by justsomehnguy | 2025-07-13 16:55:38+00:00
> It is not about the invocation, search and filter bar differ in the same way as find and grep. Even if they are similar, they are still different enough to not benefit from unifying.

Well, as I said - it's very easy to do so in this case by clearly separating the way it works and presents the data. It's not the ideal solution nor it would work for everyone (case number one: you) but it would still be better than the current mess.

> I don't know the history and which program's search box predates the other. Note, that the search bar predates the current UI change, see below.

Outlook in 2020/2021, TB in 2022/2023 [0]

> The alternative way seams to be to merge the filter into the search bar

And moving the search bar somewhere sensical. Yes, this is the way I imagine what would work for the most, including me. Filter by default, search if <Enter> (just like today with the search bar!) OR no results from filter with a clear identification it's the search now, not the filter results.

> Currently it is also possible to first search and then use the filter on that. This also won't be possible when you merge them.

But the search results are already on the separate tab! You can't search and filter on the same tab, or at least I never discovered how to do so, because the second I press <Enter> in the search the separate tab with the results open. Nobody forbids to still show the filter bar/box there, it's a separate UI-flow anyway.

> I don't think dumbing down the UI to solely improve tech support over the phone seams worthwhile.

It's not about phone tech support of course, it's about how a regular folks interact with the UI. And in my opinion the current design isn't good for regular Joe.

> Maybe that is, because I don't have any scaling factor

4k with 1.5x, so numbers are off. Anyway, it's about comparison, not the actual px count.

This is on my notebook (1920x1200, non-scaled) main screen: https://ibb.co/qYCmwD7b ~245px tall, which still makes it 20%.

Another trouble is what with all these scaling shenanigans everything people write me is... gigantic to say at least, so I forced to have the reading pane much taller for the same amount of the content I needed ten years ago, so a 5-7 lines of text. It's not TB's problem per se (and scaling in the reading pane works) but it's still something I didn't need to bother 10 years ago and having something eat my vertical screen estate makes me fume!

> My display is 1366x768

> So this amounts to 32.5%,

Yikes!

And yes, literally 30% of the screen is not displaying anything useful (besides contents of the filter bar).

Also it's quite evident what TB developers not only do not use such screens and resolutions but don't care about it at all. Because any sensical (third time here!) person would ask "why the fuck I'm looking at my mail through a tank gun port?!".

> Note, that in both images I have the tab bar, which seams to be missing in all your mockups.

Was confused at first but then it occurred to me. Yes, if I have any searches or open messages than goes another ~50px, up to 300px:

https://ibb.co/WWFt3mnd

> Do you still have the same objections to the old UI?

Go to 115 release [1] and notice how they show 102 with the tabs and 115 without. Totally honest guys.

There are things in 102 UI which I don't like too, but at least there were no stupid mega-ultra-uber-search bar on the top.

> Do you have a proposal for placement without merging/removing functionality?

Uhm. As I said earlier - for the search you are moved to a separate search tab after hitting <Enter>. There is no need to have the search bar everywhere in the app in the first place. But okay, remove the bar, leave the fucking magnifying glass icon, exactly like the 90% of stupid sites do. Bonus points: remove the 'search' button so the user is forced to press <Enter> key to actually perform the search. Just like the other 90% of stupid sites do. Web 3.0! Web 3.0 is everywhere!

[0] It's PITA to search for, but TB 91 (August 11, 2021) didn't yet had the search bar, TB 102 (June 29, 2022) had it a bit more sensically but not yet a fully separate bar; and TB 115 (July 11, 2023) finally did it the current way. [1]

While Outlook had it at least on May 31, 2020 [2]

[1] https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/115.0/whatsnew...

[2] https://blog.rcsprofessional.com/changes-to-the-microsoft-ou...

NB:

>> Hi there was just a release where they deleted the entire task bar with useful buttons and replaced it with a search bar (ie the same thing microsoft did adding that giant search bar on top of word and excel that nobody asked for or wanted). Not exactly sure why, since there is also another search bar just below it.

>> Mar 25 2023

https://old.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/1214smv/how_to...

Heh.