Thunderbird:UX/Priorities/3.1

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This page reflects where Mozilla Messaging is focusing its development energy during the Thunderbird 3.1 time frame. Note that the top priority for 3.1 is to provide a softer landing pad for Tb2 users so that we can offer a prompted major update. The things on this list that contribute to that are required for that are blockers, the rest are not.

If you have feedback on this list itself, please add it to the Discussion page.

Folks interested in participating in any of this work are encouraged to review and volunteer on the corresponding bugs (which will soon be) linked from this page.

Dialogs

• Turn off SMTP secure auth on failure bug 542065 - Roland - see also bug 522633 and http://gsfn.us/t/nvmd

Tabs

• Reorder tabs bug 468808
• Open new tabs beside parent tab bug 545552
• Return to parent tab after closing child tab bug 508776
• Closing Thunderbird w/ multiple tabs bug 527434
• Unread count for folders/searches in tab titles bug 488551
• Extensions installation (Sort of bug 526733)
• Favicons bug 516777

Search

• Quick Search / Full Search
  • Separate out Quick Search as a different entity from the Full Search bug 545955, bug 540257
    • asuth has this start [1]
• Search Results
  • Improve the results layout
    • Show folder message is in, allow people to open the folder with the message highlighted
    • Improve the attachments display
    • Show and highlight "match text" in message text display
    • When indexing is not yet completed (maybe also off)
  • Improve changing the search terms
    • involves
    • multiple search terms

Archive

• Improve the first time Archive experience bug 511741
• Keep Folder structure in Archive bug 522761

Look & Feel

• "new" messages in folders needs more than just a color bug 533695
  • color:Highlight on new is incorrect bug 523972
• Mac
  • Lighten up theme colors - we are very dark right now
  • Use or match system folder icons bug 545555
• Windows
  • Improve non-a11y theme bug 545557
• Linux
  • Composing an e-mail with the default theme in Ubuntu 10.04 is ugly bug 576829

Smart Folders

• Improve the Smart Folders transition through the Migration Asst
• Rename to "Unified Folders" — bug 545217
• Possibly make the default for new users only, upgrading users will see it as part of the migration assistant bug 545221
• Drop down chooser for more obvious way to change mode ???

Account Setup Wizard

• Improve the look
• Support out going SMTP user names bug 534604
• Easily change from IMAP to POP bug 532590
• Stop button not working quickly enough bug 549045
• POP accounts need warning about 14 day delete policy bug 531088

One-click Address Book

• Swap out the old Address Book context menu with our new one-click dialog (dialog needs improvements) bug 545559
• Choose which address book to save to in the dialog bug 456167

Mac Dock Icon (Unread/New) Count

• Need a way for people to get "new" count instead of unread, via extension or pref bug 518828

Attachment Reminder

• Improve the text of the notification bar to be less "geeky"

Activity Manager

• Handle the "empty" case where there hasn't been activity yet bug 545477
• POP message activity bug 535437

Migration Assistant

• Use a dialog that pops up on first run of Thunderbird bug 545563
  • Videos explaining different areas
  • Less text in the migration assistant and more pictures
  • Direct links to add-ons which solve some of the issues

Columns in Folder Pane

depends on mark's add-on installer work

• Offer direct link to Add-on from the Migration assistant page on this
• Detect that a person had this turned on and offer to install the add-on

Compact Header

depends on mark's extension work

• Better Migration assistant option for finding header add-ons
• Offer direct link to the Compact Header extension
  • Possibly detect the "collapsed" header mode from upgrade and offer the install in another dialog

AutoSync default

should be pushed as first page with bug 545563

• Improve the migration assistant experience for this feature
  • Display the amount of space that will be taken when this is turned on
• Possibly allow people to turn this on but limit the space used to a certain amount
  • (also needed for netbooks support)
• Always sync / collect addresses from the sent folder -

Archive

not blocking

• possibly make a page for showing off the archive feature

Tabs

not blocking

• possibly make a page for showing off the tabs, what you can do
  • also possibly allow people to show/hide the tabs

Search & Indexing

not blocking

• possibly create a page that details search and how it works
• possibly allow people to turn off indexing for performance reasons

Gloda perf for big mail stores

• have a pref to disable indexing on certain folders, probably in the folder properties — bug 545469
• display a summary of the amount of space the gloda index is taking bug 545479
• improve the search experience when gloda is turned off

Message Reader

Attachments Areas

• Save all attachments is difficult to access — bug 533921
• Improve the attachments area layout bug 466060

Message Header

• Fix the "more" for email addresses bug 456596
• Possibly finish the customize header buttons toolbar
• Reply button should just be a button instead of a menu-button bug 545930

First Use

Improve the first use of Thunderbird for new users