Thunderbird Will Phase Out Legacy Add-Ons, Will Support WebExtensions (bleepingcomputer.com)

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: Mozilla announced last week plans to modernize Thunderbird's codebase, plans that include fixing some "technical debt" by incorporating the recent changes in the Mozilla engine into Thunderbird, adding a new user interface (UI), and phasing out old legacy add-ons that are built on the XUL and XPCOM APIs. The changes are part of Mozilla's new plan for Thunderbird development, a project that it left for dead in 2012, but later decided to reinvigorate in 2016.

Comments

"but later decided to reinvigorate in 2016"

[Nutria]

Hah. Every point release in the past two years has reduced functionality. If there were a reasonable (Claws isn't) Linux substitute, then I'd switch in a minute.

Re:"but later decided to reinvigorate in 2016"

[jellomizer]

I guess more to the point.
1. What are the better alternative to Thunderbird
2. What features do people really want and what they don't

I am willing to bet when you ask these features, you might realize it is impossible to make a perfect client, unless you make one for yourself.

hope they dont ruin it, good for 10+ years

[iggymanz]

I've been using it for 10+ years and appreciate the lack of needless feature churning and meaningless version bumping, it's a mature product. Hope the morons jerking their browser around don't fuck it up.

Re:hope they dont ruin it, good for 10+ years

[nine-times]

I'm not sure what features there really are to add to a simple IMAP/POP client.

And that's the thing, I really think that a project like Thunderbird should pick a lane and stick in it. Do you want to be a IMAP/POP client? Cool. Be that. Keep it simple, and make it robust, secure, and fast.

Or else, be ambitious and try to be Outlook. That's fine. You can be a groupware client. But that also needs a server side to be really practical. You can't just perpetually dump half-assed features into the client end and think that's a path forward.

I'd love to see a real competitor to the Outlook/Exchange ecosystem with open source and open standards, and if someone were ambitious enough to make a real play for that, I'd applaud them. It seems like everyone is abandoning the whole idea, though, in favor of cloud hosted solutions (either O365 or G Suite), so I don't see that happening. Failing that, I think they should probably just quit faffing about and make a nice, rock-solid, no-nonsense POP/IMAP client.

Re:hope they dont ruin it, good for 10+ years

[sheramil]

I'm not sure what features there really are to add to a simple IMAP/POP client.

Another calendar. A Task / event manager (which is the same thing). A social media integrator. Another chat client that requires you to log in and complains when you don't. An activity manager. A developer toolbox. An pseudo-AI emoji insertion tool that forces the damn things into your messages and which takes half an hour figure out how to turn off. A whole bunch of things that should be optional but which are now built in, take up screen or menu real estate and which you never use.

What they won't include is a simple tool for saving your settings and restoring them, which, the last time I had to do - about two months ago - required locating the cache file, copying the contents, installing the client on a new machine, locating the new cache directory and copying the old contents over the top of the new ones and hoping this Dr. Benway style of brain surgery actually worked. Yes, you can export your settings - but it will only export them to other mail program formats, and can only import from those.

Hmm

[thegreatbob]

Well, are they going to roll EWS support into their main codebase (currently functional through a plugin)? It's almost like they strongly desire these products to die. They seem to have forgetten that the market they need to be directly pandering to isn't necessarily their bulk consumer base... it's the people that recommend/support (tense is probably wrong at this point) the use of their products.

"adding a new user interface"

[DaveM753]

...adding a new user interface...

This scares me.

Re: "adding a new user interface"

[bradley13]

No shit. When was the last time that a new UI actually improved a product? Pro tip to UIX folk: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Re:"adding a new user interface"

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Your fears are totally warranted as the new UI looks like modern shit we are already forced to consume in other OS'es like Windows 10.

Hopefully the new Thunderbird will be themeable but I wouldn't hold my breath considering that theming was essentially killed in Firefox (we can only apply a background image to its bars - that's it).

Concur

[Excelcia]

It was better when it was left for dead. At least then it was left alone. Everything that Mozilla has touched since 2012 has turned to ashes. Actually, it was 2011 when they adopted Google's rapid release and versioning methodology on a project that it was neither technically nor culturally suited for. They broke extensions by the truck load with that little gem, and instead of slowing down and letting the extension system catch up, their solution was to write a script that automatically scanned their extensions and just disabled the ones which hadn't caught up yet. Now they are set to do it again with Thunderbird. They are just hell bent on shedding any technical merit or usability they have in favour of cramming UI changes and

The've been doing this since 2011. Mozilla has been quite content to shed any technical merit they had for almost any reason at all. It all started when they saw Chrome beginning to become successful, and immediately decided to emulate Google's development environment. They adopted Google's rapid release and versioning method on a project that was neither technically nor culturally suited for it. They broke extensions by the truck load with that little gem, and instead of slowing down and letting the extension system catch up, their solution was to write a script that automatically scanned their extensions and just disabled the ones which hadn't caught up yet. Then they went all hell bent on adopting major UI changes that were demonstrably unpopular by the majority of its user base. And if alienating the extensions authors wasn't enough, many of the UI changes destroyed themes on back-to-back-to-back releases. It reminds me of one of my country's more famous (and intensely divisive) prime ministers who, when he realized he'd alienated half my country, proceeded to give them the finger from his seat on a train as he was passing through their area. That's Mozilla. They go out of their way to alienate users, and then the ones who have stayed loyal they give the finger to with decisions like this.

All of this was in an attempt at emulating Chrome's burgeoning success. The problem is, they never figured out... you simply cannot surpass someone else by playing copycat on their methods. This is important so I'm going to say it again. Mozilla cannot copy Google and be better than Google. All they did with Firefox was alienate their existing user base in favour of a product that could never be quite as good at being Chrome as Chrome was. And now they are running headlong into inevitability again. See here for details.

The PaleMoon project has done for the browser what Mozilla should have done. It was originally a patch on an earlier FF ESR, they have since essentially departed from Firefox, though they still borrow some bits when it makes sense to do so. It's what Firefox should have been if they hadn't taken the detour into crazy six years ago. Maybe they can be convinced to do the same for Thunderbird.

Re:Concur

[Z00L00K]

When it comes to Thunderbird the need/use for plugins isn't really there, it works pretty well standalone.

Re:"Photon UI?" WTF, it has a Name!?

[squiggleslash]

To be more specific, the Mozilla team based their UI ideas on Chrome, GNOME 3, Windows 8, and other studies in bad user interface design, it's more of a conclusions of a set of studies in bad user interface design than a study in bad user interface design.

My Add-ons

[msc.buff]

I use several add-ons in my daily Thunderbird usage:

1. CompactHeader
2. ConfigDate
3. DKIM Verifier
4. Enigmail
5. Header Tools Lite
6. LookOut
7. Manually sort folders
8. Nostalgy
9. PrintingTools
10. Remove Duplicate Messages (Alternate)
11. Spamness

I wouldn't mind if some add-ons were integrated (Enigmail, Nostalgy) but don't mess too much with the cored T-Bird.

Re:My Add-ons

[DaTrueDave]

Then why the hell aren't all of you doing something about it? Fork the damn product now. I'm sure you're all ten times more competent than Mozilla here on Slashdot, based on what you're all saying. But something tells me all of this high and mighty talk is just the usual calculated excuse to not do anything and be able to blame someone else when things inevitably go badly for the product you use and "love".

Ah, the actual problem, illustrated beautifully: developers/coders don't know how to listen to end-users. They may know how to write code, but their listening skills are almost non-existent. Is it because they live in a bubble, surrounded by other coders? Is it because their skillset just doesn't extend in that direction? Is it because they're guided by priorities (revenue?) other than what their users want/need?

Telling end-users to write code is asinine. You don't hear chefs telling restaurant critics to cook something better their own damn self. You don't see film directors telling movie critics to create their own movie. And you don't see book authors telling book reviewers to write their own novel. But every single time this comes up, you'll see some code writer (or defender of same) pipe up with the advice that if users don't like it, that they're free to fork the project and write their own software. Absolutely ridiculous.

Thunderbird doesn't work

[loufoque]

I stopped using Thunderbird ages ago when they started incorporating sqlite and smart search. It made it completely unable to cope with the amount of emails I have.

It's like they don't understand some people have dozens of gigs of plain text email and are subscribed to a hundred high-volume NNTP groups.

Great communication, guys

[EndlessNameless]

"Mozilla engineers have already started work on adding support for WebExtensions in Thunderbird, albeit there's no concrete deadline when this feature will land in a stable release, nor when Thunderbird will stop supporting legacy add-ons."

Adding to this, they will shift away from C++/Javascript/XUL to "web technologies". Now I can't find a language spec for "web technologies", so it sounds like neither one of us knows exactly where they're headed.

Taking all of this into consideration, their press release boils down to: We don't know what we're doing or when, but it's going to be great.

Re:Great communication, guys

[tepples]

I can't find a language spec for "web technologies"

In the context of browser extensions, the relevant specs are ECMA-262, CSS, HTML Living Standard, and WebExtensions API.

Now for some credit where I feel it due...

[thegreatbob]

... to a possibly surprising recipient: Despite being a crusty/unreliable piece of crap, Outlook has no shortage of features, and exposes them in not-particularly-difficult-to-find ways. The UI is probably the least 'afflicted' by the ribbon of the various Office products I've used in recent history, as the ribbon winds up getting used more like a conventional menu. While we are not expecting Thunderbird to be a full-featured Outlook knock-off, the current set of features (while missing a few) is still quite good; any reduction thereof means they're taking a step back, and no longer see themselves as a viable competitor to the old behemoth (regardless of if it is true or not.

Closing statements, directed towards The Mozilla Foundation:

I will continue to use Thunderbird, even older versions, until it becomes a security liability and/or no longer does what I need it to do.
I will have little choice but to return to Outlook for work purposes, if WebExtensions is to be ramrodded down our collective gullets.
Thunderbird may very well be your last opportunity to prove to the world that you have not completely lost your way; don't blow it.

Re: What do you use instead for lots of email?

[loufoque]

I moved everything to GMail.
Not ideal, but it can deal with the data, and has other advantages to.

FUCK

[MrL0G1C]

So they're basically going to mutilate the UI, hide the menus and replace that with meaningless icons and hard to find settings that take more clicks to get to. What the hell is it with these fucking morons, they're everywhere fucking up UIs, changing them from meaningful words that name the actions they fulfill to stupidly laid out icons in fucking weird places and layouts where you can't discern where one section begins and another ends. Because progress, because some fucking idiots think everything has to look new all the time, can we create a fucking virus to wipe out these fucking brainless sheeple, the planet is overpopulated anyhow. /rant over... for now.