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Comment by addicted | Hacker News Reader

Not a fan of the flat buttons but I strongly disagree about the single/multi line TO situation.

I doubt there will be a single person for whom Thunderbird is their first email/messaging type app. Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least.

All of them will be comfortable with multiple users in a single To line, while having multiple lines for multiple users will actually appear alien to them.

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> Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least.

This almost equals to assuming that nobody is older than 25 or 30 especially because the no "single person" assumption. I started with UNIX's mail in a terminal, used a dozen of different clients on UNIX, Windows, Linux, Android, not all of them graphical.

I've been using Thunderbird probably since its very first day. My other client is K9 on Android. I think the address pills will be OK but I want to test their manipulation with keyboard and touchpad.

Perpetuating bad UX choices (or at least trade offs made under the mobile constraint) from mobile into the desktop doesn't help anyone.

I use thunderbird because I want an email client, not a dumbed down web experience built for mobile.

Who said it's a difference made under mobile constraints?

I've literally never used a mail client that didn't do multiple emails on the same line. On Desktop or Mobile.

And it's never been an issue.

I've had issues editing email addresses in clients with multiple mails per line.

As long as everybody is on your address book it's fine, but if they're not, things tend to get awry.

I haven't tried the new Thunderbird, but I am suspicious of this change as well.

"I've had issues editing email addresses in clients with multiple mails per line."

This was my first reaction when I saw the change - I really hope they get this right as it goes to the core functionality of Thunderbird. If email addresses can't be easily and accurately edited in the To field, it will be a real problem for me.

How is it any more difficult to edit multiple email addresses in a single box as it is to edit a multi word subject line in a single box?

Clients tend to get confused about where one address ends and the next one starts. I'm sure there are ways to solve this well, but my personal experience makes me skeptical.

Commas?

Yes, if that's how it's implemented... Gmail doesn't. They wrap your email address text in a button thing. Others prefer semicolons, or was it commas, or was it both?

Its just yet another thing I shouldn't have to think about

There'll always be someone who has trouble with a solution you can come up with...

I've used every major email platform and every single one manages to endure despite having emails on one line. Even Outlook does one line these days.

I wholeheartedly disagree. The new "To" field is much, much easier to use, and I'd be curious why you think it's the result of 'trade offs made under the mobile constraint'.

It's not a mobile constraint. Nearly every desktop mail client also uses a single To line.

I mentioned mobile because as far as discoverability is concerned, there is an order of magnitude more mobile users than desktop users, so the vast majority of users will have no problem understanding this concept.

And if you've been a desktop user long enough that you havent used a smartphone then you're probably used enough software that have similar patterns (and used email enoguh) that you shouldnt have trouble realizing that single To line means you can add multiple recipients to the same line.

> I doubt there will be a single person for whom Thunderbird is their first email/messaging type app. Most would have used something on their iOS or Android devices first at least.

You'd be wrong. I, grudgingly, moved from mutt to Thunderbird after it was clear that email was turning into MIME-encoded web pages.

So you have used another email app before moving to Thunderbird then...

If you've been using Mutt, the concept of multiple recipients itself is a much harder process of discovery :)

Ironically, I am moving from Thunderbird to Mutt (NeoMutt actually). I find the elimination of HTML means it's actually easier for me to not get distracted by stuff I dont care about for email, which is interaction with real human beings, who are unlikely to be typing complicated HTML messages. Besides, with the right config (I'm still working on it), the HTML message is 1 shortcut away.

Unfortunately, my colleagues, who mostly use Outlook, employ HTML to its full extent when pasting in content to messages. ("Refer to the text highlighted in red.", "See the table for details", etc.)

Back in my BBS days, there was ANSI color with IBM-extended (CP437) block graphics to liven things up, so I can see it has gone full circle a bit.

Agreed the multi line To field was a frustrating user experience. From my office we were reliant on the addon MRC Compose as no-one would use it over outlook otherwise

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