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Comment by rhaway84773 | Hacker News Reader

Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware. It needed a UI refresh. The fact that they’ve managed to do this and make it look fresh while still not changing the workflow and the functionality drastically, so it won’t trouble long time users, is a great achievement.

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I have to disagree. I've been using Thunderbird for well over a decade and I appreciate that the UI hasn't changed much. As I get older I much prefer software that changes slowly and incrementally, if at all - and sometimes no change is good, especially in the UI.

UI is the part of software most prone to fashion. Fashions go in and out, and UIs and their usability goes in and out with them. I would rather stick to a usable, well-known UI than have TB be trendy and strictly worse, like the "flat everything" fad, or the "you don't need options" fad, or the "header bar" fad.

I specifically have not picked up Thunderbird as a local mail client because it looked like Mozilla would drop it at any moment.

I am not sure if you aware but Thunderbird was indeed droped by mozilla and now it is independent project, with quite a lot money from donations so they seem to be good for the future

That's right, it had been so long that I had forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.

Edit: Taking a further look into the history, it looks like the project has been under a lot of turmoil WRT shutting down and being revived. Explains why I have avoided it for so long.

OP said the workflow hasn't changed, only the aesthetics. Are you saying TB's workflow has changed, not just the aesthetics?

I can keep working with the current (and past) Thunderbird interface forever. Some software is done and it needs updates only to keep up with changes to the OS and to protocols. Thunderbird is one of them IMHO.

I don't even use IMAP, nor calendar. I download from POP3 servers and use the calendar on my phone instead.

So you're not the target audience for this at all then.

If they get to a point where Android and Desktop Thunderbird have email, contacts and calendars synced, with a UI that's as nice as this mock it will be fantastic.

Sounds like OP is exactly the type of person who thunderbird should be targeting because it's impossible to compete on UI churn against google/facebook/apple. They have legions of graphics designers who need to do something to keep being employed. Open Source seems to have become a resume item for second rate devs to get hired into closed source companies.

Isn't, it, basically? Isn't 99.9% of the world using some sort of webmail/office/apple mail?

It certainly doesn't feel like it tho.

>Thunderbird’s current UI makes it look like abandonware.

The type of person who cares about that will not be using it anyway. Trying to be hip is how firefox when from 30% market share to 3%. Stop going after people who don't care but are very loud.

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