---
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>