How to change inbox folder color when new email in TB3

[jshrek]

Hi

I just installed TB3 and like it so far.

In TB2, when a new email arrived in the Inbox, the Inbox folder would change to Bold Black to let you know there is a new unread email in the folder.

In TB3, when a new email arrives, the Inbox folder changes to Bold Light Blue (if you click on the Bold Light Blue Inbox folder, then click on a different folder it will change to Bold Black).

How can I change this initial color from Light Blue to Black so it mimics the behavior of TB2.

Thanks

[1.42]

additionally, you can select Unread Folders, instead of All Folders, to be displayed in the folder pane

[rsx11m]

See this article for instructions on how to change that color, you can use the "black" color name or #000000 instead. This goes into the userChrome.css file in the chrome folder of your profile. If you don't have it yet, you'll need to create that folder and the userChrome.css file manually (use Notepad only to edit this as a text file, not MS Word).

Code: Select all

treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(folderNameCol, newMessages-true) {
  color: black !important;
}

treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(folderNameCol, newMessages-true, selected, focus) {
  color: white !important;
}

[jshrek]

Thanks rsx11m... that fixed it!!

[jshrek]

I was originally putting the userChrome.css file in the wrong directory, so for others that need to know, the userChrome.css file on Windows XP is here (or needs to be created here):
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\XYZ.default\chrome\userChrome.css

You would replace <USERNAME> with the windows users name, and you would replace XYZ.default with whatever folder name is appropriate... I think it is a random assortment of letters, so it will be different for every computer.

[rsx11m]

You are welcome. Yes, the path to the profile folder contains the user name and a randomized character/number combination (the "default" after the dot is the actual name of the profile).

[Guest]

Was having the same problem, thanks as well for the fix!

Jason Winter

[Guest]

Thanks as well!

[Trishau234]

Thank you!!! Had reverted to V2.xxx because of this!!

[Guest]

Hey guys - After upgrading to Thunderbird 5 today I discovered the TB is now highlighting my folders with unread mail in a hard to read green color. Looks like your tips are designed for exactly the issue I'm trying to solve. However I am following your instructions but its not changing the font color. I went into my profile folder. There was no "chrome" folder so I created one. In that I created the userChrome.css file, and put in the code snippet that you listed above. I then restarted Chrome but it did not work. It did not work with TB 4 either. Maybe the instructions are different for TB4 and TB5? Please let me know. Thanks so much!!

[tanstaafl]

I use the following snippet in userChrome.css in the chrome folder within the profile. It works with both TB5 and TB 7 nightly builds. The chrome folder should be in the root of the profile, just like the Mail folder.

/* Change the text color of unread messages to
* any color of your liking - just change the hex value shown here. */
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(unread) {
color: #C00000 !important;
}

/* Change the color of folders with unread messages */
treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(hasUnreadMessages-true)
{color: blue !important;}

[Guest]

Thank you so much. That did the trick. Sorry for the duplicate post - I was concerned that since this post had a title that referenced TB3 that my question would be overlooked (considered very dated) or the info provided would only work in TB3. What is interesting is that the solution posed earlier in this thread does not seem to work in TB4 or TB5, although it certainly may have worked for TB3. Anyway, your solution did the trick and I'm very grateful for the help!

BTW, what does the !important part in the snippet do? Is there a reference/guide for all these various options or do you just have to know these? Thanks again.

[tanstaafl]

See http://webdesign.about.com/od/css/f/blcssfaqimportn.htm

"The !important rule is a way to make your CSS cascade (styles are applied in order as they are read) but also have the rules you feel are most crucial always be applied. A rule that has the !important property will always be applied no matter where that rule appears in the CSS document. So if you wanted to make sure that a property always applied, you would add the !important property to the tag."

My impression is that a small subset of CSS is typically used in userChrome.css. You can do a lot by just identifying the name of the appropriate window and then mimicking some existing snippet where you change the name of the window and replace a color/style with what you want. The Mailtweak add-ons "CSS selector" tweak can be useful in identifying the name of a window.

http://mailtweak.mozdev.org/tweaks.html#cssselect
http://webdesign.about.com/od/xhtml/u/htmlcssxml.htm#s6
http://www.squarefree.com/userstyles/