy. It doesn't matter if the way it's documented is a mess, it makes sense to them. I'm pretty sure that picking a religious denomination is less aggressive than hearing nixos users talk about how superior their system is.
  - jchw 2y ago
    Well, you won't hear this from me. Right now, NixOS is probably not worth the time for the vast majority of people. It's hard to quantify because while the benefits of Nix are immensely clear once you have things working, the amount of effort it takes and the complexity you have to deal with to get there is downright insane. It's not that I think other people are simply incapable of understanding it, not at all; I think people are but I'm not sure if everyone who does will be pleased with how they spent their time. However... There are people among us who don't care about whether something is "worth it" or not. We want a complete, 100% solution to some of our problems. Not a half-measure, not a hack over the top, a from scratch, 100%, complete solution. What NixOS and GuixSD do solve, they solve very, very completely. The problem is that doing it is very hard, and in my experience Nix sometimes makes things much harder and more complex than it necessarily needs to be. Of course, making things as simple as they possibly can be is hard work, and so I don't blame anyone. A good example of a system where people are clearly unhappy is kernels, the way kernels are built in NixOS is pretty unsatisfying, and the knock-on effects of it can be pretty confusing to new users who wonder why changing which kernel they use makes it so that none of their kernel options are applied anymore. (Silently! No error, just, your kconfig options stop working!) This is on top of the fact that the community is split on things like flakes, leaving Nix in a bit of a precarious position, where there are multiple solutions to a problem and yes, people don't agree on which one. And also, it's built on top of functional programming paradigms, which I contend makes a lot of sense when everything clicks, but that's an additional hurdle for the vast majority of people, even programmers. Even if Nix was as simple as it could be, what it tries to solve is a very wide problem space that is complex by its nature, and it is harder to hide that complexity the way that many Linux systems try to. So, I don't suspect it will be worth it for most people to bother learning Nix. I think that the people who know they want Nix are probably going to figure out it's what they want eventually. There's a type of person who will invest in solar panels happily without caring much about the break-even; I feel like Nix is a bit like that. So why do people evangelize NixOS so much, when surely they know it's vastly complicated? I can't say for sure, but I can tell you one thing: when NixOS first started to "click" for me, it felt like I was experiencing a future of operating system design that is still years off. Whether Nix is the future, remains to be seen.

thesuitonym 2y ago

The thing I like most about Thunderbird's new UI is that I can switch back to the old one. The thing I like least about it, is that the switch is not in the View menu, but in it's own, very small button, out of the way, next to the Quick Filter buttons. What a choice!

rekabis 2y ago

> What I really think Thunderbird could use is account sync. NOPE. For account sync to be reliable and largely pain-free, credentials would also need to be synced. Which is a massive security no-no, as you don’t control the cloud they’re synced across. It’s why I still rock a pre-cloud version of Mailwasher. Besides, aside from initial set-up, how frequently do your account settings need to be updated? I have run the same Thunderbird setup without any major changes for about 15 years now. A good ⅘ of my accounts in TB are unchanged since initial set-up in 2004.