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Comment by wink | Hacker News Reader

I admit that software needs some sort of upkeep to not fall to bitrot, but I simply don't understand how we got to the near-falldown of Thunderbird a few years ago. You don't have to add new features, keeping it alive and simply fixing critical bugs is fine. Basically everyone I know would prefer a stable mail client not getting any new features over a few new features and addons breaking.

I'm really happy Thunderbird hasn't gone the way of the dodo.

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From what I understand the challenge with TB is that it's tied into Firefox' engine and that is also in parts used for the GUI (XUL). Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird. And FF wants to get rid of XUL eventually.

I thought XUL was gone with the recent change to the way addons work in Firefox?

XUL was used all over the place, so it takes a while to fully remove it. Thunderbird updates the underlying platform only once per year, catching up with Firefox changes in the yearly major release, while Firefox does so every few weeks.

That's not quite accurate. Thunderbird develops its software with the tip-of-trunk Firefox code at all times. It only makes releases much less frequently than Firefox.

XUL is no longer exposed to plugins (in non-ESR FF), but is still used internally in some places - where it is slowly being replaced.

It was XBL (XML Binding Language)[0] that was removed, not XUL - which is being phased out and replaced with HTML where appropriate.

0: https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/

> Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird.

Okay, that's scary. It's like a one half of a conjoined twin trying to remove the other half from their lives. Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. Yeah, scary.

Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.

> Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code.

If you are referring to Mozilla Messaging and the period to 2012, no the only transitioning was in terms of product functionality. The community organized in 2014, unaffiliated with Mozilla, and it's not until about 2018 when staff were hired that community leadership were able to seriously reduce technical debt. But seriously reducing dependency on Firefox code is some distance away.

> Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much?

You are looking a millions of dollars paid developer time.

> Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.

Mozilla are not running the show here, the community is.

Perhaps it's difficult to keep up with the history, but https://blog.thunderbird.net/ has past relevant postings, plus developer and other mailing lists. To cite a couple, big changes in encryption https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-an... https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December... and development priorities http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunder... which includes a new address book.

There is a significant professional development staff which is nicely paid, and the number of developers will soon double. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/

I really hope that my extensions are not broken. It would kill Thunderbird. Nobody is going to come along and replace the library of amazing extensions that have been built up over the years.

Unlike a web browser, email has not changed much in the last 15 years, so I don't see why development needs to advance at a high speed.

I doubt that any UX fashion statements are going to be enough to make up for the huge loss of functionality.

Anecdotally, I dropped it years ago specifically for the lack of new features. Namely, the lack of any sane calendar integration, since Lightning could integrate with Thunderbird, but couldn't integrate with any other calendars, and I wanted a shared calendar.

I'm not sure what you mean. I use Lightning with CalDAV, and it works fine.

Yup we here. Shared family calendar across Thunderbird and all family phones with CalDAV hosted on a radicale server set up like this:

https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a...

I'd be happy for non extension calendars and better exchange/o365 compatabilty But otherwise I'm very happy with TB as my main client.

I've found that davmail works flawlessly for connecting thunderbird to an exchange server.

However I have not found a way to connect it to O365. If anyone has figured it out, I'd love to know how.

The UX is that of the 90s. FF continues to see progress beyond the web browsers of the 90s, why shouldn’t Thunderbird?

Maybe, but the UX works. I'd be very happy if they didn't start tinkering just for the sake of not being "stale". (See: Gnome Shell.)

As a daily user for 10+ years I can say there is certainly room to incrementally improve TB in many areas, like calendar and contacts, but don't mess with UX success.

I used thunderbird for years, gave up, and then tried it again a couple years ago. I think the UI/UX is really bad and was the reason I had forgotten why I left, and it was the reason I gave up the second time.

I unfortunately can't remember my complaints to make them more specific for a lively discussion, but I guess I am an anecdotal counter-point for thinking the UX was actually not a success.

I'd say a bad UI that is stable and familiar to the majority of users is actually a better UX than some new thing. See the MS Office "ribbon" interface for a good example.

Car manufacturers don't try to reinvent the steering wheel & pedals UI every couple years.

That is basically the motto of the Bloomberg Terminal, so I would agree with that to some extent.

People say here that the UI is bad but nobody says what exactly is supposed to be bad about it. Or is it just enough that it doesn't look like the blown up UIs that are in fashion today?

The icons are ugly, there are too many boxy sections on any given view, the top left pane in the calendar provides no useful information and is ugly. There is too much noise and clutter, it could be simpler and cleaner. I use it every day, but I wish it was less ugly.

I gave up because the search was inexplicable Reddit level bad.

Search is really bad and every time I use it I feel something is now shown (and what IS shown is totally irrelevant and old).

Also, I see that a dark mode would be a requirement today as everything else either complies with OS's dark mode setting (Windows 10, OS X) or has it's own dark theme.

Don't fix what aint broken.

Personally, I prefer the 90s UX over the stuff we see these days.

The modernization of the FF UI, combined with the reduction in the ability to customize it enough to make it the way I want, is one of the reasons I stopped using Firefox (not the main reason, though!)

Whatever TB does, I hope they at least allow people the ability to modify the UI enough to make both of us happy!

> Personally, I prefer the 90s UX over the stuff we see these days.

Seriously, can I just have frames back instead of the "our whole site is one HUGE page" trend.

It’s hell adding recurring events in Thunderbird that only happen at non-standard intervals.

I work a rotating six week schedule with different workdays week to week. In iCal/Apple Calendar, I can intuitively copy/paste events to a different day of the week if the rotation changes. Thunderbird, with its 90s UI, doesn’t provide you with this option.

I’ve found refuge in eM Client on Windows, but it took a while before I came across the app.

Well comparing Apple Calendar with Thunderbird is not really fair. One is dedicated calendar app the other is email app.

I use thunderbird for email and calendar for calendar. When i compared Apple Mail with Thunderbird i found quirks small tech issues with Apple Mail especially when using something else than gmail.

I dunno, I see a borderless window, tabs, a settings page with big colorful icons representing each section, smooth fonts with DPI scaling, even a hamburger menu! Oh and it seems to happily support resizing the window larger than 800x600. Don't remember any of that in the 90s.

I don't mean to pile on, but could you please explain this a bit more?

Why should the baby be thrown out with the bathwater, just to chase cosmetic trends?

Can you give a compelling technical reason why this would be good for users, without using superficial UX fashionista platitudes?

Just because something isn't "on trend" doesn't mean it is bad. Some of the most important and beloved software has user interfaces that have not changed in decades.

I don't care if a UX designer would be embarrassed to use it in front of other mail clients. Trying to chase trends will usually just leave your software looking dated, anyway.

Unless you're willing to roll up your sleeves and keep existing functionality with your new trendy UX, then don't bother, because deprecating real functionality at the cost of a superficial fashion statement is really egregious and it needs to stop.

Nobody wants their workboots replaced with tennis shoes. And especially not because a UX designer wanting to stroke their ego and make a name for themselves.

Well firstly, having a great UX doesn’t mean throwing away features. It means improving the product you have so it’s more user friendly, increased readability, and more powerful. It can even mean increased features like better thread management, snooze support, better people-centric management, additional workflows explicitly supported (like zero inbox), etc.

Most of the sibling comments here are a “get off my lawn” type variety that IMHO are not fully informed by what good UX means. Great design isn’t superficial, in the least. A great user experience is a great user experience... it doesn’t mean compromising because something was hard, and it doesn’t throw away how the product is used or has evolved.

We should be aiming to improve and innovate to be helpful, not stagnate. And improvement means people’s existing needs are considered, not disregarded as many here seem to think.

> Great design isn’t superficial, in the least. A great user experience is a great user experience... it doesn’t mean compromising because something was hard, and it doesn’t throw away how the product is used or has evolved.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The complaint I am making, is that a lot of UX design is superficial, and done for the wrong reasons. Most of what Mozilla has done is terrible.

They've essentially gutted their browser because they want to be cool like Google.

But if we’re talking about ideals, then why wouldn’t you advocate for change towards great design versus stagnation? Now if you don’t trust Mozilla to pull it off, then that’s a different argument than so far has been made.

While I don’t personally know the designers at Mozilla, I’m doubtful that they simply “wanted to be cool like Google” and instead did their own research. I could be wrong but usually work isn’t so arbitrarily done for large products and teams.

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