Make Start Page Persistent or Style Messagepane White Area?

[ThunderStruck]

For Thunderbird 60+, Is it possible to make the start page (or its content, as specified in the "Thunderbird Start Page" location in Preferences/Options) always show (be persistent) in the messagepane area when no messages are selected to view? I've found that once a message is selected to view (or another mailbox is selected) the start page content never shows up again. There is just a blank white pane instead. I want the start page content to always show as default instead of the blank white pane. Does this make sense? Is this possible? If not, is there a way to style the background color of that blank pane to be something other than white? I tried it, but it only works when a "display" or "position" attribute is targeted to the "browser" box in CSS. (But doing that causes other problems when utilizing that approach.)

[tanstaafl]

The same problem occurs if you select a folder that doesn't have a message selected.

Morat might be able to help you with your half dozen css related questions. I've got problems getting the latest Dom Inspector Plus add-on at https://github.com/Javier-DarthPalpatin ... issues/376 to inspect more than handful of elements. I haven't figured out yet if its me (many years since I used a dom inspector add-on) or a bug.

If he doesn't reply in a couple days I suggest you send him a private message asking if he would take a look at your threads. memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=523035

[ThunderStruck]

>>The same problem occurs if you select a folder that doesn't have a message selected.<<
Thanks for adding this, as that also happens,

[morat]

Try setting the mailnews.start_page.url preference to about:blank and use the following style.

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") {
  body { background-color: gainsboro !important; }
}

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Start_Page_for_mail
http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserContent.css

morat might be able to help you...

It's sometimes hard for a Windows user like me to create styles for a Mac user.

[ThunderStruck]

I see where you're going with changing the "about:[x]" pages as an approach. I tried the code, however, it didn't work. Any other ideas?

[Frank Lion]

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") {
  body { background-color: red /* gainsboro*/ !important; }
}

This works for me and should work on Mac, etc as well. Make sure it's put in userContent.css and not userChrome.

You can also do this via about:config (Config Editor under T/Bird options.) and find browser.display.background_color and modify value to something like #DBE3E2. Just make sure that whatever colour you choose is very light and unsaturated (low chroma) otherwise it'll look horrible, as those color picker colours in Options do.

The downside of this second route is that it will also colour 'Plain Text' backgrounds, but pick the right colour and it's more than liveable with.

[tanstaafl]

I tried that userContent.css file under Windows 10 and it didn't work despite a dozen restarts of Thunderbird 60.6.1. I then incorrectly added as the first line

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

tried it, failed, removed that line and tried again. Then it worked (and continues to work even after changing the color). Any ideas why the initial trouble?

[Frank Lion]

Any ideas why the initial trouble?

No

In theory, it could be related to how Complete Themes need installing/re-installing a few times on the new T/Bird before they show correctly. However, I have that problem, yet this userContent.css snippet showed OK first time for me.

The only other thing that springs to mind is a strange thing when I was working, ages back, on styling the scrollbars on Firefox 57 - the cache had to be emptied each time, before the scrollbar changes would show. That was a first!

Both 'ideas' seem unlikely, but then these days both Firefox and T/Bird are generally getting tricky to style the UI on.

[ThunderStruck]

Once I tried this in userContent.css (instead of userChrome.css), it worked! Excellent. This effect is almost what I'm looking for, but there's only one gotcha. I'd like for the compose message window to revert back to its default background color of white (and not what I specify for "about:blank" in the body attribute in userContent.css). Just that one window. Any way to target that specific window to have its background color be white (or a different color)? I'd be content with a solution for that, but to further things (just to see if it's possible), any way to target other specific windows to have different background colors too?

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") {
  body { background-color: red /* gainsboro*/ !important; }
}

This works for me and should work on Mac, etc as well. Make sure it's put in userContent.css and not userChrome.

You can also do this via about:config (Config Editor under T/Bird options.) and find browser.display.background_color and modify value to something like #DBE3E2. Just make sure that whatever colour you choose is very light and unsaturated (low chroma) otherwise it'll look horrible, as those color picker colours in Options do.

The downside of this second route is that it will also colour 'Plain Text' backgrounds, but pick the right colour and it's more than liveable with.

[Frank Lion]

I'd like for the compose message window to revert back to its default background color of white

Take the !important off the code in userContent.css.

i.e. -

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") {
  body { background-color: red /* !important */ ;
 }}

[ThunderStruck]

Actually, I never had !important on there to begin with. I often will use that to override TBird's defaults, but in this case, it still shows the color I specify in userContent.css.

Take the !important off the code in userContent.css.

[morat]

The take off the !important solution works here.

Try this:

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userContent.css */

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") {
  body:not([_moz_dirty]) { background-color: red !important;
}}

[ThunderStruck]

Still not working for me. Here's what I have set so far...

Thunderbird Start Page in Preferences tab...
Location: about:blank

Advanced > Config Editor...
"mailnews.start_page.url" value set to about:blank

userContent.css has the following code...

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") { body { background-color: blue; } }

Overall effect of the above: start page, mailbox start pages, and compose or replay to emails windows all have a blue background. I just want only the compose mail window background color to be white.

[morat]

Does the style work if you disable extensions?

The body element has 0 attributes for me in the 3pane window.

i.e. <body>

The body element has 3 attributes for me in the compose window.

i.e. <body _moz_dirty="" text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">

I guess something is different on the Mac.

[ThunderStruck]

Does the style work if you disable extensions?.

I disabled extensions but none of them were interfering with getting this to work.

The body element has 3 attributes for me in the compose window.
i.e. <body _moz_dirty="" text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
I guess something is different on the Mac.

I couldn't find anything showing for this. There were no CSS styling attributes for this area (vbox > editor > #document > html > body > br - _moz_dirty). This is the correct area as the DOM Inspector would highlight the exact area that I'm trying to target...

Overall, I've been successful targeting the start page and mail/message-related windows using this...

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") { body { <entries go here> } }

...(without indicating !important anywhere) in userContent.css.

However, I simply just cannot find or target the appropriate elements in the compose message window to override what gets set from the above. I've placed many different elements that I found in the DOM Inspector for the compose message window in the [whatgoeshere] area to no avail—I even tried body([_moz_dirty]) and body:not([_moz_dirty]) and nothing yields the correct results.

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:blank") { body([whatgoeshere]) { <entries go here>} }

Here's a list of DOM elements I found for that window:

#titlebar
#appcontent
#composeContentBox
#compose-toolbox
#content-frame
editor
#headers-parent
hbox
#msgcomposeWindow
#msgComposeContent
.moz-custom-content-container
.moz-forward-container
#sidebar-box
#stringbundleset

_moz_dirty
browser.message.body
moz-custom-content-container

I tried every one in some iteration or another but none of them were able to override the defaults or what is specificed in "about:blank" in userContent.css. At this point, I'm not sure what else to try. It would seem there's a way to do this, but I just can't figure out the correct syntax.