Must-Have Extensions for Thunderbird 2.0

Operator writes "While Firefox has been in the spotlight for some time now, Thunderbird has yet to enjoy the same wide adoption or glowing praise despite being an excellent email client. It's no surprise that a popular topic has been Firefox's best (and worst) extensions while Thunderbird add-ons have gone largely unnoticed. In celebration of the recent release of Thunderbird 2.0 here are the best extensions for the program along with some honorable mentions."

Comments

enigmail extension

[UnixSphere]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon /71

Enigmail adds OpenPGP message encryption and authentication to your email client. It features automatic encryption, decryption and integrated key management functionality. Enigmail requires GnuPG (www.gnupg.org) for the cryptographic functions. Note: GnuPG is not part of the installation.

Lightning

[Nedmud]

It's not complete yet, but it's already worth using it, IMO. Having a calendar integrated with my mail helps me to check my schedule as regularly as I check my mail.

Re:Lightning

[ppz003]

> It's not complete yet, but it's already worth using it

It is better than nothing, but it is not a proper calendar either. BTW, is there any way to get rid of it temporarily if I don't want to use it? It takes up so much space that could have better use sometimes.

Anyway, if you need a real calendar, you have to go for a more powerful solution, such as Gmail, KMail, Evolution or Outlook. Note that the later two programs suck quite a lot. From an article not too long ago, you can use Google Calendar in Lightning or Sunbird nightlies.

dispMUA - Display Mail User Agent

[xTK-421x]

I find this extension to be helpful when dealing with certain email issues. It displays an icon representing the user's email software if it's in the known list of mail agents.

Home Page: http://cweiske.de/misc_extensions.htm

Extension Link: http://www.cweiske.de/files/download/misc/dispmua- 1.3.2.xpi

List of Supported Agents: http://cweiske.de/misc_extensions_dispmuas.htm

The list

[hywel_ap_ieuan]

The extensions in TFA, which is a one-pager: Minimize to Tray, Quicktext, Quote Collapse, Nostalgy.

Runners-up: Dictionary Switcher, View Headers Toggle Button, Contacts Sidebar.

It also mentions "Mozilla has three recommended extensions, Foxytunes, Enigmail, and an adblocker"

Quote collapse

[Dachannien]

Alternatively, you can use my preferred method for eliminating the giant 200-line quoted message bombs that appear below a two-word response. Just bitch at the person repeatedly until they either start deleting the old e-mail quotes themselves or they just stop e-mailing you. Either way, problem solved.

Re:inefficiency of splitting mozilla

[dkf]

I still don't understand why I need to have multiple copies of gecko shared libraries / dlls in memory since the split-up of mozilla into firefox, thunderbird, and sunbird. How is this waste of space supposed to be more efficient?

It's because it makes distribution much simpler. If this bothers you (though why it should when even entry-level machines have vast amounts of memory available even after loading the OS) get Seamonkey instead and stop griping here.

wake up editors.

[Anonymous Coward]

how on earth did this dire article make it through the editors process?
Its of abysmal quality and precious little substance.

2 in a row?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Taco are you trying to feed the trolls?

Slashdot : news for nerds, payed fpr by Mozilla and Google.

Virtual Identity

[ccarr.com]

Virtual Identity is essential if you, like many of us, maintain more addresses per inbox than can be conveniently managed via Thunderbirds's stock identity manager.

Re:top posting

[gEvil (beta)]

I fully concur. I can't stand top-posting, but I have to deal with it (and do it myself), otherwise everyone at work bitches about how I'm "intentionally being difficult"...

I agree... unfortunately, everyone at work does it. So if I start at the bottom, and the email goes back and forth several times, you simply can't follow it anymore. It must have been outlook that started that nonsense.

Order by is configurable

[sidney]

You can order by receive date. Click on the icon on the right side of the column header of the preview pane to see all the column headings that are available, and select "Order Received". That adds a column to the display which is a message number that is incremented as each message is received.

You can sort messages by the contents of any column by clicking on the column header. Click again to sort in the opposite order. So once you have an Order Received column, click on its heading to have messages sorted by the received date instead of the Send Date. The sort order you select is remembered when you exit and restart Thunderbird.

Obligatory end-to-end commentary

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Before some random dork starts spouting about how Thunderbird sux0rs because open source doesn't have an end-to-end Outlook/Exchange replacement...

Thunderbird+Lightning connected to a Citadel server does the job quite nicely. Mail, calendar, contacts, all server-side and end-to-end, 100 percent open source.

Thanks for asking. :)

Re:top posting

[sarathmenon]

I fully concur. I can't stand top-posting, but I have to deal with it (and do it myself), otherwise everyone at work bitches about how I'm "intentionally being difficult"...

I agree... unfortunately, everyone at work does it. So if I start at the bottom, and the email goes back and forth several times, you simply can't follow it anymore. It must have been outlook that started that nonsense.

Yup, you definitely hate top posting.

Re:top posting

[mgblst]

Why is top posting bad? If it is a conversation you are all involved in, then you shouldn't even need to scroll down. I came from a camp of bottom posters, but now I just want the email relating to me at the top. I don't see a problem anymore, and I am quite happy to ignore the previously sent emails, so they should be at the bottom.

Re:top posting

[Stavr0]

Because it's difficult to read.

On 2007.04.25 9:35 Stavr0 wrote:
> Why is top posting bad?
>
> On 2007.04.25 8:40, KV9 wrote:
> > top posting is bad mkay?
>

TB thread sorting (was Re:Because it sucks?)

[cspruck]

can Thunderbird even sort threads on the date of the most recent message in a thread? If I understand the above: View > Sort By > choose Date, Descending (or Ascending if you want), and Threaded

Options usually work if you just try them. :-)

TagZilla

[T.E.D.]

The only add-on I use is TagZilla, which adds a randomly selected tagline from a file to every email. I'm so attached to this that I won't upgrade to newer versions of Thunderbird until TagZilla supports them.

I have people ask me all the time how I get those randomly selected tags on my emails. Of course the answer starts with "First off, you have to be using Thunderbird..." :-)

Re:Wait for Penelope !

[Tack]

You see, that way you can actually read the discussion from top to bottom, just like a book, and have all the relavent information in proper order. Proper netiquette which, apparently, nobody remembers or follows.

I used to feel this way too, being one of the more pedantic, elitist, hardcore, old school netiquette snobs around. However after having lived in the real world for a while, I find the practice of full bottom posting to be far more annoying than full top posting (where "full" means the entire quoted text is preserved).

On a mailing list or active thread among many people, it quickly becomes tiresome to constantly scroll down to the start of the reply for every new email that comes in. My old school snobbery still insists that the proper method is to prune your quoted reply text to the relevant context and reply inline. But for those who are too lazy to do this (nearly everyone except us throwbacks) and as a result end up quoting the entire email, I find in this case top posting to be far more practical and sensible than bottom posting.

Re:A True Must Have

[CheShACat]

"Most email users have never had anyone try and fake messages from them to other people" Having spent some time working at an ISP and ICANN domain registrar, I know that pretty much anyone with a domain name has had their email spoofed at one time or another, if not all day every day. While this might not actually cover "most email users", the rest run the risk of their email domain (e.g. hotmail.com) being spoofed by spammers. In the case of spoofed emails, it's often the recipient that is at most risk, digital signatures that allow a recipient to verify that a mail's source was actually the domain it claims to be from are a great help in combatting spam.