Thunderbird Revisited

[Moonchild]

You can get it from the works in progress page. http://www.palemoon.org/WIP/
It's final but still a side project at the moment and low priority.

You'll probably have to change minVersion in the install.rdf file for add-ons to make them work, since "16.0.1-MCP" is considered a "smaller" version number than "16.0.1" in the way it checks versions. (because of the dash)

[greebo]

it says it is not compatible with MailNews

and i found this in errConsole:

Warning: WARN addons.xpi: Ignoring invalid targetApplication entry in install manifest

[Moonchild]

If you're trying to use it on MailNews x64, then that is correct... Calendar uses a binary component (.dll) so the target platform matters as well.

Try to use the included Lightning .xpi files that I've built for MailNews. Let me know if you run into any trouble

x86: http://ge.tt/api/1/files/3FeYGRP/5/blob?download

x64: http://ge.tt/api/1/files/3FeYGRP/4/blob?download

[greebo]

they work...

now i need to beat the crap out of other exts ... to make them work in MailNews :]

[back2themoon]

Something that for years is missing from Thunderbird is newsgroup descriptions, available from the old days of Outlook Express. Maybe it's sth. that can be implemented in MailNews...?

[Moonchild]

Not really. but you could see if getting some more votes on that particular bugzilla bug gets it assigned and a patch created.

[dallas7]

Wow. I haven't visited this thread since I posted it up and had I not searched for some other thread of mine I'd never have noticed all the fun.

Just in case you missed it, I made a v16 build, including x64. Fairly painless to build, and should be stable. If v17 becomes an ESR, then it may be something to look into.

v17 is an ESR. I'm running Haller's PortableApps 17.0.2 not-ESR right now. According to a forum thread I posted up over there, he maintains there is no difference anymore between Public and ESR. Which is something I just "don't get." (Not that I'm expecting an explanation here.)

works...but Lightning v1.8 add-on does not.

Yeah, Lightning would be crtitcal considering they dumped Sunbird. It's now at v1.9.

I don't think I'm alone in a dependency on XNote. I've got hundreds of them after years of use in TB.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamon ... n/xnotepp/

I'm going to try that v16. More later... maybe.

[back2themoon]

Not really. but you could see if getting some more votes on that particular bugzilla bug gets it assigned and a patch created.

That "bug" report's date is... 2000! It'll probably never get implemented. At least Windows Live Mail 2012 still does it.

[Moonchild]

Just because a bug is old doesn't mean it's never going to be implemented (because then it would be marked WONTFIX).
I've seen a number of bugs that were positively ancient that suddenly got picked up because there was more attention paid to it.
The problem seems to be that Thunderbird is becoming a bit swept under the rug, because the Mozilla team seems to be more interested in working on "new" things like Firefox/Android and B2G.

[back2themoon]

You are right, but this isn't even a bug but rather a missing feature, and if Thunderbird is being slowly abandoned, non-binary newsgroups seem to share a similar fate.

[dallas7]

I extracted MailNews-16.0.1-x64-MCP.en-US.win64-x86_64.zip and tested it OK with my gmail account, POP3. I replaced the profile with a copy of the one from my current TB PortableApps 17.0.2.

Lightning would not come up at all even after replacing v1.9 with MailNews-16.0.1-x64-calendar.xpi which is to be expected, I suppose, considering my drag-n-drop process. No doubt it would work fine if I started from scratch and imported my ics files.

However, I engaged in this exercise to test XNote++ 2.2.9 and it works just fine!

Providing it doesn't hinder your missions to the Pale Moon, I wouldn't mind seeing a MailNews Portable v17 x64.

Cheers!

[Moonchild]

I've looked at trying to compile the Thunderbird source with Visual Studio 2012, but it refuses. there are a number of type casts that simply throw errors (and VS2012 doesn't like redefining nullptr - not sure why Mozilla stopped using nsNull like before) so unless I build an environment based on vs2010, just for the mail&news client, I can't build it.

I may drop it in a VM for this purpose, but it'll obviously take a bunch more time.

Does anyone know what the news is on thunderbird anyway? They have 17.0.3 which is = ESR, and they have a single beta for 18 and 19... is Mozilla abandoning the mail client?

[dudewithit]

Havent Mozilla abandoned TB ? IIRC, TB is maintained by volunteer coders only now.

[Moonchild]

Havent Mozilla abandoned TB ? IIRC, TB is maintained by volunteer coders only now.

I think that's Seamonkey you're talking about. (Previously the Mozilla Suite)

[dudewithit]

No, TB is also abandoned by mozilla.
http://bit.ly/WGd1xY

[Moonchild]

Mozilla is not abandoning Thunderbird. We’re going to continue releasing security updates and providing the infrastructure for Thunderbird development, QA, support and documentation. But it’s the Thunderbird community who are going to drive improvements and innovation.

So, no, it's not abandoned. But they aren't going to push "new features" - you know, somehow I think that might be a good thing.

[dudewithit]

Well, nobody likes UI changes. The best UI is the one you are familiar to.
Regarding internals, lots of work being done. like bug #699820 and the dependencies, bug #716140 which has landed, and bug #852734 , which is just a front end to the gfx branch.

But really, does a mail client need all this ?

[Moonchild]

None of those are high priority for a mail client.

[dallas7]

I've looked at trying to compile the Thunderbird source ...

Well, after what seems like a soul searching eternity, I now digress on my July, 2012 OP and more recent postings in this topic... Don't waste any more of your time on a Thunderbird > MailNews project unless, of course, you really care to do so.

I also challenge my own wisdom in the desire for a 64-bit version. Right now I can drop my Thunderbird folder onto a USB stick and it'll open on some one's XP box if that's what a situation boiled down to. Ditto for the weekly encrypted zip file I store in the cloud.

I'm going to carry on with Haller's PortableApps releases and if/when TB dies I'll hope the last version continues to work in Windows 9 and 11 and so on. If it doesn't, well by then I'll be too old to care if years of email get lost. (My current zipped profile backup is at 146 MB.) Or there'll be another email client having a TB files importer that actually works. One can only dream.

In the meantime it'll be interesting to see what becomes of Thunderbird.

Cheers.

[Moonchild]

Well, considering I personally use MailNews for my own e-mail... it won't be a waste of my time

x64 builds are easy to churn out once an x86 build is up and running, so for people wanting to run a native architecture application, it's desired.