git ssb

title: "Tabbed Thunderbird" date: 2005-04-03 01:53 status: published description: > Proposal for a one-pane interface for Thunderbird

tags: Mozilla, Thunderbird

links:

• url: http://getthunderbird.com
  title: "Thunderbird" rel: related type: text/html
• url: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218999
  title: "Bugzilla@Mozilla – Bug 218999 – Thunderbird should use a tabbed interface" rel: related type: text/html

<p>
I've been thinking (albeit briefly) about a <a href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218999" title="Bug 218999 - Thunderbird should use a tabbed interface (bugzilla.mozilla.org)">tabbed interface for Thunderbird</a>, or rather a one-pane interface. It looks pretty simple. </p>
<p>
(Disclaimer: it's 02:17 <abbr title="British Summer Time">BST</abbr> so thoughts may appear partially-formed, deformed, misinformed and/or Nazi-uniformed; I'll proof-read this at an undetermined future time.) </p>
<pre>
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | @ Mooquackwooftweetmeow Thunderbird - + X | | File Edit View Go Message Tools Help | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | @@@ @@@ | @@@ @@@ | | @@@ @@@ | @@@ @@@ | | Get Mail Stop | Compose Etc. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ _ _ _ | ||Gmail||Airmail||aRSSe Feeds||Newsgroups of the World|_| | _ __ _ _ __ | ||Home||Inbox||Drafts||Sent||Trash||Re: Taking over world||Compose: Re: Taking over world|| | | | Subject: Re: Taking over world | | From: rb@virgin.co.uk | | Date: 2005-04-01 08:32 | | To: billyg@mozilla.org | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Friday sounds good | | -- | | Richard | | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | ~ | | Unread: 0 | Total: 4781 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ </pre>
<p>
The basic idea is that the current 3-pane system is condensed into a set of nested tabs. Each account's <samp>Home</samp> tab shows pretty options like Thunderbird's current server pages. <samp>Inbox</samp>, <samp>Sent</samp> and friends look much like the current messages pane. Messages' previews would appear beneath the messages' list item, in the style of webpage-bound, JavaScript-driven expandable <abbr title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</abbr> lists. All of these tabs would be immutable. </p>
<p>
When a message is double-clicked (or middle-clicked) or a <samp>Compose</samp>-like action is chosen, a new tab would be opened under the appropriate account. These tabs can be closed and perhaps rearranged, imitating Firefox's tabs. When sending a message, progress would be indicated in the status bar, not in a pop-up dialogue. </p>