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#Thunderbird Product Design manager @alecaddd answers a burning question with some important history, a look into the future, and some real talk.

blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/t…

Some of these talking points might be divisive. They might touch a nerve. But we believe in being transparent and open about both our past and our future.


The Future Of Thunderbird: Why We're Rebuilding From The Ground Up

"Why does Thunderbird look so old, and why does it take so long to change?" Let's answer that burning question with some important history.
Alessandro Castellani (The Thunderbird Blog)
#thunderbird @Aleca
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
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Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox

tl;dr:
Simply adding stuff on top of a crumbling architecture isn't sustainable, and we can’t keep ignoring it.

Throughout the next 3 years, we're aiming at these primary objectives:

1: Make the code base leaner and more reliable, rewrite ancient code, remove technical debt.

2: Rebuild the interface from scratch to create a consistent design system, as well as developing and maintaining an adaptable and extremely customizable user interface.

3: Switch to a monthly release schedule.

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jo

yeah this is a sore topic...

Email is a stone age technology. It's been feature complete for 15+ years.
What new things are you expecting to add?

As a user, I don't want a new UI.
I do want you to fix bugs. And I understand that tech debt makes that hard.

Just remember that Thunderbird is a productivity tool. Do not make the same dumb UX mistakes most phone app devs make these days. There is no need to "entertain" me.

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happyborg

I'm very worried by this. I've used Thunderbird for many years because it works well enough, on Windows and then Linux 👏 .

I don't use it for anything but email, filtered to folders, a massive decades old database of past conversations and contacts. That's it.

I don't want it 'enhanced' or rewritten because it doesn't need that. I could suggest improvements but if tech debt prevents that, fine.

Same with K9 email used for decades, now being messed with to make it look different 🤦‍♂️

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Thunderbird: Free Your Inbox

"A UI that looks and feels modern is getting initially implemented with version 115 in July, aiming at offering a simple and clean interface for “new” users, as well as the implementation of more customizable options with a flexible and adaptable interface to allow veteran users to maintain that familiarity they love."
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Mark Rotteveel

@happyborg I'll believe it when I see it, because "familiarity they love" is a superficial promise that you'll be able to recreate something that looks similar/familiar, not that it provides the same functionality or exact look-and-feel. And yes, I'm aware this may seem like I'm a nay-saying grumpy old man, but this happens again and again when applications rebuild their UI from the ground up, or "modernize" it.
@happyborg
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happyborg

Did I sound like I didn't understand? 🤷‍♂️ I understand, and I don't want it because I'm fine with it as it is. As noted I can think of minor improvements but I'm ok without if they're hard.

Rewriting *will* introduce bugs & likely UI incompatibilities.

Changing the UI is not improvement for me. I know and like the existing UI. Changing this causes problems for anyone used to the existing interface which for such a mature product is a lot of your users, I guess >95%. Not good IMO.

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Henrik Hemrin

I returned to Thunderbird last year after thinking of doing it for a long time. I like it! Now on macOS but going to use it on Linux instead/also. Regarding release frequency, a thought that in Linux I prefer to install from the preository (deb), so the releases to me will be dependent also on releases by the maintainers there (in my case currently Linux Mint or eventually Mint LMDE). Good luck with the future work on Thunderbird!