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On 10-12-20 3:37 PM, Jim wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D0FE8D0.7000800@gmail.com" type="cite">Lately,
I've been feeling the itch to contribute to Thunderbird in some
"significant" way, though I'm rapidly running out of things I can
think of to do (the last thing I've got is bug 282068 to fix up
the attachment pane in the message reader). I wouldn't be
surprised if there are other people in the same situation as me,
so maybe it would be a good idea for people to suggest worthwhile
projects/addons for Thunderbird.
<br>
</blockquote>
Awesome! You rock and we should be sending you <i>another</i>
t-shirt if we haven't already.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4D0FE8D0.7000800@gmail.com" type="cite">By way
of example, here are a couple of ideas I've had, although I have
no idea if they're things people would really care about:
<br>
<br>
* Reorganize account settings / preferences
<br>
</blockquote>
Dragons! But if you were to start on something like this I would
give my (new) standard recommendation. Start with a tab and a
browser element and HTML. We could then flatten all the preferences
<b>and</b> account settings into a single page with some accordion
like expand collapse trickery. This would be slightly difficult
work because it's full of crazy edge cases but you could also
transition the existing UI over as you implemented different pieces.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4D0FE8D0.7000800@gmail.com" type="cite">*
Update address book backend to support SQLite (may be a big
project)
<br>
* Update address book UI
<br>
</blockquote>
I think these two are one in the same because you really need to
start with a new storage system to have more than two email
addresses, etc. Again (new) standard start: tab, browser, HTML. I
would use Gloda as the "Collected Address Book" and use your own
SQLite version as the new address book that will be organizing the
contacts that Gloda has found and others that may be imported or
entered. The UI for this is fairly simple set of pages which list
contacts and list a persons contact information.<br>
<br>
Like Dan said, you should definitely check out the Contacts add-on -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mozillalabs.com/messaging/thunderbird-contacts/">https://mozillalabs.com/messaging/thunderbird-contacts/</a> as any
future facing address book should understand that people exist on
multiple messaging systems.<br>
<br>
In designing a new address book I would also include a way (via
plugins?) for different sites to update ephemeral information about
people. e.g. Current location via Google Latitude or similar,
current status via status.net/twitter or similar. But that's
getting pretty far ahead.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4D0FE8D0.7000800@gmail.com" type="cite">Does
anyone else have ideas for high-value projects for Thunderbird?
<br>
</blockquote>
Both are awesome projects and I have some designs for either, if
you're interested I could find them and we could chat about ideas.
I've got some free time in these next couple weeks as most people
are on vacation and I'm here catching up on other work.<br>
<br>
The UX Priorities is also a good place to look. Be sure to ping any
of the bugs before you start digging into the work just so people
have a heads up as plans could have changed since they were first
filed.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
~ Bryan<br>
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