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On 2014-07-23T16:31:22+00:00 Mike-mayr wrote:

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140715215148

Steps to reproduce:

Installed verion 31; running Ubuntu 12.4


Actual results:

When composing mail, the fields to, subject, reply-to, ect. are grey
like non clickable or editable parts of the window.


Expected results:

They should be in a lighter color to be recognizable as text fields.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/5

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On 2014-07-23T17:47:46+00:00 Cranberrydoughan wrote:

Yes, I can confirm this. The boxes don't look totally out of place now.
Thunderbird 31 screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/6t1VD4F.png
Thunderbird 24.6.0 screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/Pdj9vrN.png

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/6

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On 2014-07-25T20:09:49+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

This was an intentional change made across platforms that makes text
fields appear as single lines when text needs to be entered instead of
the bulkier text fields. However, it seems the general consensus is that
the gray (which originally wasn't so dark, but was changed to follow the
Distro's styling) gives the appearance of disabled fields on many linux
distributions (especially Ubuntu).

I think we could probably clean up the linux styling. I haven't heard of
any Windows or OS X usability reports. I'll take a look.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/8

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On 2014-07-26T14:19:50+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

*** Bug 1042732 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/9

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On 2014-07-26T14:44:15+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

I'm worried that our need to try to use the theme's color for the
background is one of the issues here. We wanted the new fields to show
up and be visible on dark, light, grey, and colored themes, but this
makes the styling a little bulky.

Richard, if I implement something that checks the background color (I
think we're suing -moz-dialog-color), for brightness and can detect
whether it's more light or more dark, would you be okay if we have two
styles (A dark and light one) only, therefore allowing us to be more
specific?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/10

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On 2014-07-26T14:58:11+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS user here, running the default Ambiance GTK Theme: I am
having usability issues.

First, the grey text fields look non-editable, or alternatively, look
like they have already been "finalised" and that I am "ready to send".
To me, both alternatives are confusing and break the flow of composing
and sending an e-mail. When opening a new compose window, the first "to"
field is highlighted in white and thus is not grey. But e.g. when I type
the message first, I have already "forgotten" to add a recipient.

Second, the grey text fields do not only look non-editable, but there is
also no distinct separation between "from" and "to" and again between
"to" and "subject". This makes it even harder to recognise that a
recipient is missing. In addition, this makes it harder to locate and
compose the subject line, esp. when several recipients have already been
added.

I have been led here by an Ubuntu bug report on Launchpad,
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305 The
fact alone that users are judging this to be a bug rather then a GUI
cleanup should raise attention. These issues get worse with even just
slightly "darker" themes like e.g. the popular Numix GTK theme.

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/11

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On 2014-07-26T15:20:59+00:00 Programmieren wrote:

While I completely understand the intention of this change and agree
mostly, I have some concerns with this implementation:

- No distinction between sender, recipients and subject.
- Depending of the theme the horizontal lines look ugly / too thick.
- Widget of the drop-down menu doesn't respect the system widget toolkit theme.
- Input fields appear to be disabled (grayed out).
- Hovering with the mouse looks disturbing, contrast between gray/white too high.

I think it would look great with some improvements. Either try to make
it compatible with all system themes or use only custom widgets (and
respect only background/foreground color).

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/12

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On 2014-07-26T17:29:55+00:00 Richard Marti wrote:

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #4)
> Richard, if I implement something that checks the background color (I think
> we're suing -moz-dialog-color), for brightness and can detect whether it's
> more light or more dark, would you be okay if we have two styles (A dark and
> light one) only, therefore allowing us to be more specific?

I'm okay with a brightness check and special rules for darker and
lighter backgrounds. if you haven't started on detection code you could
look at bug 940393 and bug 988191 where the window brightness is
checked. I used (or better copied) this code in bug 1003295 for TB.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/13

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On 2014-07-26T23:34:05+00:00 reetp wrote:

A basic workaround until hopefully this gets cleared up :

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2798693

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/14

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On 2014-07-28T20:16:20+00:00 4aeikob02 wrote:

This is a problem in Windows 7, too.  The From, To, and CC fields and
even the drop-down boxes are now all the same blue color as the
background, making them no longer look like editable text fields.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/15

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On 2014-07-29T15:13:10+00:00 Randy Syring wrote:

I'm using xubuntu and I too thought (and still think) it should be a
bug.  What didn't work about the old way?  Another case of significant
UI changes that have no benefit and just cause confusion and frustration
for long-time users, IMO anyway.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/16

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On 2014-07-31T21:16:35+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

Some more feedback from the unsuspecting user's perspective: To me, it
seems that the new, greyed-out UI design is encouraging a kind of
"linear" approach to composing an e-mail:

First, add recipient (when field is highlighted in white), then add
subject line (before you forget it, otherwise Thunderbird will give you
a friendly reminder), then write message text. This kind of "guided
linear thinking" simply does not fit my thinking. I have caught myself
hesitating to change the subject line when I thought of a better one
while writing the message text, again because the subject line looked
un-editable.

Really, I am trying to make use of this new UI, but I keep failing. Or
is it rather the UI that is failing me? All has been working just fine
before. Will there at least be an option or an add-on to "get back", or
rather to be able to "think forward"?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/17

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On 2014-08-01T16:52:21+00:00 Ralph Eckloff wrote:

Hello,

I am on Ubuntu and i use Thunderbird for a long time.
When I first opened the new compose window I thought
it is a bug and restarted my laptop.
I have not seen such an atypical interface before, and
I would like to suggest to release it not as default, but 
as an option.   

Greetings
Ralph

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/18

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On 2014-08-01T16:54:33+00:00 Ralph Eckloff wrote:

Hello,

I am on Ubuntu and I use Thunderbird for a long time.
When I first opened the new compose window I thought
it is a bug and restarted my laptop.
I have not seen such an atypical interface before, and
I would like to suggest to release it not as default, but 
as an option.   

Greetings
Ralph

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/19

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On 2014-08-03T11:01:49+00:00 Richard Marti wrote:

*** Bug 1047986 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/20

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On 2014-08-03T11:33:58+00:00 Calimeroteknik wrote:

Oh, JosiahOne broke the theming again!
I had a hunch it was you, due to the grained background inserted along with the problematic flat-design text fields.

A general remark about this Josiah: on libre *nix systems which use GTK+
theme (such as GNU/linux, freeBSD and so on), you should *really* stick
to using the widgets of the GTK theme the user specified.

Anything else only leads to (user-unfixable) breakage, see this
screenshot for the compose window:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8466769

That looks just like locked text fields now, doesn't it?

Cheers!

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/21

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On 2014-08-03T12:32:35+00:00 Exie wrote:

Looks strange on Windows XP too. This particular change wasn't lucky at
all across most platforms.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/22

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On 2014-08-03T13:34:52+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

(In reply to calimeroteknik from comment #15)
> Oh, JosiahOne broke the theming again!
> I had a hunch it was you, due to the grained background inserted along with
> the problematic flat-design text fields.
> 
> A general remark about this Josiah: on libre *nix systems which use GTK+
> theme (such as GNU/linux, freeBSD and so on), you should *really* stick to
> using the widgets of the GTK theme the user specified.
> 
> Anything else only leads to (user-unfixable) breakage, see this screenshot
> for the compose window:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8466769
> 
> That looks just like locked text fields now, doesn't it?
> 
> Cheers!

I don't really think so, no. But Thanks for the feedback, and as I said
earlier, I am investigating/thinking about improvements. I have a
feeling most complaints here are more about its look and not really
usability, but perhaps we could make things clearer without making it
*so* minimal.

(Just as a note, the passive aggressiveness is not helpful especially
when you're targeting volunteer developers such as myself. I did cause
the grain, but also fixed it, as well as over 100 other bugs for 31.)

Blake, sorry to do this to you, but what thoughts do you have on the
compose ui for all platforms, Linux in particular. Any improvement
ideas?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/23

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On 2014-08-03T13:50:12+00:00 Randy Syring wrote:

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #2)
> This was an intentional change made across platforms that makes text fields
> appear as single lines when text needs to be entered instead of the bulkier
> text fields.

For what its worth, I think this is the root of the problem.  What's
wrong with a "bulkier" text field?  What benefit does changing to single
lines bring?  The text box motive makes sense and has worked for years
and years and years.  I've used them on Windows, Linux, and OSX.  And I
never, ever, even once, considered that the compose UI at all felt
bulky.

Why was it changed?  If there was no valid reason, other than "they
seemed bulky to me" please, for the love of Thunderbird, change them
back.

I just find it ironic that that are bugs in Thunderbird that have been
around for years that no one seems to care about but then UI elements
get changed that didn't need to be changed in the first place.

It's NOT better and it is NOT an improvement.  There was nothing "wrong"
in the first place. :(

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/24

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On 2014-08-03T14:10:40+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

The point was to make things look nicer and to pave the way to the
future changes to the compose ui. Things will eventually be entered in
one field, with multiple addresses per line, improved contact support,
drag and drop address movement and other cool things. However, In an
effort to accomplish this, we want to get away from classical and dated
ui.

That's the reason, hope it clears things up a little.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/25

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On 2014-08-03T14:21:08+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #17)

> I have a feeling most complaints here are more about its look and not
really usability

Just to avoid any misunderstanding: All that I have been writing here
concerns usability, not the "look" (cf. start of comment # 5 "(...) I am
having usability issues."). Also the other comments here to me seem to
relate to usability. The term "look" alone does not need to imply that
just the "look" is being referred to: if an editable text field does not
"look" like an editable text field, but on the contrary non-editable,
that is clearly a usability issue, isn't it?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/26

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On 2014-08-03T14:27:24+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

Except you did figure out you could edit them didn't you? So perhaps
there is a learning curve that could be reduced some, but I don't think
people will suddenly be unable to send messages. Several other co-
developers stated that, although they were at first thrown by the
change, they later came to get used to it, and in most cases, preferred
the new look.

No other developers who work on the product considered it a usability
issue though.

Anyway, before any other comments are made, let's wait for Blake to
weigh in. He's the UX lead.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/27

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On 2014-08-03T14:40:00+00:00 Calimeroteknik wrote:

@JosiahOne sorry if I felt aggressive before, I really intended none of
it…

(In reply to Randy Syring from comment #18)
> (In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #2)
> > This was an intentional change made across platforms [...]
> It's NOT better and it is NOT an improvement.  There was nothing "wrong" in the first place. :(

More importantly even, I believe that it is more important to stick to
the look'n'feel of the OS's UI toolkit and theme. In a desktop system,
it's really nice when you can get the theme used uniformly across
applications.

An application that decides to theme widgets differently from the others
isn't quite good news to the user.

If these changes improve MacOSX integration, they could maybe be kept
for MacOSX specifically. But aren't there themes as well on OSX?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/28

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On 2014-08-03T17:07:26+00:00 Bwinton-a wrote:

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #17)
> Blake, sorry to do this to you, but what thoughts do you have on the compose
> ui for all platforms, Linux in particular. Any improvement ideas?

While I love the look of the text fields currently, perhaps we could
scale it back a little, and always show the white boxes of the focused
state…  It's a little more busy, but not totally heinous.

(In reply to calimeroteknik from comment #22)
> More importantly even, I believe that it is more important to stick to the
> look'n'feel of the OS's UI toolkit and theme. In a desktop system, it's
> really nice when you can get the theme used uniformly across applications.

You are certainly within your rights to believe that, but I'm afraid I
disagree with you.  There's a balance to be struck between looking like
each OS, and looking like Thunderbird.  You can see how Firefox is
trying to balance their application at
http://people.mozilla.org/~jgruen/chameleon/#nav7 and having Thunderbird
strike a similar balance seems like the right choice to me.

(As a side note, Josiah, you can see in that screenshot how the urlbar
remains white even when unfocused.  That's kind of what I'm thinking of
for our compose fields.  Of course we have more of them, so it won't be
as clean, but I think I can live with that.  Oh, you should also ping
Paenglab on irc, and see if he has any thoughts, since he is the Theme
owner and all.  :)

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/29

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On 2014-08-03T20:31:41+00:00 Josiah-l wrote:

Sounds good, thanks Blake!

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/30

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On 2014-08-05T09:55:48+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #21)
> Except you did figure out you could edit them didn't you? So perhaps there
> is a learning curve that could be reduced some, but I don't think people
> will suddenly be unable to send messages. Several other co-developers stated
> that, although they were at first thrown by the change, they later came to
> get used to it, and in most cases, preferred the new look.

I have given the new compose window UI a fair shot, and by now I have
decided to "work around it". Yes, I could probably get used to the new
UI and its deviating way of displaying editable text fields in contrast
to all other applications and in contrast to all other windows of
Thunderbird itself. But I just do not see the point (in a way, just like
I would not see the point of getting used to enter "Open Sesame" in
order to be able to edit a specific text field).

I have contributed here because the defaults matter and because I care
for Thunderbird. Thank you for listening.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/31

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On 2014-08-05T13:42:55+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

Created attachment 8467753
TB31_css.png

Thanks to the Mozilla/Thunderbird community, by now there are serveral
starting points for basic workarounds: In continuation of comment #8
referring to

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2798693

I would like to point to

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2858087

I am attaching a screenshot of what this latest userChrome.css approach
looks like on my machine (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, default Ambiance GTK theme).

By posting this, I do not intend to diminish the work that the
Thunderbird developers are continuously putting in, highest respect from
my side. This is only intended as an additional help for those who might
be presently unhappy.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/32

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On 2014-08-05T21:27:44+00:00 Calimeroteknik wrote:

(In reply to Guido Zoellner from comment #26)
Some of that CSS does kind of improve the situation, but I still get that weird flat design, with next to no contrast, and therefore really hard to use.

(In reply to Blake Winton (:bwinton) from comment #23)
> (In reply to calimeroteknik from comment #22)
> > In a desktop system, it's really nice when you can get the theme used uniformly across applications.
> 
> You are certainly within your rights to believe that, but I'm afraid I
> disagree with you.  There's a balance to be struck between looking like each
> OS, and looking like Thunderbird.
I'm actually very sad it came so far as to having to say this:
I have no idea what “looking like Thunderbird” should even mean. An application has a purpose and an usage; giving it an “identity” by doing unusual and disorientating things with the design of functional parts of it is a slippery slope up from functionality down to nobody knows what.
> You can see how Firefox is trying to balance their application at
> http://people.mozilla.org/~jgruen/chameleon/#nav7 and having Thunderbird
> strike a similar balance seems like the right choice to me.
So far, firefox has always kept its UI in sync with the system theme colors, and anyway complies with the worldwide standards of text fields coloring; the matter at hand is that currently, that's not quite what thunderbird does.

Firefox looks good, so I think that everybody would be satisfied with an
alignment to that, indeed!

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/33

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On 2014-08-06T17:35:52+00:00 Ralph Eckloff wrote:

Hello,

I would like to share my experience with the new compose window.
Over the last few das I forgot to fill in the subject line a couple of times.
That is something new to me and I therefore will try one of the workarounds.

Ralph

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/34

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On 2014-08-06T20:46:22+00:00 Reihar wrote:

The style looks a bit weird on Windows 8.1 too. As mentioned earlier,
the fields do not look editable anymore nor prettier.

http://i.imgur.com/pMpkBbN.png

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/35

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On 2014-08-06T21:23:42+00:00 Ralph Eckloff wrote:

(In reply to Reihar from comment #29)
> The style looks a bit weird on Windows 8.1 too. As mentioned earlier, the
> fields do not look editable anymore nor prettier.
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/pMpkBbN.png

Hi,
I have tried the workaround by konrad79 pointed to in comment #26
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=13699151#p13699151
You can see a screenshot of the result attached to this bug report.
https://bug1042780.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=8467753
This is my favourite and I hope it works for you as well.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/36

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On 2014-08-13T16:31:10+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

:aceman's comments from bug 960672 (which apparently introduced this
change) seem relevant, and match my own sentiments fairly well. I don't
see any response to them there; were they discussed elsewhere, or just
not taken into account?

For myself, I find this change highly aggravating. I've finally managed
to get all the parts of the TB2 UI which I found essential restored, and
when they finally make it into a release version, that version has
*another* new undesirable-to-me UI change with no apparent way to
effectively revert it...

I really hope some way (whether userChrome.css or add-on or something
else) can be found to 100% restore the old UI in this regard, at least
visually, because I really don't want to stay on Thunderbird 2 for
another year or more; I wanted to move off of it more than a year ago,
in point of fact. The screenshots I've seen of the userChrome changes
proposed so far don't seem entirely satisfactory; I haven't had the time
to dig through the patch that made the change and see what might be
required to just revert it wholesale, but I'm not entirely confident of
that being a productive approach, since I don't know of any way in CSS
to *remove* a style rather than overriding it with a different one.
(Doing it in JS, via an extension, doesn't seem likely to be much
easier.)


Also, just to note, in regard to comment 19:

* Thanks for explaining the rationale behind the change. Shouldn't that
have been included in the original bug?

* I disagree that this makes things look nicer. IMO this looks
considerably worse.

* Although most of the features you described as upcoming do indeed
sound cool, I don't want "one field, with multiple addresses per line".
I've seen that in Outlook, and while it has an advantage in information
density, it's also harder to read and harder to work with IMO than the
discrete separation of one address per line.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/38

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On 2014-08-13T17:45:14+00:00 reetp wrote:

(In reply to Andrew Buehler from comment #31)
> 
> Also, just to note, in regard to comment 19:
> 
> * I disagree that this makes things look nicer. IMO this looks considerably
> worse.

+1,000,000

> 
> * Although most of the features you described as upcoming do indeed sound
> cool, I don't want "one field, with multiple addresses per line". I've seen
> that in Outlook, and while it has an advantage in information density, it's
> also harder to read and harder to work with IMO than the discrete separation
> of one address per line.

+1,000,000

Don't need drag and drop either. Just more complicated code to go wrong.

The changes might look 'cool' but I don't want cool. I want to work, and
with a UI that doesn't confuse me. If I really wanted an Outlook
lookalike, I'd go install Outlook.

Screens these days are big enough that designers really shouldn't be
having to worry about every single pixel. And for those with poorer eye
sight, cramming stuff together must me murder.

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #19)
>Except you did figure out you could edit them didn't you? So perhaps there is a learning curve that 
>could be reduced some, but I don't think people will suddenly be unable to send messages.

Yes, I figured it out but I find the comment a little insulting. We
aren't all dumb thanks, but you severely interrupted my work flow and
caused me to make mistakes. That is seriously uncool, annoying and
unnecessary with good design.


(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #19)

> I have a feeling most complaints here are more about its look and not
really usability,

Maybe it's you who hasn't figured it out. The usability is awful, and
that is due to the changes you have made. The look is pants too.....

See Comment 28 for instance

"Over the last few days I forgot to fill in the subject line a couple of
times"

I did exactly the same as well. That's when the trouble started....

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #19)

> we want to get away from classical and dated ui

It works. YOU might want to get away from it, but what about the people
who actually use it ? Personally it is fine the way it is. I don't want
dumbed down pretty boxes - if I do I'll go find some theme thing, not
that I have ever bothered til I looked for a fix for this mess.

Look at what is happening - Palemoon rising from Firefox, Fossamail,
Mint on the back of Ubuntu, and dare I say it Windows 8 ?

People don't always want fancy new UIs they don't understand or can't
work with or that upsets their workflow. Change needs to be slow, well
thought out and intuitive, not a rush over the precipice just trying to
keep up with 'the Joneses', and one that doesn't leave an enormous
mountain of bugs lying collecting dust for years, or create new ones
like the hanging forever Address book search we now have.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/39

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On 2014-08-13T17:58:45+00:00 Bwinton-a wrote:

I'm getting tired of reading Mr. Crisp's rants, so I'm going to
unsubscribe myself from this bug.

Later,
Blake.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/40

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On 2014-08-14T12:54:14+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

Before even reading any intervening comments, I'd like to apologize for
the tone of my previous comment.

It's just that it's depressing to go from the positive thought of "today
I'm going to finally migrate to a new Thunderbird, with all the problems
I've had with it fixed!" to "oh, there's now even more problems to fix,
and there's no hope of getting them fixed upstream because they're
intentional changes.". Add in the difficulty (impossibility?) of
reverting / ignoring CSS changes, as opposed to explicitly overriding
them with hardcoded values, and my frustration boiled over.

Since my previous comment, I've discovered that part of the reason I
didn't think any of the existing userChrome.css fixes were enough to
revert the change is that I was trying to revert the compose UI to the
form it had in TB2, whereas the form the existing fixes were trying to
restore is apparently one which was introduced sometime between TB5 and
TB8. I think I can probably adjust to that form of the UI if necessary,
I just wasn't expecting it to have changed.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/41

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On 2014-08-14T14:25:53+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

It looks like the currently-latest version of the reverting CSS in the
MozillaZine thread currently linked to from comment 8 does mostly work.
The only issues I see left (on Linux) are that the border between the
toolbar with the Send button is now a shadow rather than a simple line,
and that there is no longer a darker line between the Subject box and
the actual compose-message-body pane (on, or just below, what I think is
the resize-dragger widget).

I've been poking around trying to fix the latter, as the more
egregiously noticeable of the two, but I haven't been able to find what
part of the commit which introduced this change actually causes that
part. It seems obvious that it would be the #compose-toolbar-sizer style
rule, but no matter what I add to userChrome.css under that name, it
doesn't seem to take effect in Thunderbird itself... I'm guessing that
either I'm modifying the wrong object, or my modifications are being
overridden by some other part of the CSS added in this commit, but I
don't know what.

(Now that I look again, perhaps I might need #composeContentBox instead
- but I don't know what I'd need to change on that if so, since the
previous style rules didn't touch that at all.)

Any ideas what I should be trying to pursue for this?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/42

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On 2014-08-14T17:46:53+00:00 Ralph Eckloff wrote:

Hello,
I agree with John Crisp's comment #32 and I can't see it
as offensive. The reaction of Blake`s comment #33 has been demotivating for me and I have asked myself how we as users can participate in issues like this? 
Greeetings 
Ralph

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/43

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On 2014-08-14T18:23:56+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

(In reply to Andrew Buehler from comment #35)

> Any ideas what I should be trying to pursue for this?

Andrew, for your specific question possibly it would be more promising
to head over to MozillaZine and ask there, maybe also adding screenshots
to visualise. At the same time, I can see your frustration. This is one
more indicator of the pains that TB users are going through at the
moment.

I have to say that I am astonished that this UI change has been pushed
to the users for them to cope with on their own (be it via
userChrome.css, theme changes or reverting back to TB 24.x), even though
the earlier Bugzilla threads show that this has been "flagged" for at
least several months already. And I am hopeful that all the additional
users' feedback right here will be of help for the developers to create
a 1) functional and 2) aesthetic default compose window UI.

As to the earlier Bugzilla threads that I was referring to:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:UX/Priorities/31 at the bottom lists three reports:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=906264 (Linux, depends on this Bugzilla report)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=867161 (OS X)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=960672 (Windows)

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/44

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On 2014-08-15T15:08:19+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

After a false start and apparent (but unreproducible) success involving
#appcontent, it looks like the missing stanza from Bozz's CSS, to
restore that darker line below the resize-dragger widget, is:

#compose-toolbar-sizer {
  -moz-appearance: none !important;
  border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDShadow;
}

This also eliminates the visible "this is draggable" image at the center
of the resize widget; I can see how that could be desirable to have, but
IMO having the across-the-board visible demarcation of the darker line
is more important, since otherwise the UI looks too "flat".

I thought I found a way to get the darker line while still retaining
that visible dragger image, involving a 'border-top' on #appcontent, but
I can't seem to get the effect back now.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/45

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On 2014-08-15T15:44:25+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

And eliminating the "gradient / shadow" border between the Send-button
toolbar and the From/To/etc. headers area appears to be a simple matter
of:

#composeContentBox {
   box-shadow: none !important;
}


Guido, I'm posting about this here because I think this is likely to be more discoverable for people who want to revert the change than a MozillaZine thread would be, particularly since there are already multiple such threads - and while some such threads are linked to from here, if someone's going to have passed through here in getting there anyway, why not have the information here?

Also, it seems appropriate to have the fixes for the issue available on
the bug reporting the issue, whether or not that bug is officially
considered something which should be fixed.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/46

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On 2014-08-15T16:54:58+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

Created attachment 8473756
TB31_css_box-shadow_none.png

(In reply to Andrew Buehler from comment #39)
> And eliminating the "gradient / shadow" border between the Send-button
> toolbar and the From/To/etc. headers area appears to be a simple matter of:
> 
> #composeContentBox {
>    box-shadow: none !important;
> }

Andrew, OK, picking up the ball you brought into play, I am attaching a
new screenshot with this addition of yours. I added this at the very
start of userChrome.css and I can confirm that this takes away the "drop
shadow" that you mentioned. This becomes even more apparent when
comparing this screenshot to my previous one (see attachments at the top
of this Bugzilla report).

As stated in comment #26, this userChrome.css version is based on the version of konrad79
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=13699151#p13699151
which in turn is based on the second version of Bozz
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=13624709#p13624709

I am not entirely sure how exactly you modified Bozz's version with your
other changes. Would it be possible for you to add a screenshot?

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/47

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On 2014-08-15T17:00:35+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

Created attachment 8473763
TB31, incomplete compose-UI reversion

Here's a screenshot with Bozz's changes, as I see them...

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/48

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On 2014-08-15T17:01:49+00:00 Wanderer-fastmail wrote:

Created attachment 8473764
TB31, more-complete compose-UI reversion

...and here's one which also has my local CSS tweaks (snippets already
posted) on top of it.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/49

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On 2014-08-15T18:48:20+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

Created attachment 8473815
TB_31_css_darker-line.png

(In reply to Andrew Buehler from comment #38)
> After a false start and apparent (but unreproducible) success involving
> #appcontent, it looks like the missing stanza from Bozz's CSS, to restore
> that darker line below the resize-dragger widget, is:
> 
> #compose-toolbar-sizer {
>   -moz-appearance: none !important;
>   border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDShadow;
> }

Andrew, thanks for your screenshots. Now that I see what you mean, in
order to test I put your addition at the end of my userChrome.css and I
can confirm your description of the effects. Screenshot attached.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/50

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On 2014-08-15T20:04:44+00:00 Guido Zoellner wrote:

(In reply to Andrew Buehler from comment #39)
> Guido, I'm posting about this here because I think this is likely to be more
> discoverable for people who want to revert the change than a MozillaZine
> thread would be

Agreed Andrew, esp. with your two new inputs to Bozz's foundation.
Personally, aesthetically, so far I prefer konrad79's spin together with
your "no drop shadow" addition and without your "darker line" addition.
I just checked Bozz's .css take again, and together with that both of
your additions aesthetically make sense to me as well.

This being said, all of these alternatives are working for me without
any difficulties, no usability issues with any of these whatsoever. And
to me, that is the point of all of these efforts to "restore" the
compose window UI, form should follow function and all... So thank you
for your input Andrew!

As to the "drop shadow": as a bonus, this might also clear up for some Ubuntu users that that is not coming from Ubuntu, cf. e.g. this post in the corresponding bug report on launchpad from "back in the day":
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/3

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/51

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On 2014-10-15T16:04:02+00:00 Mozilla-bugs-d wrote:

As a user who just upgraded to TBird 31 on Windows 8.1, just wanted to
chime in and confirm that as a user this change is a horrible break to
expected and desired behaviour.

It took me over half an hour to finally work out that this was an
intended change not an extension messing up the UI or a bug.

If a field is available and should be considered for entry, it should
look like an empty text box, not an empty area of the window that looks
like Windows forgot to draw the UI properly or at best an uneditable
area.

I also think it's now completely non-obvious how to add multiple
recipient addresses to an email.

It's stupid UI changes like this, made just because what's worked for
years is considered "old and stale - must change" instead of "stable and
working fine - leave this alone!" that make me hate Mozilla products and
waste my time find the method to revert the changes (which exists
without fail because I'm never the only one) with every update.

It's the reason why I've switched to Chrome for web browsing. It's the
reason I no longer use Thunderbird at home. It'll likely soon be the
reason I find an alternative for work too.

Reply at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/1347305/comments/53


** Changed in: thunderbird
       Status: Unknown => Confirmed

** Changed in: thunderbird
   Importance: Unknown => Medium

** Bug watch added: Mozilla Bugzilla #906264
   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=906264

** Bug watch added: Mozilla Bugzilla #867161
   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=867161

** Bug watch added: Mozilla Bugzilla #960672
   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=960672

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1347305

Title:
  Address fields are grey when composing messages

Status in Mozilla Thunderbird Mail and News:
  Confirmed
Status in “thunderbird” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  When composing a message, any address field that does not have the
  cursor is shown as grey. While this is at first only a cosmetic
  glitch, it is also serious usability issue: Usually any field that can
  be edited is white and text that can't be edited is simply drawn grey.
  Now it looks like Thunderbird does not allow editing of the recipient
  addresses. Only when you try it regardless you discover that it is
  still editible.

  I attached a screenshot showing a stuffed up composer window.

  This bug appeared with the latest update of Thunderbird that was
  installed today.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
  Package: thunderbird 1:31.0+build1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-30.55-generic 3.13.11.2
  Uname: Linux 3.13.0-30-generic x86_64
  AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
  ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
  Architecture: amd64
  AudioDevicesInUse:
   USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
   /dev/snd/controlC0:  kaymes     2516 F.... pulseaudio
  BuildID: 20140721092545
  Channel: Unavailable
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Wed Jul 23 10:37:17 2014
  ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird
  ForcedLayersAccel: False
  IfupdownConfig:
   # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
   auto lo
   iface lo inet loopback
  IncompatibleExtensions:
   Lightning - {e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
   English (GB) Language Pack - langpack-en-GB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Deutsch (DE) Language Pack - langpack-de@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Thunderbird (default) - {972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-07-02 (20 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
  IpRoute:
   default via 10.33.0.1 dev eth0  proto static 
   10.33.0.0/22 dev eth0  proto kernel  scope link  src 10.33.1.197  metric 1
  IwConfig:
   eth0      no wireless extensions.
   
   lo        no wireless extensions.
  LocalLibraries: /home/kaymes/.thunderbird/dymzcbig.default/extensions/{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}/components/Linux_x86_64-gcc3/libcalbasecomps.so
  PrefSources:
   prefs.js
   [Profile]/extensions/{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}/defaults/preferences/lightning.js
  Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=31.0/20140721092545 (In use)
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   rhythmbox-mozilla 3.0.2-0ubuntu2
   totem-mozilla     3.10.1-1ubuntu4
  RfKill:
   
  RunningIncompatibleAddons: True
  SourcePackage: thunderbird
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  WifiSyslog:
   Jul 23 08:56:13 uqbox kernel: [427030.548782] [drm] Setting output timings on SDVOB failed
   Jul 23 09:37:38 uqbox kernel: [429515.541016] [drm] Setting output timings on SDVOB failed
   Jul 23 10:06:02 uqbox kernel: [431219.445267] [drm] Setting output timings on SDVOB failed
   Jul 23 10:07:12 uqbox kernel: [431289.957320] [drm] Setting output timings on SDVOB failed
   Jul 23 10:23:06 uqbox kernel: [432243.381132] MATLAB[25882]: segfault at 8 ip 00007f2f4507bcfe sp 00007f2f06cc5320 error 4
  dmi.bios.date: 10/27/2011
  dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: A13
  dmi.board.name: 0J468K
  dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.board.version: A00
  dmi.chassis.type: 3
  dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA13:bd10/27/2011:svnDellInc.:pnOptiPlex960:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0J468K:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct3:cvr:
  dmi.product.name: OptiPlex 960
  dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

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