Thunderbird:Menus:Menus after unnecessary item removal

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  1. Current Menus
  2. After some consolidation
  3. After some item removal

General Menus:

  • File
    • New
      • New Message...
      • New Folder...
      • New Saved Search...
      • New Account...
      • New Address Book Card...
    • Open Saved Message...
    • Attachments
    • Close (Window)
    • Save As
      • File
      • Template
    • Get New Messages for
      • Get All New Messages
      • (list of accounts follows)
    • Send Unsent Messages
      The UI for this action is somewhat unsatisfactory. There are many requests to improve this, including integrating the function into the Get New Messages action. It's available as a context menu item, when looking at the Unsent Messages folder.
    • Subscribe...
      Doesn't apply to POP accounts or folders; is on the context menu for IMAP accounts and folders, news accounts and groups.
    • Rename Folder
      Renameable folders can be renamed in the Folder Properties dialog.

      Renaming convention for the Mac (pulled directly from Apple Help):
      1. Locate the item you want to rename on your desktop or in a Finder window.
      2. Click the item once to select it, then click it again to highlight the name.
      3. Type the new name and press Return.
      Jareha 07:23, 8 Apr 2005 (PDT)
    • Compact Folders
      Only compacts for currently selected account. A better UI generally for compaction would be welcome, but as long as it's being performed by the user, there ought to be a way, somehow, to Compact Folders for ALL Accounts. Note that there is an RFE to add "Compact folders" to the context menu of an account.
    • Empty Trash
      Similar to the above, in that a way to Empty Trash for all accounts would be useful. This item appears in the context menu for any Trash folder. Note also the RFE to add an Empty Junk command which would eliminate Junk without sending it to the Trash.
    • Offline
      • Work Offline
      • Download/Sync Now...
      • Offline Settings
        Like the Junk Mail Controls, this group of settings deserves a page in the Options dialog.

        And in fact, that change has been implemented in time for TB 1.1.
      • Get Flagged Messages
      • Get Selected Messages
    • Page Setup...
    • Print Preview
    • Print...
    • Exit/Quit (but not available on Macs)</h3>
  • Edit
    I have always disliked the convention of putting Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Delete in a top-level edit menu. It seems to me these commands, more than any others, are the ones that people learn shortcuts for and thereafter almost always use the shortcuts. But, it is a UI standard. (Agreed.--Waldo 01:32, 1 Apr 2005 (PST))
    • Undo
    • Redo
    • Cut
    • Copy
    • Paste
    • Cancel Message
    • Delete Folder|Message
    • Select
      • All
      • Thread
    • Find
      • Find in This Message...
      • Find Again
      • Find Previous
      • Search Messages...
      • Search Addresses...
    • Folder Properties...
    • Preferences (platform specific; other platforms use Tools|Options)
  • View
    • Toolbars
      • Mail Toolbar
      • Search Toolbar
      • Status Bar
      • Customize...
    • Layout
      The three layout schemes (and there may be more to come) already have an option in the Options dialog. Neither these nor the show/hide toolbar features seem menu-worthy to me; these options are almost always set-and-forget. (Also agreed.--Waldo 01:32, 1 Apr 2005 (PST))
      • Classic View
      • Wide View
      • Vertical View
      • Message Pane
        This item can reasonably be considered something that users will want to change on-the-fly. (Arguably so; if I had a say I'd want some user testing before I'd touch this. --Waldo 01:32, 1 Apr 2005 (PST))
    • Sort By (with a load of options)
    • Messages (with a load of options)
    • Threads (with a load of options)
These settings are folder-specific.
The Sort By items are partially redundant with the sorting available on column headers, but see bug 234690. The new Sort By Group is somewhat misbegotten in terms of UI, particularly with the horrid 'G' shortcut.
The items in the Messages submenu are completely redundant with the MailView dropdown (which is on a toolbar that can be hidden). There is also a rather nasty near-redundancy in the "All" and "Unread" items that appear in both the Messages and Threads submenus—see discussion in bug 237164.
These menus are likely to change anyway, assuming the "all folders are virtual" model is implemented.
    • Headers
      • All
        All Headers display is, in my opinion, a worthless feature; but many disagree.
        (I somewhat disagree; headers are useful, but they're not generally useful to most people. However, I agree that they should be moved out of the menus.--Waldo 01:32, 1 Apr 2005 (PST))
        Getting access to all the headers is useful, but displaying them in the envelope panel is not.
      • Normal
    • Message Body As
      • Original HTML
      • Simple HTML
      • Plain Text
    • Display Attachments Inline
      This should either be a preference in options or should be set to one default and left without UI to change it. Personally, I think I prefer inline, but I don't remember how easy it is to copy inline attachments to the file system, which is probably my one concern. In any case this item should be removed.
    • Text Size
      • Increase
      • Decrease
      • Normal
These settings all affect the display of individual messages. The settings are global; there are bugs requesting some of these to be per-folder or per-message preferences. My idea for this is to have setting in Tools|Options for the global preference of these items (and perhaps some others), then a message-specific toolbar (which should be aligned on the left side of the message pane rather than horizontally) with tools to change these settings for the current message only.
    • Character Encoding
      This menu is a small disaster, and is shared across all the products. See bug 253575.
    • Message Source
    • Message Security Info
  • Go
    This entire menu seems unnecessary. Navigation of this sort is going to be handled by keyboard, or not at all. The Next/Previous Flagged message, and the "Mail Start Page", should be given shortcuts. The menu could be hidden entirely, except that it's the "best" place to look up the shortcuts. (The last there is a good point; if/when Thunderbird gets built-in Help content this point will be moot.--Waldo 01:32, 1 Apr 2005 (PST))
    • Next
      • Message
      • Unread Message
      • Flagged Message
      • Unread Thread
    • Previous
      • Message
      • Unread Message
      • Flagged Message
    • Mail Start Page
  • Message
    As noted elsewhere, this menu is highly redundant with the context menu for messages. See bug 236833.
    • New Message
    • Reply

Both this and the Reply All button below should provide a message with full headers. It is daft that when responding to a message, no log of when if was sent or what the subject was is saved in the message! There is a reason why Outlook does show this information in the new email. Perhaps a new option to show simple, full and extensive header info on reply & forward would be a good idea to allow full flexibility for the user. The only other option is hitting Forward and then altering the subject line.

    • Reply All
    • Forward
    • Forward As
      • Inline
      • Attachment
    • Edit Message as New
    • Open Message
    • Move
    • Copy
    • Label
    • Mark
    • Create Filter from Message...
  • Tools
    • Address Book
    • Extensions
    • Themes
    • Message Filters...
    • Run Filters on Folder
    • Junk Mail Controls
      Moving the dialog opened by this page to the Options dialog is a no-brainer, just hasn't been done yet. (Note that some of the settings actually are account-specific, and so belong in Account Settings.)
    • Run Junk Mail Controls on Folder
    • Delete Mail Marked as Junk in Folder
      One way to shorten the Tools menu would be to create a Filters submenu with "Edit..." taking the place of the Message Filters action above, plus the Run Filters, Run Junk Controls, and Delete Junk Mail items (all single actions, which operate on the current folder). However, I could easily see Run Filters becoming a more complex action, with perhaps named groups of filters defined in the Filters dialog which could be individually run on a folder. There are many requests for enhancement of filters.
    • Import...
    • Account Settings...
  • Help
    • Release Notes
    • Mozilla Thunderbird Help
    • About Mozilla Thunderbird

Mac-only Menus:

  • Thunderbird (Mac only)
    • About Thunderbird
    • Preferences...
    • Quit Thunderbird
  • Window (Mac only)
    • Minimize
    • Zoom
    • Bring All to Front
    • Mail & Newsgroups
    • Address Book
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