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Thunderbird 3.0 released
The Thunderbird 3.0 release is out. New features include a number of search improvements, tabbed windows, a new message archiving mechanism, an improved address book, Gmail integration, a number of performance improvements, and more. See the release notes for details.
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Aieee! Posted Dec 8, 2009 21:36 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I love TB2... but TB3 is just awful. I installed it. It sat indexing my mail for about three minutes before starting up. It created an uber-Inbox with a whole lot of stuff I didn't want, and I had to configure it not to do that. It ran very slowly. Finally, out of spite, apparently, it crashed my X server. And then there's https://bugzilla.mozilla.orgshow_bug.cgi?id=533545. I'm very sad. It looks like when TB2 is end-of-lifed, I'll be hunting for a new mail client.
Aieee! Posted Dec 8, 2009 21:52 UTC (Tue) by frumious (subscriber, #3892) [Link]
I added back all the toolbar/menu icons that were in 2.x, and installed a
plugin to see the folder sizes again.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/9716
It did take a while to do the initial indexing, but now it's very speedy.
Aieee! Posted Dec 8, 2009 22:21 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] "Form submission from HTML mail is completely broken". Sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. I'm actually surprised that it was implemented at all. Has anyone considered the security implications?
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 2:11 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] "Form submission from HTML mail is completely broken". Sounds like a feature to me, not a bug. I'm actually surprised that it was implemented at all. Has anyone considered the security implications? I was waiting for someone to say that. If you don't want to submit forms because of security policy, then fine: Disable forms. But don't submit them incorrectly. The Thunderbird team has at long last managed to duplicate a long-standing and highly-annoying MS Outlook deficiency.
Aieee! Posted Dec 8, 2009 22:27 UTC (Tue) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
I like the changes. Tabs are useful, quoting is nicer, better search is always appreciated and I think the button placing is more logical, but you have plenty of alternatives and should be fine. I think Mozilla messaging is on the right track here (although most people hate change and some people will probably skin TB3 to look and work like TB2)
And a crashy X server surely isn't TB3 fault.
TB2 EOL Posted Dec 8, 2009 23:18 UTC (Tue) by andrel (subscriber, #5166) [Link]
When will TB2 be end of lifed? I poked around the website to see when security updates would stop, but couldn't find the info.
TB2 EOL Posted Dec 9, 2009 0:14 UTC (Wed) by pbrutsch (guest, #4987) [Link]
I expect Thunderbird 2 to have another 6 months of life before EOL.
TB2 EOL Posted Dec 9, 2009 2:18 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Maybe it's time for an update from the Grumpy Editor? (Hint, hint...)
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 0:18 UTC (Wed) by pbrutsch (guest, #4987) [Link]
To say that Thunderbird 3 has some very, very bad defaults is a bit of an understatement. It is also an understatement that it needs a few releases to work on "brown paper bag" problems.
My #1 peeve: TB3 automatically downloads all email messages from your accounts.
Even IMAP accounts!
WTF???
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 10:03 UTC (Wed) by regala (subscriber, #15745) [Link]
TB2 did that too, because, you see, what a better way for the anti-spam
filter to scan mails than to fetch and read them ?
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 17:40 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
simple. do the spam filtering on the server.
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 13:55 UTC (Wed) by iq-0 (subscriber, #36655) [Link]
It auto archives all mail, which can simply be disabled. Same for junk mail settings.
I for one don't want them, so I turn them off (because I have a lot of mail with a lot of archives which I access regularly from different machines and have serverside spam scanning and mail sorting).
Okay, so downloading all mail once for the indexer is a bit of a drag, but that's a one time process. And global search is a nice thing to have imho also on Imap accounts.
In the end it's all very personal, not so much a "WTF" as a "not my cup of tea".
Aieee! Posted Dec 9, 2009 17:17 UTC (Wed) by larryr (guest, #4030) [Link] I connect to the Internet with a 3G card with a 5GB monthly transfer limit, and there is far more than 5GB of email on the server to which I connect via IMAP. Having my mail client default to using my entire monthly Internet transfer allocation would definitely not be my cup of tea.
Aieee! Posted Dec 10, 2009 0:56 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] I share your pain. I've got all of my mail since 1985 in IMAP folders and it just tried to download it all to my EeePC, without even asking. All I wanted to do was to view the head of my INBOX. The Thunderbird developers seem to assume you want to read mail from just one device, which isn't true in this age of netbooks, smart phones, ... Just as the technologies are changing to suit IMAP's strengths, one of the best IMAP clients moves to using IMAP as though it was POP from ten years ago. If IMAP lacks a fuzzy search, then add it to the protocol. Don't invite the worst of all world's by making the client compensate for the shortcoming in the protocol.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 0:21 UTC (Wed) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
I like it because it handles my IMAP far, far better than TB2 did.
TB3 is actually comparable to Evolution now. TB3 now seems to locally cache the messages and can search locally instead of using the server to search. In my case the IMAP server is really really slow. (Courier IMAP on a single 5200 RPM disk with a 1 GHz CPU).
TB3 is cross platform. I prefer Evolution a bit more but I can only use that on Linux. I like being able to use my email on OSX and Windows as well.
TB3's memory use seems better than Evolution.
TB3 can continue loading messages in the background while loading a message I click on immediately. TB2 couldn't do that.
Loading messages into tabs is absolutely awesome. I love using the tabs for loading those nasty big HTML emails in the background. Message tabs do have some bugs which I should get around to filing but nothing really bad.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 2:12 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] TB3 is actually comparable to Evolution now. Yes, exactly. It's becoming just as bad.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 2:27 UTC (Wed) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
Or nearly as good from my point of view. Different strokes for different folks.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 2:58 UTC (Wed) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link]
For me, Evolution is completely unusable (terrible IMAP and OWA performance; crashy MAPI support).
TB2 has always been good to me, although its periodic hickups while reopening a mailbox was annoying.
From my point of view, the primary changes of TB3 are:
I don't use the tabs, so they don't bother me. The editor hasn't really been improved, and LDAP-related hangs are still annoying. There's no sign of MAPI support being in mainline anytime soon. Still, TB remains the best mail client I've used on any platform, taking into account the features, plaintext editing support, protocol support, and performance.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 4:20 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] For me, all the changes were bad:
In Real Life, I run a software company specializing in anti-spam software, so I eat, drink, sleep and breathe email. Until TB3, I would confidently recommend Thunderbird to all our clients. But the form submission bug in particular makes one of our product features next to useless (you could choose to accept/reject quarantined messages right from the notification email). This leaves no free cross-platform email client I can recommend. :-(
Form posting support Posted Dec 9, 2009 5:37 UTC (Wed) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
The company I work for does a similar thing where we send an email notification about quarantined email. I developed our form, in fact.
All that I can say is that if you used HTML form submit in your email, you must not have tested many email clients.
Back in 2002 I tested about 8 different clients and many didn't allow posting forms from the message. Some had a tough time with any HTML and didn't do CSS.
I ended up using a very plain table layout with query parameters in the release/trash/whitelist links and a plain text alternate with a "cut and paste this link for quarantine view" included.
Form posting support Posted Dec 9, 2009 13:50 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] All that I can say is that if you used HTML form submit in your email, you must not have tested many email clients. We know many email clients are broken, so we do in fact include individual accept/release links as a workaround. But up until now, we could confidently recommend Thunderbird to customers who wanted the "full experience" of the form. TB3 users will now have only partial functionality, like their unfortunate Outlook-using colleagues.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 10:17 UTC (Wed) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
If you have special needs and TB is vital to your companys success maybe you should get involved in its development. Complaining on LWN is surely less effective.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 15:24 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Well, I did file a bug and it was recently tagged "regression", so that's a hopeful sign... maybe TB3 will eventually be good after a few more releases.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 12, 2009 1:09 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Bug finding is all well and good, but if you have the skills and some free time, actually helping fix that form bug will be better for you and for everyone
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 14, 2009 16:31 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]
I do not have the free time. It would probably take me a week just to learn my way around the TB3 source code, let alone contribute anything useful.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 6:04 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> For me, Evolution is completely unusable (terrible IMAP and OWA performance; crashy MAPI support).
What's the support for MAPI/OWA like in TB?
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 16:16 UTC (Wed) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link]
MAPI/OWA support is nonexistent in TB (AFAIK). So I use IMAP instead. Of course, that's not an option for everyone, and it removes a significant part of Exchange functionality.
Since libmapi has an incompatible license, it's not going to be integrated with TB, and I haven't seen any signs of development of homegrown support either. I don't have a lot of optimism on that front.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 22:32 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> MAPI/OWA support is nonexistent in TB (AFAIK).
Yeah, that was my point (I was being sarcastic).
> So I use IMAP instead.
Well, yeah, if Exchange admins in your organisation are willing to do this. But what if they are not? What if company policy forbids this? There are many large organisations where things like that are simply not done. Linux users then have to use OWA (if that happens to be enabled, which is also not always the case) or better, MAPI. Sure, there are problems with MAPI support right now, but they are getting fixed (http://git.gnome.org/cgit/evolution-mapi). I reckon in about 2 releases from now it will be usable.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 11, 2009 14:38 UTC (Fri) by ceplm (guest, #41334) [Link]
> > MAPI/OWA support is nonexistent in TB (AFAIK).
> Yeah, that was my point (I was being sarcastic).
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 11, 2009 15:27 UTC (Fri) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link]
@ceplm
I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, as stated above, the links returned by your search confirm that, if your exchange server is configured to support IMAP, thunderbird can communicate with it.
That does not address bojan's point about TB completely lacking MAPI or Exchange Web Services (EWS) support. For those who can't convince their Exchange administrator to enable IMAP, thunderbird may not be able to access exchange at all (note: *if* OWA is enabled, there's an old, unsupported extension to TB-webmail to use OWA; I haven't tried it).
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 21, 2009 17:36 UTC (Mon) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]
And if Exchange is configured to do SMTP relay for local desktops: on networks where desktops have traditionally been Windows, insisting that all email from the desktop has to be via MAPI can limit the damage any malware will do.
(Yes, malware *can* use MAPI. In practice, it's much more likely just to use SMTP.)
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 16:43 UTC (Wed) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
> indexing of all messages. The disk usage and initial downloading
> are annoying, but it's hard to argue with the search performance
It seems to me that it would be better to fix this on the server, rather than the client.
The advantage of fixing it on the server is that it's available to all clients, and the downloading and client-side storage of all messages is avoided. One difficulty is that IMAP's search command doesn't really do exactly what the clients want. But that could be fixed by writing an IMAP extension.
I haven't been tracking developments in the IMAP server world. Have none of the major ones tried doing something like this?
Perhaps it's just a chicken-and-egg thing: the servers don't do it because the clients wouldn't use it, so the clients do it client-side. It's a bit strange that none of the main email projects include both client and server sub-projects; if they did, they'd be able to fix it.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 17:42 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
what is it that you want to do in a search that IMAP does not support?
I use cyrus for my IMAP server and it does a good job of indexing things there to make searches fast (at least for clients that support doing searches via IMAP commands)
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 21:50 UTC (Wed) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
> what is it that you want to do in a search that IMAP does not support?
I want to "google my email", i.e. I want to type "patagonia mountain photo" and have it find messages that contain those two words in the subject or the body, with exact matches first and more imprecise matches later (e.g. "photos of mountains in Patagonia"). The IMAP search command does not, IIRC, offer a syntax for an "imprecise search", and (again IIRC) it doesn't have a way to rank the results by the quality of the match.
TB3 is better for me - Not! Posted Dec 12, 2009 20:39 UTC (Sat) by bferrell (subscriber, #624) [Link]
no lightning for TB3 yet
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 15:59 UTC (Wed) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] You can get Evolution builds for Windows (also evince). I'm going to stick with Thunderbird on Windows for the moment though, since that's what the SOGo developers use, and I'm pretty sure Evo doesn't have any CalDAV scheduling support.
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 9, 2009 17:08 UTC (Wed) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Evolution has had CalDAV for a while. What it doesn't have is the way to upload calendars via
regular WebDAV.
(Well, it can publish your local calendars to a WebDAV URL, but it does not do a two-way sync like
TB3 is better for me Posted Dec 10, 2009 1:56 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] Evo has CalDAV, but not CalDAV scheduling which allows you to schedule without sending emails. CalDAV sched also isn't an RFC yet and has changed substantially between drafts so it's been a lot of work for implementers. Given Novell's lowered expenditure on Evo in recent years and the fact they're not a member of CalConnect I'm not surprised they haven't been working on it.
Search sucks Posted Dec 9, 2009 6:03 UTC (Wed) by grahame (subscriber, #5823) [Link]
The new 'search everything' sucks awfully, and yet always seems to be the
default. I tend to just use search by author + title; whoever added search everything obviously wants to force us to use it by making it an irritating default!
Threads Posted Dec 9, 2009 20:13 UTC (Wed) by tokiko (guest, #21085) [Link]
Still no threaded list view.
answering own comment :) Posted Dec 9, 2009 20:19 UTC (Wed) by tokiko (guest, #21085) [Link]
View -> Sort By -> Threaded
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 1:03 UTC (Thu) by dterei (guest, #45237) [Link]
Its OK but I'm pretty underwhelmed by it, especially since it took so long to get the thing out the door. I think Postbox (a commerical Thunderbird fork), is really what Thunderbird 3 should have been. So sad.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 2:21 UTC (Thu) by deucalion (guest, #12904) [Link]
Another largely disappointing major open source release pushing me towards other solutions, it seems.
I have 5gb of email on my computer and a few more on my IMAP accounts - downloading all email and indexing _everything_ somehow convinced me once more that I should look into migrating to Outlook.
I remember Netscape Messenger, I usually avoided any release of Outlook until work cought up with me and I had to handle quite a few contacts and do some scheduling; now it seems to me once more a "wow nice feature, let's implement this" release instead of a careful introduction of new features in Thunderbird. If the human lifespan was a few times more than 80-100 years, I'd probably have a look at the source and/or invest something into this and wait for it to get better... but then again, waiting for a certain competitor to implement a somewhat bearable subset of a few features I'd like within acceptable time seems more likely to happen soon than Thunderbird recovering from the comparetively rich-through-Google Mozilla Foundation and their neglect in continueing investing into Thunderbird as well.
(Oh and please spare me the "it's just a .0 release." If something doesn't do well for the user, you should make it possible and actually do disable it per default and show users how to enable it. There was a nice introductory page this time there, wasn't there?)
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 2:35 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
FYI, it is possible to disable this very easily. Edit => Preferences=> Advanced and uncheck Enable Global Search and Indexer.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 2:40 UTC (Thu) by deucalion (guest, #12904) [Link]
Thank you for pointing that out - and yes, I am aware of that option.
It just amazes me (in regard to that detail) how this feature was implemented without more attention to detail (e.g. what email to include in the indexer etc.) and make those configurable.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 3:29 UTC (Thu) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Cause Outlook is such a great email client. Especially on Linux.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 15:34 UTC (Thu) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
It would be nice if those who complain would have looked a bit more thoroughly. When I start up thunderbird-3.0 for the first time, a "Migration Assistant" tab is opened, and that offers:
Synchronize IMAP Messages: Buttons for "All" "None" and customize by account
New toolbar: "Use new toolbar" or "Use old toolbar" buttons
Smart folders mode: "Use smart folders mode" and "Use all folders mode" buttons
All three options have a nice help text going with it. So you can't really say they did not offer you a choice...
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 16:40 UTC (Thu) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Well, complaining(bitching) about change is not meant to involve objective research or common sense.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 16:49 UTC (Thu) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]
That is unfortunately true. I installed TB3 after those mainly negative reactions and I have to say, I like what I see.
I too disabled IMAP syncing, turned back on the old toolbar and turned off the unified INBOX. But that's quickly done:
- Finally a Reply-to-list button! (Ctrl-shift-L)
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2009 22:23 UTC (Thu) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]
Yeah, I think TB2 feels old today .. I had friends switch just because there was no change .. on the whole I think TB3 is a step in the right direction for Mozilla Messaging.
And anyways .. people on LWN are not really representative. For starters most users don't have their own IMAP server with lots of GB of mail.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 11, 2009 21:41 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link]
"And anyways .. people on LWN are not really representative. For starters most users don't have their own IMAP server with lots of GB of mail."
Yes, but some folks on LWN support lots of non-LWN users. And, believe me, while users may not have their own IMAP server, they surely are many who have LOTS of GB of mail, and use an IMAP server I support. <sarcasm>And they use Outlook for it's *wonderful* IMAP support.</sarcasm>
Many users, in my support experience, never delete e-mail. NEVER. And they send around giant files as attachments. Think powerpoints, movies, giant jpegs, etc.
Downloading everything as a default is not a great option. Making use of all IMAP server-side options before downloading in bulk is a great default option.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 11, 2009 22:17 UTC (Fri) by avik (guest, #704) [Link]
I use Thunderbird 3 at the end of long link to a multi-GB imap server, and it's great. I get the benefits of local performance with the synchronization of a server-side solution (I access email from three machines).
Before. I'd click on an email and wait. Now, it's already there waiting for me. It has really improved my email experience.
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 11, 2009 22:54 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link]
I think you may miss the context of my post. For a small office, with, say, 40 users, downloading giant gobs of e-mail for local indexing over a cheap DSL link is not fun. And adding to clients already taxed local disks seems to undermine a nice feature of IMAP - namely, keep the messages in a central location, and only download them on-demand, rather than blowing out the Internet gateway's bandwidth.
I'm not arguing with you, since you're talking about your own expectations from your MUA, but for a sysadmin of small networks (with non-profits with saturated slow Internet links), the "default" choices for apps which make heavy use of those links, makes a difference. I'm just saying, there is a cost to that convenience you like (and I, personally, like, too).
Cheers!
Thunderbird 3.0 released Posted Dec 11, 2009 23:05 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
in addition, if the reason for downloading the message is for spam filtering, it doesn't actually help to download all those huge attachments.
IMAP lets you download just the text portions that you want to scan, and not download the attachments at all unless the user asks for them
the current TB behavior of treating an IMAP server as if it was POP (just download everything and process it locally), really misses a lot of the benifits.
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