Having selected Share Ideas and Feedback from Thunderbird, I cannot find anywhere to pass feedback back to Mozilla other than creating a post here.
The latest upgrade is nothing short of abysmal, and almost unfit for fit. Who signed off on this release really does need to take a long hard look at the concept of 'usable software'. Under the previous version, everything worked fine, under this one, I have so many problems its difficult to know where to start.
MailBoxes
My 'Inbox' currently has 404 messages in it, when I go into the inbox, it automatically opens half-way down the list - not with the first or last, just half way down, regardless of the order column or A-Z, Z-A order. So the first unnecessary action every time the mailbox is changed, is to scroll to the bottom to see new emails.
In a morning, when I first start up and it checks for messages, the number of messages will generally exceed the amount that can be displayed, so you scroll up and down to see the others, thats fine, standard practice. But if ordered latest at the bottom, and you start with the oldest new message, once you hit reply or delete, the list shoots to the bottom (ie latest) so you cannot see the current or next message in the list.
The buttons for reply and forward also seem to be hit and miss if they work, sometimes taking two or three mouse clicks to activate, even when the Thunderbird screen is active.
Search
The search facility is now a joke. 50% of the time having typed in a search term (usually a name or email address) it opens a new window, does not do a search and blanks off the search - the new window shows no emails or search terms.
You also cannot move the cursor back or forth (with cursor keys or the mouse) to correct anything. If you notice a typo, the only thing you can do is delete back to the point and retype. Very infuriating, especially if you are searching on a term you have pasted in from the clipboard.
When the search does work, and it finds several emails you click on the email you want to look at. Previously this opened the email, now it opens a new search window containing just that email, which you then have to go and click to open the email. When your searching through 10-15 emails to find the one you want this is time consuming and frustrating.
Should you click on an email that has a discussion style reply, previously, it showed all the discussions and you could easily click between the various emails, which opened in the bottom panel, to read the discussion quickly and easily with the up and down arrow keys. Now only the latest email in the discussion comes up in the top of the new window, you have to click it to open in the bottom panel, but it also opens every discussion email in a new tab - which is horrendous if you have an email with 30-40 replies, as you then have 30-40 tabs to go close.
Half the time, Thunderbird now reports that the search term returned no matches, when I know and can find them myself. Previously the search in Thunderbird was really good.
The whole system has become borderline unusable since this latest update, and somebody from Mozilla needs to get a hold of things and sort it. I intend to try going back to the previous version (although I suspect the email database will have been updated which would remove that as an option) and turning auto update off.
It used to be a nice, simple, quick and easy to use piece of software, one of the best for managing emails and multiple accounts. But this latest version is atrocious and just makes what was a simple task, now complicated and difficult.
In the unlikely event any of the above are a 'new way of doing things' and there is an option in the settings I have not found to put it back as it was, please do let me know.
Rich
