Why are 'Full Themes' not longer supported?
Full themes seem to no longer be supported.
These seemed to have transformed Thunderbird from looking like a dated application into a modern one.
Why are they no longer supported?
Will there be anything to replace this feature?
Kind regards,
Reece
Chosen solution
"Why this backwards step ?"
When Matt said "Mozilla ripped out support for full themes" he meant the Firefox developers. Don't think of Thunderbird being developed by Mozilla, its hasn't been for years (late 2012?). It continues to uses the Mozilla Foundation (a 501(c)(3) non-profit) as its legal and fiscal home but is a independent project.
The Firefox developers drive what features are supported by the Mozilla toolkit library, which is used by both Firefox and Thunderbird. Its too expensive to fork that library so the Thunderbird developers basically have to accept whatever changes the Firefox developers make.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (3)
Why are they not supported? Thunderbird is built on the mozilla platform. Mozilla ripped out support for full themes. ispo facto Thunderbird does not have support for full themes.
What does the future hold? I have no idea. but it will probably be 12 months before any sort of full theme replacement appears it could be twice that long before Mozilla stop ripping things out and the platform settles enough for the Thunderbird developers to do much more than react to things going missing. The total upset of the addon environment is considered a somewhat more important place to expend effort. Getting things done must always be more important that what it looks like.
Newest Thunderbird version 68.x. have terrible look and bad, bad, bad themes! No great old complex themes working... This situation is very sad and bad. I was using TB by years, with great MS Office 2003 JB Edition, but this is not working and developer is thinking about close it because changes in TB core. I am thinking too leave TB finally :(
Why this backwards step ? Default look of TB is horrible and all new themes are not better!
Look what developer of theme think:
by Jarek Bialkowski (Developer) on Sept. 12, 2019 · permalink
Hi Hans,
Unfortunately it looks that this theme has reached end of life :(
Mozilla has changed Thunderbird engine completely and to be hones I'm not sure if it is possible to develop "Full theme" for v68 at all. From version to version they are blocking more and more functions to force users and theme developers to drop full themes in favour of ridiculous "Persons theme"
I'm also still using v60 because I can't stand default themes and "Personas" are even less readable.
Chosen Solution
"Why this backwards step ?"
When Matt said "Mozilla ripped out support for full themes" he meant the Firefox developers. Don't think of Thunderbird being developed by Mozilla, its hasn't been for years (late 2012?). It continues to uses the Mozilla Foundation (a 501(c)(3) non-profit) as its legal and fiscal home but is a independent project.
The Firefox developers drive what features are supported by the Mozilla toolkit library, which is used by both Firefox and Thunderbird. Its too expensive to fork that library so the Thunderbird developers basically have to accept whatever changes the Firefox developers make.