Supernova blows up Thunderbird

September 14, 2023 2:16 PM

I stupidly made the mistake of updating Thunderbird to the latest version, unbeknownst that it includes a disastrous UX redesign. Help me fix it.

The worst part of the new T-bird is the placement of toolbars and menus. It's entirely upside down. The only toolbar that can be customized (or that I can seem to customize) is right at the top of the screen in the spot where things like File, Menu, Tools, Help, etc. typically go. (The File, Edit, View, Message, etc. buttons have been bumped down the screen and now sit below this customizable toolbar.)

There no buttons anywhere for the basic email functionality, including Forward, Reply, Reply All, etc. I was able to add those buttons, but only to the toolbar way up at the top of the screen.

The so-called universal toolbar now sits where what I'd call the the function/control toolbar resided, just above the messages.

I want to flip things upside down a bit. I want to put the new (stupid) universal tool bar at the top of the screen because I'll barely ever use it. I want to put the customizable tool bar lower on the screen, closer to the messages that I'm actually trying forward or reply to. Does anybody have a way to do this?

If not, can somebody who knows more than I do take a look at this StackExchange Q&A and tell me if it sounds like a reasonable answer and then walk me through it?

I completed step 4. "To put the menu bar back above the toolbar, follow these instructions to enable userChrome.css support in Thunderbird..."

Then I got stuck at "...then add
#toolbar-menubar { order: -1 !important; }
to your chrome/userChrome.css within your profile folder."

I'm on a Windows system.

Here is what the new toolbar configuration looks like.

posted by sardonyx to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Then I got stuck at "...then add
#toolbar-menubar { order: -1 !important; }
to your chrome/userChrome.css within your profile folder

Do you mean that it didn't work, or that the instructions weren't clear?

If the latter: somewhere on your computer there's (probably) a file called userChrome.css, apparently inside a folder called chrome, inside whatever directory Thunderbird saves its profile info in. (If you're not sure where that is you can search for the file within Windows, or try Googling where the profile folder is on whichever version of Windows you have. It's probably also mentioned in the Thunderbird user settings menus somewhere, but I can't check right now).

"Chrome" basically means the visual presentation of UI elements like toolbars and so forth. The userChrome.css is where you can make changes to the chrome for your specific user profile. (If you have multiple user profiles, or maybe there are other people using Thunderbird on your computer under their own accounts, the changes from the userChrome.css file in your profile directory won't apply to those other profiles.)

Once you've found userChrome.css, first double check that it's definitely in a Thunderbird directory (as opposed to Firefox or anything else that uses the same naming scheme). And if there are multiple user profiles on your computer, make sure you're in the right one.

Then make a backup copy of the file, in case things go wrong.

Then open the file. If it's empty, go ahead and paste that line in there, save, and restart Thunderbird to see if it worked. If it's not empty, I'd probably add it to the end.

If you've found your user profile folder but there's no chrome folder inside containing a userChrome.css file, you can just go ahead and create them.

Does that help?
posted by trig at 3:33 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I found the instructions weren't clear. There are a number of Thunderbird profile directories, including the main program directory, the user profile directory etc. Even within the user profile directory, under the AppData subdirectory, I can find Thunderbird profile folders under the Local and Roaming subfolders. I dug around as much as I could, and I didn't find anything named userChrome.css.

Essentially, I'm not sure where to put userChrome.css. I've also never created a file like that, so I'm a bit leery of actually doing it. (Not that I won't try, but I want to very thoroughly understand what I'm doing first and how to do it.)
posted by sardonyx at 4:32 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for taking the hit and the warning. I won't upgrade any time soon
posted by falsedmitri at 5:00 PM on September 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Here are instructions for finding your profile dir.

The userChrome.css file probably will not exist, it's something that you create. You may need to create the chrome folder too. You should be able to put them directly inside the profile folder that you find using the above instructions.

These instructions are for Firefox but they should be similar (or almost exactly the same) for Thunderbird.
posted by ropeladder at 5:23 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Thanks for the heads up. I have recently done a full upgrade to my Debian laptop and sure enough, Thunderbird now comes with the new UI. Which, sigh. Kids these days.

AskVG has a nice clear step-by-step for the same procedure that's described behind your Stack Exchange link. I've just followed those steps and they worked for me.

They assume Windows, and include steps for persuading Notepad not to mess up the filename extension on userChrome.css, but the same process worked in my Debian LXQt desktop environment. Thanks, Vishal, nice job. Describing the foolproof way to browse into the active Thunderbird profile folder was particularly helpful.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everybody. This is all very helpful. I think I'll be able to follow that AskVG link.

Of course this had to happen while I'm on deadline and I'm already having email issues that my ISP isn't addressing. Once I get a chance to catch my breath, I'll give the instructions a shot and report back.

And since I'm complaining about the update, I just have to add that I absolutely hate the new logo. It looks like some kind of cross between an Internet Explorer logo and an ugly baseball mitt--or at least it does to my aging eyes as I glance at it on pinned to the taskbar on the bottom of my screen.
posted by sardonyx at 9:07 PM on September 14, 2023

Thunderbird kindly stopped being able to compose outgoing mail for me, in the upgrade before this one. You have my sincere sympathy. It was SUCH a good mail program.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:04 PM on September 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I absolutely hate the new logo

Iconarchive has a selection of Thunderbird icons available for download, most of which look pretty close to the nice pre-Supernova one.

Click the "All download formats" link below the main green "Download Icon" button on the page for an icon that you like (for example, this one from carlosjj) and you'll see another button offering the icon in Windows ICO format. Download the .ico version and put it somewhere where you won't accidentally delete it.

Now you can change the icon for the Thunderbird desktop shortcut, and pick the .ico file you just downloaded. Unpin the existing Thunderbird icon from both your taskbar and your Start menu, then pin the shortcut you just edited to Start.

Launch Thunderbird and you should see the replacement icon appear in your task bar and get the opportunity to pin it there as well.
posted by flabdablet at 1:43 AM on September 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks to everybody here. Now, thanks to flabdablet's instructions to change the icon and the wonderfully detailed, step-by-step AskVG website, Thunderbird's visual appearance is much closer to something that makes sense and isn't as ugly. Before even tackling this I created a restore point, in case things went horribly off the rails and I managed to mess things up. So far, it appears I haven't, so fingers crossed that everything remains stable.
posted by sardonyx at 3:01 PM on October 1, 2023