Thunderbird's Desktop Calendar Visual Redesign

(blog.thunderbird.net)

53 points | by birdculture 3 hours ago

10 comments

  • vintagedave 1 hour ago
    Still no calendar where “today” is visually distinct. It has the same faded background as a multi-hour event.

    Look,at the header image and glance in the middle of the Wednesday column vs the middle of Sunday’s or Monday’s column. Very little visual distinction: you have to ask, am I looking at a long event or the ‘today’ highlight?

    • nianderwallace 49 minutes ago
      Nor any visible control to quickly take you to "Today".

      People who use calendars for work-related purposes typically want work-week focused views.

      None of this is new. Which speaks to the people developing/designing this. (Or maybe they have incorporated this but the handful of screenshots aren't exposing them).

      They aren't dogfooding this - or if they are - they aren't the power users - people whose typical day have more appointments scheduled than free time.

      They need to seek out the power users so their design doesn't preclude use-cases (or at least make them very awkward).

      Here's a freebie - for monthly view - the day that is highlighted should get a detailed day view as a sidebar.

  • evilmonkey19 1 hour ago
    Personally, I like the Google design and I bet most users will be familiar with. It works. Do not reinvent the wheel and just make it efficient.
  • ricardobeat 1 hour ago
    About ten years late to mimic Google Calendar. Was hoping for something new.

    Fantastical, Readdle and Apple Calendar have slightly fresher UI that could be good inspiration.

  • jjice 29 minutes ago
    How is thunderbird these days? I haven't used it for about six years, but I've seen their redesign and recent work in passing here on HN.

    I'd like to get back to having a desktop email and calendar client over using a browser all the time.

  • specproc 1 hour ago
    Dear writers, please don't give me "## The Big Picture"
  • Arcuru 1 hour ago
    So this is a new design, but it's at the design proposal stage and not yet implemented?

    They've been talking about redesigning Thunderbird for years now, but I'm honestly not sure I've noticed any difference at all in my actual use.

  • downrightmike 2 hours ago
    A+ Thunderbird team! We absolutely needed an update. Maybe on the next moon mission NASA will send a functional email client instead of two broken ones.
  • greatgib 3 hours ago
    Is it a full page of text to just say that they implemented the UI of Google Calendar?
    • Arcuru 1 hour ago
      I think it's a design mockup, they didn't implement it yet.
    • downrightmike 2 hours ago
      That's a plus because people don't have to learn a new design, which is why how UI is done is closely regulated in every commercial OS, especially now with app stores. I just want it to be faster than outlook
    • FireBeyond 2 hours ago
      ... but with apparently broken HTML, per the comments.
  • pcunite 1 hour ago
    I was an Outlook user for nearly 20 years. Switch to macOS last year, and along with that went with Thunderbird. It does need some love, but grateful it existed. I like to look at my monthly calendar, open two events, and compare them. Sometimes, I like my monthly calendar visible all by itself, then I'll open emails to the far left or right, then maybe an event in the middle, or to the left.

    In other words, I like them all as separate windows, while I compare websites, notes, on the phone, and then adding or editing all these things while talking to people too.

    Making the Calendar view, an the list of emails as two separate windows would be amazing.

    Thank you Thunderbird team!

  • Klonoar 2 hours ago
    ...can someone tell me why the hell the macOS traffic lights are indented like that?

    Like is this just a mockup I'm not understanding correctly?

    • chews 2 hours ago
      Ya, I noticed that too. It doesn't seem to conform Apple HIG... but, let's be honest, even Apple isn't doing the greatest job with respect to keeping to their standards.
      • Klonoar 30 minutes ago
        Apple, unlike Mozilla, gets to set the rules.

        Traffic lights are one thing you shouldn’t mess with IMO.