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Mozilla Thunderbird Reaches 1.0
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 is now available for download on Mozilla's FTP server." Here is
the press release announcing the release. Virtual folders and RSS integration, coupled with the recent hype surrounding Firefox, might give this sucker some serious momentum.
Release notes are available here: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releas es/
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
Mmm... since 1.0PR - new, pretty icons!
Maybe it's just my own perception, but Thunderbird seems to be a bit bulky, judging by how long it takes to open. Am I totally out of my league here, or is Thunderbird a little chunky?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
If I don't want Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail&News and Mozilla Thunderbird, what else *Open Source* e-mail clients can I choose in Windows?
Or do I have to wander the maze of twisty little directories in Microsoft's "Documents and Settings" directory to find where it stores mail.
Remember, it's in "Application Data" and not "Local Settings\Application Data", and also please note all these directories for hidden for some stupid reason.
I'd be happy if I could just specify where the data is stored like most apps (even Microsoft ones).
Don't get me wrong, I love using Thunderbird and switched from Outlook shortly after I realized how deeply flawed it was (despite having a good UI and spam filtering), around version 0.5.
Anyhow, congrats to the Mozilla team for another excellent release. But please, give us some data store management.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Has anyone tried these? I was googling for a torrent and came across this win32 optimized version (depending on your processor).
MOOX optimized versions
NOTE: This is a third party / unofficial build.
I'm still waiting for a Firefox/Thunderbird CCK that will let me customize them in a way that would make distribution worthwhile here at work. NS through 7.1 gave us the ability to make custom accounts and mail settings before install. Yes, we use Netscape as the default browser/mail suite here. We do exist!
I wish the moz foundation would implore the popular extension makers to update their version string. If I upgrade when it comes out, I'm screwed on all my extensions. If I wait, I'm going "when can i upgrade, when can i upgrade?"
.9 for a while until the extensions are ready.
I lose either way. This time I'm going to wait instead of upgrading from
And as the servers take the same hammering they took when Firefox was released, heres a torrent crafted by my own fair hands
http://www.youngerpants.com/thunderbird.torrent
[siiigh]. Considering much of what a mail client does is either disk or display, and not very repetitive, processor-specific optimizations will do little to no good. Even search functions are largely disk constrained if the mailbox is big enough that search time becomes an issue on any modern system.
If it was a Pi calculator, or a game (in which a miniscule difference in per-frame loop time makes a huge difference in frame rate) I could see the point, but this is just silly
Please help metamoderate.
"My business has been cut ten fold by this communist software" say veteran spammer Ima A Shole. "I don't know how anyone expects to have free web sites if they don't let independent businessmen like me advertise porn and \/|@gr.r.r.a."
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Shouldn't there be a name change at a full dot release?
:-) :-)
Ba ding.
Most Newsgroups require that a posted message be no larger than a certain size so to post large files, like mp3's, you must split them appart into several seperate posts. Without the Combine and Decode functionality you cannot put the pieces back together again.
Granted, Usenet Newsgorups have not gained as much popularity as the rest of the internet but it would still be nice to have. And until this feature is added to T-Bird, then Usenet users like myself will still be forced to use OE. Basically, why run two e-mail clients? It's not a good idea for the average user, so they are going to stick with OE.
I use Pegasus Mail (pmail.com). For all the nice features in Thunderbird, it still seems to me that Pegasus has much more powerful filtering rules. And, at least for my uses, has more features aimed at people who maintain multiple e-mail addresses.
Pegasus is free, but not open source. I urge people to compare it to Thunderbird. I've used it since 1996 and have never found a mailer I like better.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I select the subject of interest. Instead of having a "enter selection for find" command, I have to copy and paste. Fine. However, if the Find dialog is already up, when I hit ctrl-F, the text in the Find dialog isn't selected; I have to select the text, then paste my subject into the box.
Then I click the Find button. It finds the text and shows it to me at the very bottom of the window. This is so annoying that it's nearly beyond belief. I have to scroll down a bunch to see any context whatsoever.
So, my request for two enhancements:
OK, so go ahead and flame me for a) not just fixing the application myself, and b) not trying to figure out how to file my own bugs.
In my own defense, a) I have a day job and a life at night, and b) I started to file some bugs and direction number 1 was "download Mozilla and see if the same bug appears there". I don't use Mozilla, have no interest in it, and don't feel like jumping through hoops to file bugs.
OK, call me cranky. :-)
Happy Holidays!
Recently my parents got an email in outlook express that will cause the program to lock up simply by clicking on the message (even with preview off). So, I'm looking to switch them to Thunderbird for a more stable and secure system. I would like to get their mail from OE into Thunderbird, but I think the mail database that OE creates might be corrupt. I'll give 1.0 a shot tonight and see how things fair.
SIGFAULT
Sorry, I should have said "Graphical" e-mail clients in parent. Thank you for your suggestions and it really confirms my belief: we really have no choice, except text-based and much less well-known ones. But we do have some choices for browser, though most of them are still Gecko-based.
Until I can print 15 or so contacts per sheet, I can't use it.
It's also a pain to enter phone numbers. If you type 555 5551234 and it keeps it like that. It doesn't reformat to (555)555-1234.
Until this is fixed, I wait. (BTW: there are no Contact Extensions for it...)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Yes, just open the Address BOok and click "New List."
First off, congrats to the Mozilla Thunderbird team; I switched to Thunderbird months ago and have been EXTREMELY happy with it, with one exception. Kudos on reaching 1.0.
Now, the exception I just mentioned happens to be Palm sync capabilities. I managed to get an extension downloaded and installed a version or two ago, but the data would only sync once (changes I made later to the Visor's address book wouldn't sync to Thunderbird), and I couldn't get the extension to install properly in later versions. I can't imagine that I'm the only one who wants to sync a PalmOS-based device to Thunderbird, or that I'm the only one who's had this problem. Checking Google has been little help, either...
Again, except for this one problem, Thunderbird works great for me. Is there any idea when I can expect this one annoyance to be fixed? (Or get some confirmation I'm the only one having this issue...)
Portable Thunderbird 1.0 is available already at . Now that's speedy :) I finally have a use for my old 32MB usb key!
The Mozilla Suite is a combined browser/mail/news/chat/addressbook. Firefox is just a browser. Thunderbird is just mail/news/addressbook. They all use the same rendering engine, and share much of their other code, but have different front ends.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
I like Thunderbird, but lets face it, it's not the Firefox of email clients. If you look at the improvements of Firefox over IE, there are monumental leaps as far as features and functionality go. When you compare Thunderbird to Outlook, however, sure, it's a bit more streamlined and clean, but doesn't really offer a whole lot extra in terms of features/functionalities.
Where are the new bells and whistles that will revolutionize email clients the way Firefox did to web browsers?
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I've been trying to use Thunderbird for a couple weeks and if I switch back its because thunderbird doesn't have a calendar. I still have to open outlook and leave it open if I want to be reminded about meetings and appointments.
Ok, let's break this down.
First (well, not really FIRST, but anyway) there was Netscape. It included the browser, mail program, html composer and whateevr other goodness in a big monolithic application. Each major function had its own UI, but they were all parts of the same program.
Then, the Netscape team opened up much of its code, and Mozilla was born (I could be wrong; Mozilla might always have eben a codename for Netscape source, even before the OSS release). Like Netscape, Mozilla was a web browser, mail program, html composer, and more. It developed slowly over time.
Eventually, the old Netscape line (4.7ish) was replaced by a rebranded and slightly enhanced Mozilla, with the Netscape name. Netscape 6.x was based on pre-1.0 versions of Mozilla. Netscape 7.x was based on post-1.0 versions. These days, AOL owns Netscape, and Netscape remains involved with Mozilla project development to some extent.
Somewhere aroudn the same time, the Mozilla project worked on forking off certain components of Mozilla into more modular components. Firefox (then called Phoenix) was created to be a standalone Web browser with a smaller memory footprint than the overall Mozilla suite had ever been. Thunderbird was the standalone mail application.
Over time, both firefox and thunderbird got features entirely independent to those versions -- ones that don't exist in the larger Mozilla suite.
At the moment, both the larger Mozilla suite and the Thunderbird/Firefox standalone applications are being actively developed. Eventually, according to most thinking, the larger Mozilla will be phased out and replaced by the standalones.
Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird all use the Gecko rendering engine developed for Mozilla. Incidentally, so does compuserve's own browser (i think), and certain platform-sepcific browsers such as ephipheny and galeon.
The next version of Netscape, incidentally, will be a rebranded and enhanced version of Firefox, according to recent reports.
Hope that clears things up.
This will work for a while until we reach the point where new knowledge cannot be "Googled" because the prospect for new content for Google has been sabatouged by people who reply with "Google for it" to every question.
Get it?
Basically the issue is that a lot of emails have incorrect date/timestamps in the header and if you order your messages by Date it sorts it by the Date Sent in the header rather than say the Date Recieved to your email server. The temporary fix (for me at least) is to order message by "order recieved" but this can create a huge mess when moving messages between folders because the moved message now has a newer "recieved" datestamp. Without using this method, all of the spam and junk emails show up throughout my inbox because the dates/times in the headers are inaccurate.
It has been reported here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21603 3
I am just assuming the developers don't know/realize why this interface issue is such a problem, but I am really hoping that someone will address it soon!
Hopefully I did a good enough job describing the problem. If you've seen it or struggled with it, you should recognize my description. Finally, I want to graciously thank everyone on the mozilla team for putting out such quality programs that I actually _can_ recommend even to people who think that IE _is_ the internet, and I am not trying to discredit the hours put in by the dev's!
Why does everyone think an e-mail program needs a calendar?
An e-mail program doesn't need a calendar any more than a web browser does. Nor does it need one any more than a file sharing program does.
If you want a calendar program, get a calendar program.
Mod points are pointless when you browse at -1.
This being said, there aren't many open source email clients available natively on win32. However, many do work with cygwin. The *nix version of Pine (which, as above, might not be "open enough"), mutt, kmail, gnus, sylpheed and others work fine.
It's not the Thunderbird team's fault that you are incapable of using windows properly. You can use either the user manager to set your profile path, or you can edit the registry key ProfileImagePath. Either way you can change your profile directory from C:\Documents and Settings\profile (hardly five levels deep) to something else. Unfortunately, while mozilla chooses your application settings directory based on your profile path, the profile's prefs.js will have to be manipulated to reflect the new absolute path to your data because prefs files do not reference environment variables.
Microsoft provides a way to move your profile to another location. It is somewhat esoteric, but you chose to use windows, and should not be blaming the mozilla team for your inadequacies, or its.
With that said, it certainly would be nice to get a tool to move user profiles, especially unregistered ones. It is something I deal with at work on a regular basis.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I never understood the idea of RSS integration into a mail client.. RSS is generally used to keep up with web data, so why wouldn't you have RSS built into the browser, not the mail client. RSS integration in a mail client is just bloat.
Coincidentally, I decided to switch to firefox+thunderbird (or, failing that, firefox+mozillamail) just last night. And they seem nice and all, but it's infuriatingly stupid that
I understand and appreciate that, unlike Windows, there's no standard *nix API for these sorts of things. But it looks like they didn't even try. (It Would Be Nice[tm] if the Debian builds of these programs taught them about /etc/alternatives; then there would be a semi-standard API.)
Yah, yah, I know, go get one of the zillion third-party extensions... Tried that. "Get extensions" is one of those links in thunderbird that did nothing.
(Other peeves: transitioning from Mozilla would be easier if they'd left the same keyboard shortcuts. And remembered window sizes.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
This feature is not included with Firefox or Thunderbird, as it is with full Mozilla.
There is an extension that adds it back to Firefox (Thunderbird evenetually), but there are some side effects.
like combine and decode (ie. multi-part messages),
yEnc encoding,
etc.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
1.0 means they have transitioned from alpha grade early release project to a first beta release.
Thunderbird is missing too many basic features to allow it to be rolled out to corporate users, or family members, or just about anyone not 100% geek. It still doesn't handle outgoing servers correctly. Filtering is difficult to use, can't deal with IMAP correctly, and sometimes just doesn't work at all.
The spam filtering still needs a lot of work, there needs to be an option to white list the entire set of local (and/or ldap) address books, not just a single one. When people keep separate address books for business and personal contacts, you then have to choose which book to whitelist. There's been a bug in bugzilla for quite a while now on that one.
LDAP incompatibilities, IMAP SSL handling, customisable UI, IPv6 support, the list goes on and on. I would have prefered if the dev team spent a few more months dealing with all the little problems that will keep this entirely out of business rollouts, and fixed the minor bugs which have lingered forever.
Maybe with the 1.0 early beta release, the current dev team will move on, and more capable Open Source volunteers will step up and finish the job. I, like many others, were driven away from the forums and bugzilla because of hostile attitudes and incessant bickering over extremely minor points. We tried to help, but some FLOSS projects aren't as deserving as others.
I haven't been able to convince anyone to switch over to 0.9 from outlook, or even Pine (so you know its got to suck). No major feature requests were addressed between 0.9 and 1.0, this is just a minor incremental release.
Yeah, call me cranky too!
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Mozilla has, as far as I know, always been the codename for Netscape Navigator. Marc Andreessen worked on a web browser called NCSA Mosaic, and later, Netscape Navigator. Navigator was more powerful/featureful than Mosaic, so it was called Mozilla.
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
This is utterly essential for anyone working in support, as you constantly get mail which needs to be handled by someone else, but when you send it to them, you don't want them hitting Reply and having the reply come back to you (as it will with Forward) -- you want it to reply to the original sender by default. Until then I'm stuck with sucky old Evolution...
(I did suggest this feature for Moz on bugzilla once: four years later they're still arguing about it because I used the Elm "b" [bounce] key as an example and some prat hijacked the discussion into thinking I was proposing Moz should act as a spam auto-bouncer -- sheesh :-)
If you are using Firefox 1.0 you can go to Tools > Options > Advanced... and underneath the "Tabbed Browsing" header you'll find a group box with radio buttons allowing you to default Firefox to opening new tabs in the last Firefox window. I was quite pleased at this new option.