Thunderbird 2 Alpha Now Available!

[mscott]

<strong>Please note: We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Thunderbird 2 Alpha milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.</strong>

This is an alpha release of Thunderbird 2 focused on testing and collecting feedback for several new features. Ongoing planning for Thunderbird 2 can be followed at the <a href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird2">http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird2</a>.

Features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:
<ul>
<li>Message Tags
<li>Folder Views
<li>New Mail Notification Alert Improvements
<li>New Windows installer based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
<li>Find As You Type in the message pane
<li>New combined and improved Add-ons manager for extensions and themes
<li>Updates to the extension system
<li>Numerous <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/archives/2006/05/2-0alpha1.html">bug fixes</a>
</ul>

The <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/releases/2.0a1.html">Thunderbird 2 Alpha Release notes</a> have more information.

Windows: <a href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-2.0a1&os=win&lang=en-US">Installer</a>
Linux: <a href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-2.0a1&os=linux&lang=en-US">GTK2 + XFT (no installer)</a>
Mac OS X: <a href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-2.0a1&os=osx&lang=en-US">Compressed Disk Image</a>

Thanks!

-Team Thunderbird

[johnstoj]

When will the Intel Mac users get a universal build?

[BTJustice]

It would be nice if the reply to and forward headers where more like Outlook 2003. For example with the <hr> line with From, To, Sent, Subject in Tahoma bold 10 pt. and the rest the same except not in bold...

___________________________________________________________________________________
From: Jane Blow <Jane>
To: Joe Blow <Joe>
Sent: 07/29/2006 4:00 PM CST
Subject: I Washed Your Socks

[deviltje]

Will the latest lightning nightly ( 26 july 2006 ) work with this version ??

[mscott]

When will the Intel Mac users get a universal build?

Making a UB build requires a new machine to handle the release builds. The release team has this on their to do list.

[cricketmilki]

Is there still hope for Tabbed Messages ?

[navidazizi]

When a new message notification arrives, the message notifier does not pop up in any form (neither the old version or the new version). Instead the mail icon appears in the taskbar. Only when I hit the get message, does the message notifier pop up (new version). Is this a bug, or is this the new behaviour?

[therearenoteams]

I'm still having problems with message tagging. It seems that tags applied that are one of the preset five tags (originally labels) do not 'stick' in the message header area of the message. I leave the folder and come back to it, and the tag is gone from the header. (It's still visible in the column.)

Can anyone confirm? I've tested with accounts on two different IMAP servers.

[christos]

Hi.

Some comments on the TB 2 Alpha 1 build:

- I like the folder views, especially the "recent"/"favorite" ones.

- The New Mail Notification Alert is nice; however, I can't click (or double click) on it to get to the new message. Shouldn't that be an option?

- The directory server on my address book seems to be broken. I am using SSL, and nothing comes up as I am trying to do a name search. When I downgrade to 1.5.0.5 (20060719) the directory server works fine again.

- Sometimes the "Next" functionality (ie. "Move to the next unread message") is not working. I have selected the folder with the unread messages, I click on the Next button (added on my toolbar), but it won't go to the next unread message.

Thanks for the hard work!

[Old HardinComp]

When a new message notification arrives, the message notifier does not pop up in any form (neither the old version or the new version). Instead the mail icon appears in the taskbar. Only when I hit the get message, does the message notifier pop up (new version). Is this a bug, or is this the new behaviour?

I get a missing popup notifier from my primary account, but one of my secondary accounts gave me a popup tonight. If there is a bug for this, could we get a bug number so I could vote for it pls?

[AlexIhrig]

I'm still having problems with message tagging. It seems that tags applied that are one of the preset five tags (originally labels) do not 'stick' in the message header area of the message. I leave the folder and come back to it, and the tag is gone from the header. (It's still visible in the column.)

Can anyone confirm? I've tested with accounts on two different IMAP servers.

I can confirm this for my IMAP accounts at one provider:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=343874

[old Neil Parks]

I like the "favorite folders" idea.

But why do only the inboxes appear with their account names in that view? Others appear without account names.

I would prefer to see the same tree structure that I see in the All folders view.

[John Liebson]

This odd bug has reappeared: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=346422 . I believe it reappeared with yesterday's release, is present with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1b1) Gecko/20060808 Thunderbird/2.0a1 - Build ID: 2006080803 . (Trying to get mscott's attention.)

[old Neil Parks]

I like the "favorite folders" idea.

But why do only the inboxes appear with their account names in that view? Others appear without account names.

I would prefer to see the same tree structure that I see in the All folders view.

Ditto for the "recent" and "unread" views.

[brousky]

Is the integration with Mac OS X address book included in Thunderbird 2 (see : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203927)?

The "what's new" section of the release notes doesn't mention anything about it but there are some unofficial builds that have a basic read-only access to OS X address book from Thunderbird (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203927#c87). Unless Thunderbird integrates with iSync to syncronizes contact info with the system-wide addresse book, Thunderbird for OS X should really use the OS X address book as the primary contact source.