Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 Released
An anonymous reader submits: The Mozilla Thunderbird (stand-alone Mozilla based mail/news reader) developers have just released their first milestone: version 0.1, available for Mac
Linux,
Mac OS X
and Windows. The v0.1 release notes highlight some of the bigger features like customizable toolbars, UI extensions, contact manager sidebar, simplified UI, 3-pane mail window option, and spell checker. Also of note, Mozilla's usage share has risen from 1.2% in February to 1.6% now, a 33% improvement!"
Just as the stand-alone browser/mail/composer/etc components are supported even though Mozilla is still a monolithic app, will the user still have the choice of a monolithic app when Mozilla becomes just a collection of software?
The Moz guys see splitting up as an unquestionable Good Thing, but they don't seem to realize that some people like Mozilla as it is.
-twb
It was easy to configure, unfortunately it still reeks of "I-look-like-netscape"ocity (a problem plauging mozilla).
Assuming you're referring to the default theme looking like Netscape 4... you do realize you can easily change the theme, right?
Or, if you're referring to Mozilla looking like more recent versions of Netscape (which has been killed now anyway..), well, uh, they're based on Mozilla, so... do you want Mozilla to try to avoid looking like itself?
I've got two years of mail in my .mozilla folder and I don't intend to hack together some sick bastardized transfer.
A version 0.1 is not something you trust valuable data with. Never. If you really want to test it, backup you email and put it safely away, preferably in another non-connected physical machine where the new software can't have a chance to find it. Read again the version number: 0.1. Even running smothly this is the sort of version that eats your real mail, misfilters all the spam and trash your disk on the side.
Now they need to figure out why...
My guess is that people are using Mozilla to get a handle on pop-ups.
One of my favorite features in Evolution is the safe preview: when you look at an email message, it renders the message in all ways that do not involve hitting a server. So an HTML message with bold, italics, colors, pictures, etc. will display correctly... except for anything that would touch a server.
Why is this important? Because spammers make special URLs that encode your email address, and their servers use the special URLs to track you. If you even preview the message in Outlook, or in Mozilla Mail, their server gets a hit and they know your email address is a good one.
There is a command on a menu, "Load Images", that will go ahead and put hits on servers and render the message completely. You can use this for email from sources you trust. (It ought to be a toolbar button, but it isn't yet in Evolution.)
If Thunderbird doesn't already have this, I ought to file a bug.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
In the same period Netscape has lost more users than Mozilla has gained.
It states IE6 adoption is increasing (my gran could've told you that) but fails to state the movement of MS's overall market share.
Why would a mail client need ActiveX support? You're thinking of Firebird, http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
7. Opera 6.0 0.6%
Methodology: A global usage share of xx percent for browser Y means that xx percent of the visitors of Internet users arrived at sites that are using one of OneStat.com's services by using browser Y.
Just as an example of why these types of numbers need to be taken with more than a single grain of salt. In the example above, Opera 7.0 (and I think 6.0) defaults to reporting itself as MSIE. So unless the user cracks open the prefs and digs deep into one of the many preferences panes and flicks a switch, those visits will be taken away from the Opera totals and heaped onto the MSIE totals.
They are most likely assessing the reported user agent string to their network of websites which may or may not be the actual browser being used.
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
Even when you tell Opera to report itself as MSIE, it includes "Opera" in the user-agent string. There is no way to specify a custom user agent string.
This is how MSN identified Opera users to serve them a different style sheet. This is how my bank prevents me from using their online banking application.
Mozilla, OmniWeb, and many other alternative browsers let you override the user agent string to whatever you want. Opera does not allow you this flexibility. I know this because I'm a registered Opera user.
For more information, click here.
"lies, damn lies, and statistics."
That adage is totally irrelevant here, because no data is being hidden, and there is no handwaving to distract from the real numbers: they are given up front. No one is claiming they are poised to take over the market over the next year, or anything stupid like that. It's just a little pat on the back, that says "hey, word is spreading that our product is in fact getting better, and more people like it". Kudos to them.
Save your adages and sarcasm for statments like "In a massive upset in browser market share, Thunderbird has surged ahead with a 33% increase in usage."
The problem is that XUL crap -- ditch the "eXtensible User Interface Language" or whatever and just code something that's quick.
I disagree, XUL is quite fast. Maybe not as fast as assembler, but it's always a trade-off between development time and execution speed. From what I understand of XUL, it provides a layer of abstraction that makes it easier to develop applications, while at the same time not making everything outrageously slow (like java or something).
The reason you think it's slow is because of the old netscape mentality of stuffing an IRC client, mail client, web browser, contact manager, and WYSIWYG HTML editor (etc) into one application. Once Mozilla standardizes on Firebird/Thunderbird, things will be lightening quick.
..when's mozilla.slashdot.org going up?
the statistics are slightly flawed... many people fake using MSIE in their headers tags (undoubtedly how they do their 'statistics') to keep some sites from bitching at them, dont some of the alternatives even ship with MSIE set as the browser name?
but still, MSIE is surely the leader, even though theyre practically the only ones left that dont offer ad/popup blocking and tabbed browsing, features i can no longer go without...
It's probably just people finaly upgrading from Netscape Communicator....
Advanced users are users too!
This only served to remind me of a call I had from a little old lady today that was using Netscape 7.1 for her e-mail.
She'd been using the internet since the Old Days, back when Netscape was being used by the masses. The problem is that the mail client for Netscape 7 likes to use the sidebar buttons entirely too much.
How too much? Twice, to be exact. Only twice, you ask?
Well, twice is way too many. Because once you hide your mailbox list on the left side, and the message index pane at the top, all you see is the one message you had selected.
Or, when you start the application, you see the web page that you put in as the start page for mail (god knows why you'd want one). So all our Little Old Lady from Silicon Valley could see was our home page. Which happened to also have a link to our webmail. Imagine her confusion when she found that she had no mail when she logged on that way. Not to mention the confusion of the level 1 techs below me, who couldn't quite decipher what the hell was going on.
This is where the story gets interesting, and more importantly, points out some very important interface design flaws in Netscape and Mozilla.
Those buttons to hide and unhide the left and top panes are strictly for the sort that reads Slashdot. Their purpose is not obvious. Their very existence is not obvious. And if one were to click them accidentally, it's not obvious what happened. More importantly though, is that they are fucking impossible to describe over the phone. They don't look like buttons. Hell, the border that they reside on isn't something you can describe either, especially when the border that exists around the web page being displayed is much more obvious. Personally, I'm certain that there is no real reason to use them in an e-mail program, because quite honestly, the folders list should always be visible, and the index list should likewise always be visible. If they should ever disappear, the user will invariably wonder where they went and complain to someone like me. Outlook Express at least, has menu choices to bring them back. Netscape does not.
Netscape will never again be ready for primetime. There are two reasons for this: IE and Outlook Express comes with every computer on the planet, (or near enough to make no odds) and Netscape's/Mozilla's interface was designed by geeks, for geeks. While this makes it superior because of better features, it makes it very hard to do technical support for it over the phone. As such, people like me will continue to recommend it to customers, and will continue to get people started with it in the first place. It simply makes our jobs easier.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Saying that there's a 33% increase from 1.2% to 1.6% is not sound. Maybe the numbers 1.2% and 1.6% are the results of rounding 1.2499% and 1.5500%, respectively. Whoops, now it's only a 24% increase.
A more correct statement would have been that the increase is between 24% and 43% - that's really everything which can be derived from the given numbers. Remember, numbers without error/uncertainty estimates are almost always useless.
I wouldn't be so certain it is lots of people, instead of few LOUD people.
Oh get off your high horse. As if Microsoft never came up with stupid UI/program decisions. The second I start up OE6, MSN messenger decides that it's needed, for no reason, despite it being turned off in the options dialog. How is any reasonable person supposed to know that the "contacts" bar in OE opens up MSN messenger? Certainly isn't immediately obvious (my mail program should not be opening up my IM, particularly not one I don't ever use) to the end user. This took a question to the MSN newsgroups to solve.
And maybe in between your ranting you would've realized that Thunderbird is NOT Mozilla Mail 1.4. This program is geared for the masses, much like Firebird is supposed to be the common man's Mozilla. Maybe you would've even realized that Thunderbird fixes the very problem you're bitching about. No "my sidebar", no grippy to accidentally close the folder list with.
There ARE tangible benefits to moving over to Thunderbird, spam filtering among them. Intangible benefits include not being reliant on Microsoft for everything.
This discussion isn't about Netscape Mail, it's about Mozilla Thunderbird - making almost all of your tirade invalid.
/. readers but not for granny-on-the-telephone.
One of the reasons the Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird projects were started was to concentrate on usability, getting rid of all the extra features which make Moz great for
Specifically Mozilla Thunderbird doesn't have the buttons you're ranting about for your entire post.
There are sure to be other annoyances but this is only a 0.1 release - usability is only going to improve. People I know who have seen Thunderbird find it very easy to use and tend to switch. Do us all a favour and stop recommending IE/OE
------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
This is one part where I don't agree with Thunderbird. It's my understanding that all its ever going to be by default is a basic mail/news client. Well IMO there are better mail clients and certainly MUCH better news clients out there. I think the route of adding more functionality from the start is the way to go. Simply put the world myself included needs things like Calendaring and complete palm syncing from the start. On linux Evolution is better and on Windows of course Outlook has everything you would ever need. I don't mean it has to have groupware capabilities, but at least it needs to be a full featured PIM that works perfectly with Palms.
I've been using a Palm with email/calendar app for a long time now and at this point like many others I can't live without it. Installing the sometimes flaky calendar addon and hoping someday that it all works as well as Evolution/Outlook is not a route I plan to take at this time.
Of course its possible that I'm just thinking wrong about this and I should just look at it as a product which fills another niche. But at the same time something that let's me replace Outlook on windows and Evolution on linux could only be a good thing. I think a lot of people especially business users are going to feel the same way.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Hotmail uses a proprietary (extended, corrupted, whatever) IMAP protocol. Outlook Express is able to access Hotmail because it is privy to the extensions. To my knowledge, no other email client can do so. I'm guessing MS is either not willing to license the protocol, or is charging too much for it. Netscape, btw, uses a similar method to access AOL.
IMO, email clients have no business parsing web pages, even webmail sites. Email clients rely on stable, published standards in order to operate reliably. Websites can change too frequently for any email client to reliably interact with.
If you want Hotmail access in Thunderbird, then you should rely on third party applications or plugins that can do the work of parsing hotmail.com. If the applications are not up to the task, then pressure their authors to fix them. But don't pressure the Thunderbird folks, they have nothing to do with it, and rightly so.
(Score: -1, Stupid)