Why are there no colour icons on Thunderbird toolbar
I am using Thunderbird 68.4.2 and what I have always disliked about Thunderbird is the lack of coloured icons on the toobar. I used 13.1.0 until recently because it had a good layout and coloured icons which makes it a lot easier to use. Because I recently changed my OSX on my iMac to Catalina I had to download 68.4.2 which has caused a lot of issues in text colour and url colour which were never, ever a problem before and thankfully with members support, and using a fair amount of time up I have thankfully managed to resolve these issues.
But, why no colour on the icons? I have tried the extension add -on with wood etc., but they are frankly naff. And, people have advised me to use add extensions to some coloured buttons, but this never opens and works on my iMac and I have tried it so many times i am fed with trying. I just cannot see the problem with Mozilla having coloured icons.
If it worked so well in 13.1.0 why did it get removed? It seems that all this tinkering and constantly bring out new versions is counter productive. Modern design seems to involve flattening the Thunderbird icon and making lettering smaller all the time as if everyone has xray eyesight. It's not good design, it's following poor designs everywhere that adopt the same naff ideas, which is hardly what anyone would call creative. It's just following the crowd through lack of any real originality.
Modified by hughmoz
All Replies (6)
Does this add-on work in Mac?
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/phoenity-icons/
It has no colored icons, because the fashion was, and I think is, for black glyphs. I first saw them in a beta copy of Microsoft's developer tools. I still do not like them, but I have got used to them, and it does make toolbar items that get highlighted with color stand out.
I think the idea is to de-emphasize the application parts and emphasis the content, in this case the emails. It also make the dark themes easier as no one has to worry about what the icon looks like in two or three themes. It will be black, or a negative basically.
I also have trouble with the current desire for "Dark" themes. Apparently when your your it makes reading easier on the eyes, with my glasses it just makes reading impossible. So you are not alone in finding the monochrome flat world a bit of a let down. But that is the current trend, and to see ugly and hard to use. Check out Windows 10 defaults. Microsoft have gone full circle and things look as they did in Windows 1.
I have never managed to get it to anything. Most add -one just work in Thunderbird without doing anything, but this does nothing.
That’s my point, that trends are useless copying of mainly daft ideas because, there is little real creativity nowadays and everyone just copies whatever is happening. It’s pathetic and shows a lack of courage and individuality in design. As I said 13.1.0 was a really good version and I have had it for many years, but Catalina does not work properly with it, hence having to use 68.4.2 which is pretty lame.
hughmoz said
It’s pathetic and shows a lack of courage and individuality in design. As I said 13.1.0 was a really good version and I have had it for many years,
No it shows a trend. While I sympathize, I do not accept.
Thunderbird 68 brought the era of full themes to a close. I don't like that either, but I understand the reasons for it. Aside from the compelling technical reasons, every Thunderbird update would see a whole slew of mac users complaining that something was "broken" because their favored walnut theme was not updated for the new version of Thunderbird.
The days of garish clownish interfaces are over for now. If I had a choice, I would be using Thunderbird V2 icons. But that is not how it is. It is not lame, it is a reflection of how software looks at the moment, Along with the dumbing down of user interfaces that apparently have to work with a big hairy finger instead of a nice fine mouse pointer, it is a sign of how it is. There is much in the current trends to criticize, but for each of us lamenting something lost, there are at least as many and I think more complaining about the dated look and the "Last century" way of doing things.
Saying, "This is how it is" , is not a good answer because, it does not have to be that way. The problem is doing what I call a "Tony Blair" where people/organisations try to be everything to everybody and it always ends in tears lol.
Modified by Hughmoz