Make the Menu Bar visible as default in Thunderbird

[davidsk]

I am a SUMO volunteer and regularly (daily, really) respond to user issues where the individual is not aware that a menu bar exists, yet many features of Thunderbird are so readily available there. I think it was with version 78 that a decision was made to hide the menu bar, possibly for a cleaner look? Regardless, new users need help, and the menu bar makes navigation so much easier than trying to find the desired feature from that cursed hamburger menu (cursed because it has some features of menu bar and uses the same words, furthering confusion). The menu bar is even more important, now that ver 128 is out, because 128 also allows menus to be hidden that require the menu bar to be reactivated. This becomes a vicious circle. True, some users don't want the menu bar, and can easily hide it in one step. But please look at this from the new or casual user's perspective: hiding useful tools is counter-productive. This seems to be a simple change. Please, just do it for all of us. Thank you.

[Jon]

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[ThePillenwerfer]

Absolutely agree, David.

A lot of the default settings seem balmy.  There are also complaints about messages being displayed in the wrong order because threading is on by default.

It's even worse when Thunderbird's, or Firefox's, behaviour changes after an up-date.  I'd suggest that when new things are added they default to 'Off' when up-dating with details of what they are and how to enable them if desired on the What's New page.  Tab previews are a recent example from Firefox and Thunderbird 128 defaults to showing sender's name and full e-mail address rather than just the former — somebody was complaining about that a couple of hours ago.  Being enabled on a new installation is a different matter as that won't confuse/annoy existing users.

The level of ignorance amongst users is not to be under-estimated and a lot don't realise that things can be changed in Settings.

All software developers, not just Mozilla, should bear in mind that we use software because we like it.  Change it and that may no longer be the case.