<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
I think this is a great idea.<br>
<br>
I did a mockup for this a while back but I can't seem to find it
now. It wasn't much but just started in the direction you're
talking about. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cl.ly/150M3p0f3t3S2W09323D">http://cl.ly/150M3p0f3t3S2W09323D</a><br>
<br>
Create a home tab which is always available and instead of requiring
a 3 pane window to always be open it's the home tab that is
required. This has a number of great improvements to the over all
system. <br>
<br>
* Instead of showing a 3 pane like tab (using an empty account page)
when Thunderbird is being setup we show the home tab<br>
* The only tab that can't be closed is the home tab instead of the 3
pane window. The home tab helps you launch other tabs like the 3
pane tab or add-on provided tabs.<br>
* Opening mail in new windows simply becomes opening TB in a new
window with a message reader tab and the home tab (likely the tab
row is hidden in this case); which avoids all the duplicate code of
the current separate window<br>
<br>
I'd love to help where I can. I'd say just get started on something
very simple and build from there. Currently AFAIK much of TB is
expecting a 3 pane running at all times so you'll likely hit most of
your issues there.<br>
<br>
~ Bryan<br>
<br>
On 11-04-17 9:26 AM, Jonathan Protzenko wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4DAB14B1.80501@gmail.com" type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
<h4>TL;DR</h4>
I've been thinking about the web tabs and the rss dashboard
experiments. I think a very nice project could be a Thunderbird
home tab, just like the Firefox home tab. It could unify web tabs,
rss dashboard, and possibly other information, into a single page
that's your entry point into Thunderbird, and that also gives you
an overview of everything that happens in your Thunderbird. Plus,
it could provide a consistent experience between Firefox and
Thunderbird.<br>
<br>
<h4>Rationale</h4>
Alex Faaborg has been talking recently about the Firefox home tab
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2011/04/13/the-firefox-home-tab/"><http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2011/04/13/the-firefox-home-tab/></a>
that he envisions for Firefox 6. He wants it to store various
pieces of information: people, websites, history, bookmarks, tabs
and tabs groups... I'm stricken by how useful that could be for
Thunderbird as well. Think about the various types of actions you
do with Thunderbird:<br>
- check new mail,<br>
- check rss feeds,<br>
- tweak account settings,<br>
- email people,<br>
- open web apps into Thunderbird tabs,<br>
- etc. etc.<br>
<br>
All these actions match what Alex describes in his blog post, and
I think we could display each one of these items into a
Thunderbird home tab that's your entry point for Thunderbird. It
would allow you to:<br>
- have a widget that displays most recent emails,<br>
- have a widget that displays most recent RSS feeds,<br>
- have an area that allows you to customize settings for each one
of your accounts,<br>
- have an area with your favorite contacts,<br>
- have an area that allows you to open web apps such as Facebook
and Twitter as Thunderbird tabs,<br>
- etc. etc.<br>
<br>
(Each one of the bullet points above is supposed to match the
corresponding bullet point from the first list). It would look
like a Firefox app tab, glow when something new happens, etc. etc.
Alex's home tab is constantly open and appears leftmost in the
Firefox tab bar. I think that's something that could prove
relevant for Thunderbird as well. Various UI items are not
discoverable easily (think account settings vs. general settings),
and I think it could provide a great starting point for all your
Thunderbird-related actions.<br>
<br>
<h4>Mockup</h4>
As a proof of concept, and just for RSS Feeds, I've uploaded my
RSS Dashboard experiment to AMO <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/rss-tab/"><https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/rss-tab/></a>.
It's braindead simple, and works minimally, but I just wanted to
show that we could build cool stuff with just a few lines of JS in
Thunderbird. If that were ever to happen, we could reuse the code
from the RSS Dashboard, and from Webtabs, to create a great
experiment.<br>
<br>
If anyone stands interested, I'd love to implement this and devote
some time to this, as I believe it's highly valuable. However, the
catch is I'm <b>pretty bad at design and UX</b>. Therefore, I
don't know who's the right person to ping for this. With Mozilla
Messaging now being reintegrated into Mozilla,<br>
- can we expect Firefox UX people to be interested in contributing
to this?<br>
- can we expect Bryan and Andy to be interested in this, or are
they going to be more focused on F1-related stuff, and not
available for Thunderbird work?<br>
<br>
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this! Do you think it is a
good direction? Do you think I would be wasting my time?<br>
<br>
Have a nice Sunday all,<br>
<br>
jonathan<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>