Following a discussion in the mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird group, I'm submitting this as a meta bug for achieving user-experience parity with the Thunderbird based email client Postbox. Postbox Inc's client is very sharp IMO, and offers a number of enhancements over Thunderbird in the way it deals with conversations views, message pane UI, and integration with webmail such as gmail. The client can be downloaded as a trial from here: http://www.postbox-inc.com/ A typical Lifehacker post on it is here: http://lifehacker.com/5855383/postbox-3-adds-gmail-labels-dropbox-attachments-and-more-to-its-awesome-email-client Postbox UI screencaps: http://i.imgur.com/yF4vH.png http://i.imgur.com/Z3RC9.png I've tried to aggregate together existing bugs and feature proposals that would be needed to (a) acheive UX parity, and (b) offer superior UX. These are just my opinions, but with Postbox being able to charge $30 for their client I think they are worth a look. BUGS/FEATURES THAT WOULD GIVE PARITY: x Two line message summaries, much easier to read/parse Postbox inbox is much easier/quicker to parse visually. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945 Bug 213945 - Mail/message listing/thread pane needs more organization in 3 vertical pane view (like Outlook, Lotus Notes et al.) Depends on: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=441414 Bug 441414 - Treerows need a way to hold richer content Bounty for this bug: http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p294 x Integrate and polish "Conversation-View" extension. https://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View Enabling view newest at top or bottom of conversation would be great. Some polish issues here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=241197 Bug 241197 - Add View>Thread>As Conversation, flat ala groups.google.com/gmail.com Other UI/UX issues here: https://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View/issues?labels=in-bugzilla%2Cui-ux&sort=created&direction=desc&state=open&page=1 x Australis UI redesign. Mockups are nice and clean IMO http://breakingtheegg.tumblr.com/post/18904507727/and-windows-7-the-menu-button-is-the-three http://breakingtheegg.tumblr.com/post/18902338028/from-the-exceedingly-talented-shorlander https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=734736 Bug 734736 - Port Bug 734374 to Thunderbird [Australis theme] x Send files using links to cloud storage - Postbox integrates Dropbox. e.g. FileLink https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698925 Bug 698925 - (BigFiles) add support for sending attachments via the cloud x Gmail account setup defaults: Under "Copies & Folder", Sent folder defaults should not select the "Place a copy in" option - this will place an extra sent copy on gmail labeled with "Sent/IMAP". x Option for using Gmail keyboard shortcuts - Many webmail services (e.g. Hotmail) offer this too. - Outlook users have implemented this via autohotkeys: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic81170.html BUGS THAT WOULD HELP EXCEED UX PARITY: x Compose new message in new tab https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449299 Bug 449299 - (tabbed_composition) Allow opening compose window in new tab (write messages in tabs; writing, composing mail) x Enable BigFiles service (Filelink) to use most major cloud storage services e.g. Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive (esp. synced folders), Amazon AWS etc. x Sync with webmail contacts e.g. Zindus extension for syncing contacts with gmail. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/zindus/ x Proposed "new email address" feature/dialogue box http://blog.mozilla.com/thunderbird/2012/02/28/how-about-a-new-email-address/ Could this be montized by offering preference to an email service provider such as gmail? x Built in pdf support from PDF.js Bug 714712 - add built-in PDF support to Firefox with PDF.js https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=714712

Have any bugs been filed for implementing Mike Conley's proposed "Modern Address Book"? https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Modern_Address_Book This feature would (perhaps by leveraging Mozilla Contacts - http://mozillalabs.com/contacts ) allow syncing and integration with online services such as webmail and iCloud, allowing Thunderbird to interact well with smartphones and general web platform service. This feature sounds great, especially with the address book in a tab. :) Last blog posts on the subject: http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/08/25/fidding-with-designs-for-a-future-thunderbird-address-book/ http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/09/07/creating-a-new-thunderbird-address-book-the-feature-page-and-some-literature/ http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/11/30/still-alive-2/

(In reply to timbugzilla from comment #1) > Have any bugs been filed for implementing Mike Conley's proposed "Modern > Address Book"? > > https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Modern_Address_Book > > This feature would (perhaps by leveraging Mozilla Contacts - > http://mozillalabs.com/contacts ) allow syncing and integration with online > services such as webmail and iCloud, allowing Thunderbird to interact well > with smartphones and general web platform service. > > This feature sounds great, especially with the address book in a tab. :) > > Last blog posts on the subject: > > http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/08/25/fidding-with-designs-for-a-future- > thunderbird-address-book/ > > http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/09/07/creating-a-new-thunderbird-address-book- > the-feature-page-and-some-literature/ > > http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2011/11/30/still-alive-2/ Hey Tim, No bugs as yet have been filed. I really, really, *really* want to start on working on a new address book though - especially since some really neat things have been sprouting with respect to the Contacts API (https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/ContactsAPI) and "social" (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/SocialAPI) in Mozilla-land. Hopefully, once some of these bigger features are cleared and polished (I'm looking at you Filelink / IM), I'll get the go-ahead to tackle this stuff head-on. -Mike

Hi Mike, thanks for the update! You certainly sound fired up to nail that new address book feature. :) If you could mark the implementation bug for it as blocking this meta-bug then that'd be great. Cheers, Tim.

(no reason to leave this unconfirmed - the real decisions must be made at individual bug level)