Thunderbird 115.2.2 feedback

[NGFred]

Greetings,

Sorry to say, but the new version is a no-go for us.

Our entire staff is disappointed, the new interface is terrible : Font change makes it really less readable, even the new filter bar is really wrong (location, etc).

We cannot of course downgrade to previous version without installing from scratch, this will simply be a farewell to Thunderbird.

Thanks

[Ramius67]

I agree, completely negative feedback. This version is very slow and ugly, please bring back the previous version!!! If you own a lot of accounts this version is a mess. One of the account it is not more visible but I can see the messages in the popups, crazy! I don't understand the reason of doing this version...

[DavidBE]

Having made sure I've got a TB 102.15.1 installer and a latest copy of my profile in case I want to revert, I 'upgraded' to 115.2.3 today.

This is AWFUL, just to look at. Whose bright idea was it to put the toolbar ABOVE the tab bar, unlike every other program I have? And changing the tab bar and its buttons AND the background colour of the message list to jet black rather than the prior dark grey in dark theme? And as for that dreadful blue block of a New Message button, makes it look like a Fisher-Price toy for 5 year-olds.

Oh, and my unread-and-starred custom view I always had the Unified Inbox using doesn't stick in Supernova - has to be re-selected every time I go to the unified Inbox.

But the look is truly dreadful. In 102, in Dark theme, TB perfectly matched both my Firefox and Edge. Now it just look like some messed up non-matching app with a half-assed UI cobbled together in some teenager's bedroom instead. Does creating a userChrome.css even still work in 115? If it does, I suppose I could fix the colours, but no way am I using this with the toolbar ABOVE the tabs. Sheesh. after I post this, I'm reverting to 102 and staying there, certainly unless/until the tab bar goes back to the top where it should be. Unless/until there's some major (and very unlikely) change to the IMAP and SMTP RFCs, there's no desperate need to upgrade/update anyway, even for years. Actually, I have a truly wonderful and massively customizable Email client on my Android Phone (no, not the K9/TB android client), and while I've been doing all my email on my laptop (I'm disabled and not away from the laptop much) I will switch to doing it on my phone before I use this current Supernova UI.

Devs seem to think they always have to keep re-designing UIs, and never seem to consider that there were actually very good reasons why UIs were designed the way they were and those reasons haven't necessarily changed.

All the blog posts and ads indicated people who likes the 'Classic' look would be able to keep it - but that's not true enough. For me an absolute sine qua non for me going up from 102 is PUT THE TAB BAR BACK AT THE TOP. If that's not done (at least as a choosable option, and I can't see anything that looks like that even in about:config), forget it. I'm staying with 102, which I'm now going to revert to.

[Sma]

This new version is awful.  Please bring back the previous one. 

At the very least, fix these issues:

Zoom (ctrl ++) doesn't work unless I first go to View - Zoom.

The menu bar should be on TOP

The spacing is impossible to read

Do not show all the extraneous folders in things like gmail - just show our PERSONAL folders, or at least give us a way to do so.  I don't mean specific, selected folders, but ALL our personal folders in their normal sequence.  The new version makes the folder panel full of tons of unnecessary garbage.  The new version makes it virtually impossible to manage multiple email addresses, which is the reason so many of us use Thunderbird in the first place.

Get rid of extraneous items like the "Ctrl - K" squares in the search box that draw attention away from what we are trying to do here - simply manage our email.

I am a very long time Thunderbird user and I really don't want to switch, but sadly, if this version isn't repaired substantially, I will need to do so for my sanity.

Thank you.

[RMoss321]

As a TB user since the Eudora days, I have to say that I truly dislike this version. I much preferred the visual appearance of the previous version. This version has eliminated zebra striping (alternating white and grey background on messages). Really? Why? Without it, a page of messages looks unorganized and confusing.  Please bring that back!!!

[Sämpy]

I agree with most of previous posts. Some problems are small but meaningful. Like previously, if you had a text open in a tab, you could use ctrl-C-V to move text to another program, and when you got back the highlight of previous text was still there visible. Now, when you move to another tab, the highlights disappear. So you have to find the correct line again where you left off. And time is wasted, again..

[RMoss321]

Agreed. Why would you eliminate zebra striping?

[Magda]

In the latest Thunderbird update, the quick filtering feature is completely non-functional, which greatly hinders work. This program is not suitable for use without the quick filtering function. Is it possible to revert to the previous version?

[misfyt]

Another bug/feature: when I apply a filter to the INBOX to move all matching messages to a specific folder, when I return to that target folder, the cursor is not on the most recent message, but somewhere in the middle of the message list of that folder, so I have to scroll down all the way to the most recent message.

[ConstantRandom]

I have to agree with most of the other comments here.  I knew that people would be dissatisfied with the new UI when the news broke that Thunderbird would be changed.  Mozilla seems to have a preoccupation with breaking things that were working fine before, just for the sake of change.  This is really disappointing and it made my friendly Thunderbird that I've used for decades into a strange adversary. 

The Thunderbird project displays messages to support Thunderbird "to keep it alive", but why would I do such a thing when you don't even listen to user feedback, unless it's for the wrong reason.  Time to move on... 😭

[Bill_]

Agree. 

While I fully understand the need for security, and reliability,updates; and even starting fresh with cleaner code; I do not understand the choice to disrupted the end user's convenience and ease of use that we formerly enjoyed when using Thunderbird.    Supernova may have begun with good intentions; but the end result for me has been disruption.

[asciiman]

Hey guys, have a look at Betterbird.  I just downloaded it recently to have a look.

It is based on Thunderbird 115.x.x but they have sifted through the superfluous and really streamlined it.  It works nicely.  Things like the Title Bar and the Menu Bar are integrated like they were in the earlier TB versions.  Someone on one these TB threads suggested it and I agree, it is nice software!!  A lot of Linux users will be happy to know that it is already in their repositories.

[Tadpole]

ANYONE know how to change the App font line spacing with this new release??  For the love of [insert god of choice]

For bulk of users now, core readability >> usability has degraded significantly with this new release. (doesnt matter what bells and whistles you add, if core fundamental features are degraded it a waste of time.  "Can I find, read, org my emails at the same or better efficiency and experience as a prior release." should always be a concern in UX changes like this. 

Difficult to read and find messages and features - without correct line spacing - its a absolute fundamental concern. And how this got though UAT is also concerning - that must be addressed as well going forward imo or your just pissing in the wind. 

If a user cant change the spacing and font styling for App (appearance settings doesnt seem to affect it), these changes will kill a large portion of the userbase.  Guaranteed.. this is coming from coming from 30yrs+ UI dev expert, dont mean to bruise inflated egos but please dont kill this solid historic app - i'll hold out for a month more then i'll be off - with likely the bulk of the userbase (note - was here since birth of thunderbird). 

Who ever the lead UX designer is,  try to target different res desktop/devices for usability especially on drastic changes like this and get some userbase feedback - dont just target 800x600 VGA, and if possible please try and retain support for prior UI settings or close to it (rather then god like changes like this - its not impressing anyone) 

[Tadpole]

FYI .  Best workaround i've found so far to improve readability on this new UX design,  is to switch to Dark-mode theme.

Settings >> Add-ons and Themes >> Themes >> Dark.   

At least this improves readability, easier to eyeball and identify individual messages, folders and features in darkmode - especially using a dense content - long active mailbox account.

[SteveK]

View>>Density gives some options

[Tadpole]

Thanks for that tip..  Do you know why "compact" density the default on TB upgrade and not "default" (density)?   I have never before used this option. 

Now to disable all the other force-fed changes - remove these distracting header top tabs to start with (customise > restore default).

[Tigercharles]

I totally agree, the new layout is not really practical and confusing and leaves much unused space! Also some of the "old" functionality is gone (e.g. wrong place now for the "search bar", only 1 receive button for all in the menu bar - when you use different accounts, I don't want to receive everything!). Furthermore it does not work properly, e.g. the search only uses only the "sent"-content, independent if you are searching within another folder....

[GrumpyGramps]

Uh oh! Is there a way to backlevel Thunderbird from 115.3.1 (64-bit) to the previous version? I have the same issues as the posting above. In addition, the ability to reload a message in a blank tab no longer works. And when I delete a message while reading the message in a tab, the line in the inbox tab does get deleted but the message detail tab does not close and the "delete" button is still active and deletes something but I don't know what. Sometimes it opens a new inbox tab for some reason. I haven't yet taken an orderly cut at determining why and when that happens. I have however, checked all my settings and all the right boxes are checked or unchecked as appropriate.

I really want to backlevel this installation. An option to do just that should be included in the tools section.

[CarlC]

I guess I got lucky that I was already in dark mode, and it didn't change my views...  I checked out the "cards" "vertical view" etc and I hate it. I've got my message list columns and layout exactly how I want them.  And I actually like the unread message count.

But the thing I hate is that, as others have mentioned, the message "View" isn't sticky... I use a custom "Unread and Starred" view and every time I leave a folder and come back, it's reverted to "All".  I won't say it's unusable, but it's certainly inconvenient.  (Especially because the key remapper that let me assign a custom keybind to select a view stopped working with the big add-on security update.)

[Micrologic]

Our staff agrees. Also, the open email used to be highlighted even after navigating away from the app but now the highlight goes away, making it difficult to locate which email I was just viewing in the list above. 

This is mainly an issue because I receive up to 10 emails from FedEx with tracking updates and it's difficult to distinguish between them unless I remember which tracking number I just viewed!

[ladolcevideo]

I was able to deal with the adjustment, by tweaking font size and density, but the biggest issue is no Zebra Stripes!  Please please give the option to turn these back on.  I even tried some the custom coding others recommended for past versions, but will not work on this.   Has anyone found a way to put the stripes back on?  So hard to view without.  thank you

[jaess]

I have to agree.  There is little to like here.  Very disappointed in this "upgrade."

[IanG46]

Hi folks. I'd really like to say how much I like the look of the new Thunderbird.

But I don't - I totally hate it! I completely understand why it was necessary to unpick the legacy coding, but that was no reason why the UI had to change. I'm guessing this is the result of some software personal whims - never mind the customers requirements, look how good the software is!!!

[britbitebulldog]

I have used Thunderbird for so many yrs a true mozilla fan and a firefox one, but when supernova was installed i realised what a horrible interface it had, some would say "clean" but this is actually a step backwards it may be a re design but its layout and feel is truly the work of someone who has just got out of nappys and tried to impress the developers with there new found talent.but being new and fresh is not always a good way. i like many more have just downgraded to 102.15.1   and its staying that way with auto update off !! listen to the jungle drums ...users are not amused.

[GrumpyGramps]

How can I go about to downgrading? I plan to do the same if I can figure out how to get there.

[britbitebulldog]

Hi

FIrst of all im using WIN 10 so this applies to that OS, all i did was open my profile location and found 2 entrys one had a folder with a json file in it,the other profile folder had everything in it.i scrolled down the list to the entry labelled " configuration settings" and deleted this although from what ive read that should have been an .INI file but i just deleted my entry.once done i exited the page and was back at my desktop also thunderbird 115 was closed. i had already downloaded TB version 102.13.1 so with that in place i ran the installer for that.once it had finished i opened TB with the shortcut on the desktop no bother at all it was all correct.  NEXT STEP go to Menu in TB and in the settings you have the option to AUTO UPDATE (recomended) or NOTIFY OF UPDATE ONLY( user INSTALL) tick the NOTIFY ONLY this stops 115 supernova from going in. but you will get notified an update is available but DO NOT EXCEPT IT- IGNORE THE NOTIFICATION.. this works for me no issues and there does seem to be other methods suggested but they were just not needed in my case.

[jamesjweg]

After decades using Thunderbird this is making me look at other options, totally unusable.

[powersource]

I agree. It seems like a buggy beta version. When I go to my inbox , each time I have to scroll through all the old emails to get to the new ones. Plus all the other bugs mentioned above. I am not even sure how this was released. 

[mhb]

Keyboard shortcuts for copy, cut and paste only work some of the time.  For paste it only works in simple html or text view.

Keyboard shortcut for zoom only works once you've selected the view menu (but needn't actually use it).

These are very frustrating glitches that impair the usability of this dreadful new GUI.  Please just roll back to the tried and tested Thunderbird.  I can't recommend it to people any more as it is.