Okay, that's scary. It's like a one half of a conjoined twin trying to remove the other half from their lives. Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. Yeah, scary.

Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.

If you are referring to Mozilla Messaging and the period to 2012, no the only transitioning was in terms of product functionality. The community organized in 2014, unaffiliated with Mozilla, and it's not until about 2018 when staff were hired that community leadership were able to seriously reduce technical debt. But seriously reducing dependency on Firefox code is some distance away.

> Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much?

You are looking a millions of dollars paid developer time.

> Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.

Mozilla are not running the show here, the community is.

Perhaps it's difficult to keep up with the history, but https://blog.thunderbird.net/ has past relevant postings, plus developer and other mailing lists. To cite a couple, big changes in encryption https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-an... https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December... and development priorities http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunder... which includes a new address book.

There is a significant professional development staff which is nicely paid, and the number of developers will soon double. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/

Unlike a web browser, email has not changed much in the last 15 years, so I don't see why development needs to advance at a high speed.

I doubt that any UX fashion statements are going to be enough to make up for the huge loss of functionality.

0: https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/

https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a...

However I have not found a way to connect it to O365. If anyone has figured it out, I'd love to know how.

As a daily user for 10+ years I can say there is certainly room to incrementally improve TB in many areas, like calendar and contacts, but don't mess with UX success.

I unfortunately can't remember my complaints to make them more specific for a lively discussion, but I guess I am an anecdotal counter-point for thinking the UX was actually not a success.

Car manufacturers don't try to reinvent the steering wheel & pedals UI every couple years.

Also, I see that a dark mode would be a requirement today as everything else either complies with OS's dark mode setting (Windows 10, OS X) or has it's own dark theme.

The modernization of the FF UI, combined with the reduction in the ability to customize it enough to make it the way I want, is one of the reasons I stopped using Firefox (not the main reason, though!)

Whatever TB does, I hope they at least allow people the ability to modify the UI enough to make both of us happy!

Seriously, can I just have frames back instead of the "our whole site is one HUGE page" trend.

I work a rotating six week schedule with different workdays week to week. In iCal/Apple Calendar, I can intuitively copy/paste events to a different day of the week if the rotation changes. Thunderbird, with its 90s UI, doesn’t provide you with this option.

I’ve found refuge in eM Client on Windows, but it took a while before I came across the app.

I use thunderbird for email and calendar for calendar. When i compared Apple Mail with Thunderbird i found quirks small tech issues with Apple Mail especially when using something else than gmail.

Why should the baby be thrown out with the bathwater, just to chase cosmetic trends?

Can you give a compelling technical reason why this would be good for users, without using superficial UX fashionista platitudes?

Just because something isn't "on trend" doesn't mean it is bad. Some of the most important and beloved software has user interfaces that have not changed in decades.

I don't care if a UX designer would be embarrassed to use it in front of other mail clients. Trying to chase trends will usually just leave your software looking dated, anyway.

Unless you're willing to roll up your sleeves and keep existing functionality with your new trendy UX, then don't bother, because deprecating real functionality at the cost of a superficial fashion statement is really egregious and it needs to stop.

Nobody wants their workboots replaced with tennis shoes. And especially not because a UX designer wanting to stroke their ego and make a name for themselves.

Most of the sibling comments here are a “get off my lawn” type variety that IMHO are not fully informed by what good UX means. Great design isn’t superficial, in the least. A great user experience is a great user experience... it doesn’t mean compromising because something was hard, and it doesn’t throw away how the product is used or has evolved.

We should be aiming to improve and innovate to be helpful, not stagnate. And improvement means people’s existing needs are considered, not disregarded as many here seem to think.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The complaint I am making, is that a lot of UX design is superficial, and done for the wrong reasons. Most of what Mozilla has done is terrible.

They've essentially gutted their browser because they want to be cool like Google.

While I don’t personally know the designers at Mozilla, I’m doubtful that they simply “wanted to be cool like Google” and instead did their own research. I could be wrong but usually work isn’t so arbitrarily done for large products and teams.