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Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1

Release Notes

Mozilla Thunderbird is a redesign of the Mozilla mail component. Our goal is to produce a cross-platform, stand alone mail application using the XUL user interface. More information about the Mozilla Thunderbird project is available here. We leverage much of the functionality already developed for the Mozilla Seamonkey mail component.

This is our first milestone release. We recognize that we have a lot more to do. At the same time, we are extremely excited about the progress of Mozilla Thunderbird and want to share it with the community. This current milestone is based on a running snapshot of the Mozilla 1.5b trunk.

This document covers what's new, download and installation instructions, and known issues for this Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 release. Please read these notes before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla.

We want to hear your feedback about Mozilla Thunderbird. Join us in the Mozilla Thunderbird forums, kindly hosted by MozillaZine.

What's New

Since this is our first milestone release, everything is new! A complete list of Mozilla Thunderbird work can be found here. Here are some of the highlights:
  • Customizable Toolbars and Mail 3-pane

    Toolbars can be customized the way you want them. Choose View / Toolbars / Customize inside any window. Mozilla Thunderbird also supports a new vertical 3-pane configuration (Tools / Options / General), giving you even more choice in how you want to view your mail.

  • Extensions

    UI extensions can be added to Mozilla Thunderbird to customize your experience with specific features and enhancements that you need. Extensions allow you to add features particular to your needs such as offline mail support. A full list of available extensions can be found here.

  • Contacts Manager

    A contacts sidebar for mail compose makes it easy and convenient to add address book contacts to emails.

  • Junk Mail Detection

    In addition to automatically detecting junk mail using the same method as Mozilla Mail, Thunderbird also sanitizes HTML in mail marked as junk in order to better protect your privacy and give peace of mind when viewing a message identified as junk.

  • New default theme

    Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 sports a crisp, fresh and attractive theme, based on the amazing Qute theme by Arvid Axelsson. This is the same theme used by Mozilla Firebird, giving Thunderbird a similar look and feel. Thunderbird also supports a growing number of downloadable themes which alter the appearance of the client.

  • Stream-lined user interface and simplified Options UI.
  • Integrated spell checker.

Download, Install and Uninstall

You must delete your old Mozilla Thunderbird directory rather than just overwriting the files there. Not doing so WILL result in problems and you should not file any bugs on Mozilla Thunderbird unless you've first done a clean install.

Volunteers have provided Mozilla Thunderbird binaries for Windows, Linux (GTK2), and Mac OS X. We soon hope to have mozilla.org provide these binaries, in addition to generating a non GTK2 linux version of Mozilla Thunderbird.

Windows: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/0.1/thunderbird-0.1-win32.zip

Linux with GTK2 and XFT: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/0.1/thunderbird-0.1-i686-pc-linux-gtk2-gnu.tar.bz2

Mac OS X: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/0.1/thunderbird-0.1-macosx.dmg.gz

Contributed builds (These are unofficial builds and may be configured differently than the mozilla.org builds.)

None currently:
As Thunderbird matures, we expect this list to grow for future milestones.

Localized builds. Contributed by the volunteers of the MLP:

Once you have downloaded the binary, use Winzip or gzip to unzip Mozilla Thunderbird to an empty directory then run thunderbird.exe. Thunderbird will create its own profile and will not interfere with your Mozilla seamonkey profile.

To uninstall Mozilla Thunderbird, simply delete the Mozilla Thunderbird directory. This will leave your profile in place for use by future Mozilla Thunderbird installs. If you wish to remove your Mozilla Thunderbird profile you can delete the Thunderbird folder from your Windows Application Data directory or remove the .thunderbird dir from your linux home directory.

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1. Please read this before reporting any new bugs, and watch it regularly (we'll update it as new bugs are found in the release). Because this is our very first milestone release, we realize we have a lot of work to do ahead of us! At the same time we are very excited about Thunderbird and want to share with you our current level of progress.

  • The default theme is not complete yet. We have only added new toolbar icons for the mail 3-pane and the mail compose window. We are still using a lot of Mozilla classic theme icons. We do not have icons for the Options dialog yet either. Arvid is working on the artwork and you will continue to see it improve going forward.
  • Our linux integration with the operating system has not been implement yet. Clicking on http urls in mail messages fail to launch your default Linux browser. We hope to address this in the next release. We recognize how important this is for our linux users =).
  • To add a non-English dictionary, read the installation instructions.
  • When deleting and trying to type in addresses in the mail compose window, it is possible for the addressing field to 'freeze', keeping you from typing in a new address. Just move focus into the body of your message (using the mouse) and then click back in the addressing field to work around this.
  • Under Tools / Options / Extensions, the install Extension button is clipped and not fully visible for some users.
  • Under Tools / Options / Fonts, the font size drop down shows "..." instead of actual font sizes. You can still select a size and it shows the right value.
  • Language preferences for incoming / outgoing messages can be configured under Tools / Options / Fonts.
  • Addresses from sent messages are automatically collected in the address book. There is currently not a UI for changing the address book used for collected address books. Read about the work around.
  • Configuring HTTP and SSL through a proxy does not work. We need help figuring out why.
  • Deleting messages or emptying trash can sometimes leave a blank thread pane filled with 'dots' under the read column header where the messages would have been. Clicking on another folder and coming back to the folder in question gets rid of this. Your messages have actually been deleted / moved.
  • Turning on junk mail adaptive filter detection is a per account preference (Tools / Junk Mail Controls / Adaptive Filters). However the UI makes it look like it is a global setting. To turn it on for several accounts, click on the Settings tab, change the account menu list to the right account then go back to the Adaptive Filter panel and make the decision to enable or disable automatic junk detection.
  • Your SMIME settings can be configured via Tools / Account Settings / Security. There have been reports of some truncation issues in this panel, resize the dialog to work around this for now.
  • The contacts sidebar in mail compose is trigger happy when it comes to mouse clicks adding addresses to the compose window.
  • Some testers have reported a scenario where Thunderbird fails to remember the window size of the mail 3-pane or a failure to remember customize toolbar settings. If this happens, copy thunderbird\defaults\profile\localstore.rdf into your profile.
  • The progress-meter in the mail 3-pane does not become visible when performing operations. It stays hidden all the time.
  • We do not currently migrate your Mozilla profile to thunderbird. If you just want to try Thunderbird out, use a new profile and enter in your mail account information. You can also migrate your Mozilla profile by hand. However, we encourage you to use a new, clean profile.

For additional issues, FAQs, Tips and Tricks plus general Mozilla Thunderbird help, be sure to check out the Mozilla Thunderbird Help site and the Mozilla Thunderbird forums hosted by MozillaZine.