This is the fourth & final article about my impressions of the 2.0 beta 1 version of Thunderbird.
Folder Views
I was really confused by this one when I read this on Mozilla’s site, and like I said last night, I was hoping it would become clearer once I played with it. It is very clear now. Right above the folder pane, there is a new bar there that currently reads “All Folders”. This was such a subtle change, I missed it while looking around the UI. At the right end of that bar, you’ll see some arrows. Start clicking those arrows and it will switch to a different set of folders. The defaults right now are:
All Folders
Unread Folders
Favorite Folders
and Recent Folders.
I don’t see a way to add more categories to these, but maybe that’s something they will add…or let some enterprising Add-on developer take care of it…who knows.
Anyway, you can add folders to your Favorites list by right clicking (control click for Mac) on the folder and choosing Favorite Folder. You can also go to Edit > Favorite Folder. I can see this
becoming very popular with those who have a huge volume of email. You could have different pages of folders based on different projects, or one for Family, one for Work, one for your Rocket Club, etc with each view having different folders in them.
Folder Summary Popups and New Mail Notifications
I’m not getting either of these. Since this is only a developer’s release, I won’t gripe too much. I’m sure they are cool features, but I’m not getting either one to work.
Improved Filing
I can see how this would be helpful if you move lots of your messages. They added a “Recent Folders” at the top of the Move To dialog. I use Message Filters to move most of my messages, so I probably won’t see this feature very often.
Speaking of Message Filters, they added a “Match All Messages” option to the filters, but I don’t see this as much of an improvement. I’m still waiting for them to allow me to say match all these rules, and any of these rules. That way, I don’t have 30 rules just to move certain messages into a certain folder. It frustrating to have all the messages with the same subject line, but not ALL messages with that subject line need to be moved, just ones that have certain things in the message. Maybe someone will develop a filter-related add-on that will allow this.
Ok, so I’ve probably bored you to death and worn you out with my reviews so far. I read on the Monkey Bites review that he thought it was a little snappier performance-wise, but I didn’t really notice a major change.
I think my next article will be a wish list for things I still want to see added into the 2.0 release. Get ready to write!