April 2
Quick Filtering in Thunderbird
Today we’ve released a new add-on the Mozilla Messaging team has been working on for a little while, the Quick Filter. A new single folder search and filter system that will work alongside our previously released Thunderbird global search.
The Quick Filter add-on is reminiscent of the old quick search system of Thunderbird 2.0 but we’ve improved it in a number of areas. Here’s how it’s changed from the 2.0 days:
Search Message Types
Unread, Starred, Contact, Tags, Attachments are all types of searches you can toggle to turn on.
A Tag search presents the array of possible tags to help you filter down even more.
Filter Results Count
If your search returns a lot of results we let you know the search bar will let you know how many messages match.
And if even if the search query is too strict and there are no results the Quick Filter will display this inline.
Better Search Type Options
The old quick search tended confuse people because the search type settings were hidden in this popup menu:
In the new Quick Filter we’ve brought those options out every time you focus on the search entry so you always know what kind of search you are performing.
Space Saving Options
Last but not least we’ve worked hard to make sure that if you are using the Quick Filter on a smaller screen it converts down to icons only mode automatically.
Note for Techies: This change was made possible by the CSS @media rule
Try it out!
You’ll need to be running Thunderbird 3 and then from the Add-on Manager (Tools -> Add-on) search for “quick filter”.
Give Feedback!
We’re looking for feedback before this lands in Thunderbird as a core feature so any praise and/or comments you have would be greatly appreciated. Leave your comments in the Quick Filter add-on reviews.
Something you might have already noticed is that this is a separate toolbar just for quick filtering but you can show or hide it as you need it. Try out the keyboard shortcut and see how it feels.
Thanks for taking a look!
[...] die Erweiterung noch ein bisschen genaue erklärt haben wollt, dann schaut beim Macher vorbei: Bryan Clark. Qucik Filter ist eine Erweiterung des Mozilla Messaging Teams. Wenn du hier neu bist, dann [...]
Yes! It’s brilliant.
Perfect!
What about making a mobile version for n900? Pretty please:
The feature this delivers is really useful and sorely missed, but it needs polishing IMHO.
When I installed it on Lanakai on my desktop (Monitor res: 2048×1152 so I use TB in Vertical view) the search box by default is way too short and the buttons and text are way too long.
I saw no obvious way to turn off text and go for icons only? I don’t like the way the button you use to filter stays highlighted after you click it again to turn it off (Am on Ubuntu 9.10 Linux BTW).
Nice addition.
Thanks.
[...] thunderbird users — go check out this post by bryan clark on a cool new feature we’re working on. We need your feedback! General [...]
@The Open Sourcerer: try out version 0.7 which was just released and should fix the problem in the vertical view.
Happy to see this. <3 this in fact. Thunderbird search saves my tail on a daily basis. Thank you for making it that much easier.
Yeah, this is definitely an improvement over the current UI. The next thing (out of scope, but I can’t stop myself!) is allowing someone to pivot. So, find a message one way and then quickly jump to a thread-wide view or \messages from this sender\ / \with this subject\ / \with this cc recipient\ etc. People remember things in strange ways!
I think it is a good idea to improve the accessibility of filtering, but the way you are doing this is strange:
1. It adds lots of clutter
– 6 buttons means lost vertical space and lots of additional noise, especially in the case where buttons have text at the right. The tradeoff between UI simplicity and discoverability seems heavily tilted towards the latter here, don’t you think?
– An additional search bar. Your screenshots don’t show the whole picture, which is a Thunderbird with two search boxes. From a developer perspective, it makes sense: the global “gloda” search box is global, and the quickfilter applies to the current view. From the user standpoint, much less: why two search boxes? Where should I type my query? Why do these search boxes behave differently?
2. Also, aren’t you going backwards with such features? Bryan’s blog article say that “The old quick search tended confuse people because the search type settings were hidden in this popup menu”. Well, wasn’t the goal of your (awesome) search refinement screen precisely to teach the user _not_ to care about specifying such settings? Wasn’t the spirit more like “let Bob search about Vancouver, then if he’s not happy with the results, our new ajaxified interface will let him quickly refine his search”? So what? Why this brutal change? Is the refining experience a failure according to your metrics? I don’t think so.
3. Performance: I’d expect filtering to be instantaneous. Here on a modern machine with a decent Archive folder it can take seconds, and that’s not acceptable. But maybe it’s just a consequence of being just an addon at the moment, and maybe it’ll disappear when integrated into trunk
So yup, it works, sure, but is it really the best way to achieve your goals?
[...] thunderbird users — go check out this post by bryan clark on a cool new feature we’re working on. We need your [...]
The one thing that I’ve always found stopping finding the search all mail feature productive is the fact I can’t see the mail it finds in context (i.e. the whole thread). A right click and view this thread in a new window would be very cool in both types of search.
@Ronan: Having to manage a large mailbox and constantly having to refer back to mail I find that the current search methods in TB3 lack what I need to find what I’m looking for. It’s a good thing IMHO that this adds discoverability at the expense of UI simplicity. Maybe it should stay as an extension?
It seems to work well enough overall (including with Japanese search terms, I’m happy to say). Below are a few glitches I encountered.
Serious bug:
1. Interferes with saved search folders (at least on IMAP): When I click on a saved search folder, it won’t show any messages until I click on one of the primary Quick Filter buttons, such as Starred or Attachment.
Functionality issues:
2. Typing something in the search field (and even hitting Enter) does nothing. You have to type something and then click one of the secondary filter buttons, such as Sender. This is different from how gloda search works and less efficient than the old TB2 quicksearch. I didn’t find it intuitive to use.
3. Inconsistent search types when selecting multiple buttons: Selecting two or more of the primary Quick Filter buttons — such as Unread and Attachment — narrows the search (it finds only messages that meet ALL selected criteria). However, selecting two or more of the secondary filter buttons — such as Sender and Subject — broadens the search, finding all messages that meet ANY of the criteria. I didn’t find this at all intuitive, and I suspect that this is going to confuse users far more than the “hidden” search type settings in the quicksearch box in Thuderbird 2 ever did.
4. Tags are not always displayed: in a folder with some tagged messages, click Tags and then some other criteria for which there are no matching messages, such as Unread. Result: individual tags are still displayed on the secondary Quick Filter bar. But if you do it the other way around — clicking Unread first and then Tags — the individual Tags are NOT displayed on the secondary Quick Filter bar.
Visual issues:
5. Clutter: On top of the new non-collapsible message-header pane and the tabs, this adds even more icons and labels etc. to the main TB window. Not to mention adding a second search box. It ain’t pretty.
6. Bar height: The Quick Filter bar is taller than the bar at the top of the folder pane (the one that says “All Folders” or whatever). It’s also a different height and in a different vertical position from bar at the top of the Lightning Today Pane. All in all, it doesn’t look well integrated into the main TB window.
7. Space between Attachment button and search box doesn’t shrink when the window width does. What happens instead is that the search box shrinks.
8. Search box default text is truncated. The most I can see is “Filter these messages… Toolbars.
And speaking of truncation, the tail end of my post above got chopped off. Here’s how it should have ended:
8. Search box default text is truncated. The most I can see is “Filter these messages… Toolbars.
Grr, one more try.
8. Search box default text is truncated. The most I can see is “Filter these messages… contro”. I wonder what the rest of it says.
Question:
9. How do I hide the Quick Filter toolbar? It’s not listed in View | Toolbars.
Nice thunderbird add-on ! I like it ! This will make finding messages faster
One more glitch to add to my list above:
10. Quick Filter toolbar is non-functional in gloda “Open as list” tab. STR: do a normal gloda search, in the results tab click “Open as list”, and in that tab try using the Quick Filter bar at the top of the threadpane. Result: it doesn’t do anything.
Brilliant!
Fantastic work!
Definitely a very interesting addon. I think this is mostly going into the right direction. The incremental refinement is a key usability feature, and feels very intuitive, that’s really great and very much in the spirit of default gloda search. However,
- what you can achieve is often already available by default in View > Custom Views (although that feature seems underused, so it might be a good thing to make it more usable with this addon). If the goal is to replace that functionality, it’s definitely going the right way. However, to replace the “View >” toolbar button completely, a way to remember a search would be needed.
- steals too much vertical space, as mentioned before.
- hard to make a clear difference with the gloda search, although I don’t have a definite answer as how to make a clear distinction between the two, with a semantics that is understandable by mere humans as well.
But this is definitely great. Some minor glitches :
- C-f pops up the search box and focuses it, but I have found no way to hide it with the keyboard yet.
- Hiding the box right after showing it up (without entering any search terms) triggers a “Searching folder…” message in the status bar. I have a big “Smart Inbox” (thousands of messages) that takes seconds to reload on a low-range computer. I think useless folder reloads should be avoided as much as possible. Same behaviour when re-focusing the search box after focus has been lost, even if there was no input yet.
Enough ramblings now
. Congratulations!
I posted a comment earlier (or yesterday). Why didn’t it appear. If you have blocked/banned me, plese have the decency to let me know (and ideally, why).
Oh, it seems I can post know. Thanks!
It seems the add-on you want the testers to test doesn’t work in the nightly builds (AKA 3.2a1pre) (yes, I realize the feature is intended for the 3.1 release). Oh well. Too bad.
Thanks so much to the team for developing this. Being able to quickly filter by sender is a huge part of my daily workflow, and I’ve been missing the capability since Thunderbird 3.0 came out. A great addition!
First: great add-on (if it works)
But – I have a problem and two wishes:
1) Version 0.7 doesn’t work any more with Lanikai 3.1 Beta 1
2) Wish: I want Quick Filter to start minimized (only the magnifying glass is visible)
3) Even better would it be to have the possibility to use the search field in the button bar
Thanks, Wolfgang
Thanks for all the praise! It’s really good to hear people are liking the add-on.
@Beltzner good ideas! Our data miners extension has lagged a bit because of the 3.1 release but is slated to handle those issues of “pivoting” through a sidebar that presents those kinds of details and search options. data-miners: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Data_Miners
@Ronan good points. I am concerned about the double entry for searching via gloda and this quick search. However the change is about speed and user habits. We found (through some quick testings and feedback) that people wanted to “quickly find that thing they just saw”; unprocessed or unarchived items still in the inbox. The global search is not (yet) designed to do this well. This search is fast and presents users with a familiar interface (of quick search) for getting to items already suspecting of being in the view. We are working on a better “upsell” to the global search, if you find no results in a text search hitting enter will open a new tab for the global search.
Agreed that this is a trade off in simplicity for performance and we’ll see if it’s the right thing long term.
@wintogreen those all seem like serious issues that I haven’t seen reported anywhere else. We’ve tested on all types of saved searches and the quick filter has worked for us. I can only think that you’re running this on a latest Trunk build and therefore seeing odd Tracemonkey javascript happenings.
We’re adding a menu item to the View menu for this toolbar, it just hasn’t landed yet.
Thanks for pointing out 10, I don’t think we’d looked at that yet.
@Jonathan thanks for the comments! If you come up with any ideas or more comments please do leave them here.
The Custom Views is under utilized and a bit of a difficult interface; very powerful if you know how to use it but otherwise tough to manage. One of the things I think we are doing much better than the custom views is trying to create better visual cues that a filter is currently being applied. As well as obviously allowing multiple filters at the same time. We left the “Quick Filter” label in there for possible future expansion as a menu which might allow saving to a view / saved search.
C-f + escape doesn’t seem to work as I thought it did before to hide the toolbar. Thanks for pointing that out, I’ll see if we can fix it right away.
I’ll pass the hide/show search reload issue on to Andrew who might know what’s happening there.
@Peter: yes, the extension doesn’t work on nightly builds that’s why we’ve set the maxVerion to only 3.1. If you try it on a nightly you’ll get odd results which we can’t fix at this point.
Not sure why your posts aren’t coming through, I often edit links out of comments which I don’t feel are relevant; though I don’t think I saw your earlier one.
@Wolfgang: I’ll take a look at 1, not sure why it isn’t working. 2) it should remember hidden or visible state. 3) I never thought about that, I think it’s possible.
[...] Quick Filtering in Thunderbird [...]
I have added support for the new Quick Filter extension in the next release of my themes on AMO. Looks great on my screen, and very useful too!
My comments to the add-on site seemed to have to have gotten lost. Two additional suggestions to the ones that I made there:
1) Disable filter buttons that are not applicable. For example, disable the “Tags” button if no messages in the current view have tags.
2) Do more to distinguish the words “Quick Filter” from the following filter options. On windows, “Quick Filter” appears to be one of the filtering options. Perhaps, change the wording to “Filter by:” to make things clearer.
Looks great, but it takes up too much of my vertical space.
If it was made into a regular menu item so I could place it where I wanted (eg, on any of the massive amounts of unused menubar space I have) I would use it permanently. As it is I’m not prepared to lose the vertical space it takes up for the functionality.
[...] erste Schritt bleibt auch in Zukunft die Eingabe eines Suchwortes. Nachdem der Anwender zudem festgelegt hat, in [...]
First off: Awesome tool, really improves the search experience
My only grip is the relayout that occurs once you start typing into the search field. I find it somewhat disorienting — my eyes pop-up to see what happened, which distracts from the search itself. That said, I /do/ like the way the options are displayed where I need them, instead of being hidden in a pop-up.
One more vote for integration with global search. There should not be 2 search boxes, even if they are offering different functionality.
The native search bar was woefully broken so this was needed and appears to correct the problems.
How about reducing real estate and let user replace the old search textbox.
Still we have the deficiency (relative to OE) where you have a tree of matching messages but no others. In OE you can do simple, often-used finds with shift-F3; go to the message located in the complete tree;, and, then F3 to the next one. All while showing complete folder tree.
There are two problems with this add-on that I have found.
1. It steals the Ctrl+F shortcut from in-message search and I really don’t know how to open the in-message search no more. That’s kind of problematic.
2. In Layout > Vertical View. The Toggle Quick Filter button is disjointed from the actual filter pane. But that’s just cosmetic.
But in every other possible aspect Quick Filter rocks!!
I’m running TB 3.0.4 in Windows 7 64 bit. And Global indexing is turned on as suggested by the website.
Will unfortunately not install for me. It tells me it will finish installing when TB is restarted. So I click on its restart button and it turns TB off but TB never comes back on. When I restart TB manually it is still not installed and still saying it will install when TB is
restarted. Did it 3 times.
When this addon is enabled, I experience character encoding mismatch in displayed message after changing mail folder – Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; cs; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100317 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.4
Hi,
excellent improvement.
1. the button on the far right to toggle on / off the search bar.
should be round button and not tab design(flat at the bottom) it doesn’t make sense if you have the preview pane vertical.
2. the button if off should let the gloda have back all the search feature.
3. Open the advanced search in a tab could be nice too.
But so far TB3 and this new feature improve a lot my search and use of my emails.
Thanks a lot.
P.
[...] conoces en Firefox). Otra característica a destacar, es el cambio en el campo de búsquedas con “Quick Filter” (que se podía utilizar como extensión en TB 3.0, pero actualmente no aparece listada en [...]
First, I’d like to thank you for your work. “Real time” or “incremental” filtering fits so perfectly in my work flow that I would use the Quick Filter bar 100% of the time, if it wasn’t for this (apparently not as common as I would think) UI issue.
I use a high contrast color scheme (“theme”, as per the “Display” Control Panel applet) in Windows. In Thunderbird (with the default theme), this makes the thread pane display in white text with black background (which, not surprisingly, I like). But whenever Quick Filter is active (when I push a button or type something in the Quick Filter bar), the text in the thread pane remains white while the backround turns to white/blueish-white zebra stripes (the default Thunderbird color scheme, I suppose), therefore rendering the thread pane unreadable unless the messages are selected or highlighted (which, of course, has the side effect of limiting a lot of functionality). This is so frustraiting that I even tried to hack my userChrome CSS file (armed with the DOM Inspector), but since I am not a developer, my attempts weren’t very effective (only time consuming).
My humble imput as a user is that, while some kind of visual clue that the thread pane is being filtered is desirable, the behavior should be adaptative to the user environment, or at least configurable. I hope this makes sense to you, and you reckon this as a bug and not as a “known issue” with exotic system configurations (no sarcasm intended). Anyway, thank you very much and I hope you can look into it. I’m using Mozilla Thunderbird version 3.0.4 and Quick Filter Prototype 0.9.
The link to the add-on goes to a “We’re sorry, but we can’t find what you’re looking for” page. Has the add-on been removed completely, or is there are new version somewhere?
the same problem here…i wanted to install the add-on on another computer but just was not able to find it…unfortunately i didn´t save the xpi file on my computer…great add-on by the way…would be a shame if it was put on some “black list” of sort…may the reason i can´t find the add-on any more be that it will be part of the next version of TB?
It did not yet turn up, so still not found the XPI.
We’re sorry, but we can’t find what you’re looking for …
Sad
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/77714/
Any reason why ?
Sorry, it does seem a bit premature but the add-on has landed into the coming Thunderbird 3.1 release. If you want to keep trying it out you could grab one of the release candidates from here: http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/early_releases/downloads/
Ah, thanks.
I’ve installed the RC1, and there it is.
However, now whenever I try to do a global “Search all messages…” search, I get 0 results.
And a lot of people are going to be confused about the presence of 2 search boxes on the main interface.
Perhaps this would be better kept as a plug-in until it’s been refined a little more.
The global search is now working in RC2.
(although I’m still hoping someone will find a way to consolidate the two search boxes.)
Searching is not filtering. Filtering is doing things like “take all the messages that meet these criteria and put them in the trash”.
Why on earth doesn’t Thunderbird have filtering in the news reader? There is so much spam on Usenet lately that a good filter is absolutely essential in *any* news reader. And what about killfile? Why can’t I killfile spammers? Why can’t I delete messages that get through (supposing there is a filter)?
I have just about had it with Thunderbird and am considering going to Google Groups (please don’t make me do that). Just give me decent filtering!
If this is the wrong place to ask these questions, please let me know where I should be asking.
–
Rob
Well, I downloaded TB3.1 with lot of anticipation! Bit disappointed with search. Frankly, I’m lost on how to use C+K search
Shows me all useless info. But, this post is for Quick Filter so let’s talk about that. It needs some work. My suggestions:
1) Use minimal screen space. Get me that old style drop down menu! It was way better. New buttons are taking additional screen real estate. Or better yet provide hot key (Alt+something) to select Sender, Recipients, Subject, Body, etc. “buttons”.
2) Have the facility to put the search box in Button Toolbar
3) Ctrl+F is stealing email message search! So, now when I press C+F, first it pops search window at the screen bottom, pressing again pops up Quick Filter. Pressing Esc multiple times closes search bar one after another! But, this is very random and I can’t guarantee that pressing C+F will put me inside Quick Filter!!
@Satyen
You might be interested in my bug to provide an optional Quickfilter searchbox like the old one, but with the new functionality integrated:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570815
Please by all means vote for it if you feel so inclined…
I would also very much prefer a totally separate key combo to toggle the Quickfilter toolbar, since Ctrl-F is shared with the ‘Find in this message’ toolbar – something like Alt-F (or Ctrl-Alt-F if Alt-F is taken on other OS’s)…
Bryan – how can I force the Quickfilter toolbar to use icons only for the criteria on the left?
Hi Bryan,
Is there a way with TB 3.1 to directly save a Quick Filter as a virtual/search folder ?
I use this a lot in TB 3.0.x as I can type in the filter, see the result (instant feedback to the user, nice!) and then click the search box pull-down menu to save with “Save search as Folder”.
In TB 3.1 it looks like I can do the quick filter but then I have to go elsewhere, “Views” I think, modify the folder name, re-enter the text I filtered on and the field to search for that text (potentially making a typo in the process) and then save it.
Any chance of an Add On for those throwbacks like myself that actually prefer the old style single multi-function search box with confusing drop down menu ? Unfortunately I may have to revert to TB 3.0 as the new style split Global/Quick search boxes are currently too jarring for my current style of usage.
Thanks!
P.S. Apologies for the negative tone, I can see that for many people this will be a big step forward in terms of usability so congratulations for pushing TB onwards, I’m just not one of them. Sorry.
–
Roj
I agree with Ronan (April 3rd) and with others:
1. Keep one search field (too much confusion and space taken with two).
2. Keep a popup with desired search options (saves space and is intuitive)
3. Keep emphasis on filtering using subject and sender/recipient, since filtering based on bodies takes a lot of time, if you have thousands of mails. I don’t agree that the pop up is confusing.
@Nick…
You might be interested in my bug to provide an optional Quickfilter searchbox like the old one, but with the new functionality integrated:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570815
Please by all means vote for it if you feel so inclined…
Although I’m not a fan of two search boxes, I’ve found that in use I much prefer having the always-visible filtering options over the pop-up.
With the pop-up box I was trying to think forward towards what options I would eventually select when I was composing my search terms, and I also had to re-read the options each time to sort out the correct combination in my mind. With the always-visible buttons I know exactly what I’m getting and exactly how to alter that.
Thats fine Hugh, my Feature Request only asks for an optional standalone searchbox – with the new features (sticky-pin, and persistent drop-down for selecting/deselecting search terms) – that can be placed on any toolbar desired.
The only button I would ever use on the quickfilter toolbar is the Read/Unread button, but I accomplish the same thing with the ‘View:’ selector – although I would nuch prefer a simple button toggle, which is why I alsp opened a FR to make those buttons moveable to other toolbars as well.
I never change my search criteria, it is always ‘Subject, Sender or Recipient’.
You know what? In my TB3.1 installation (which was over existing TB 2.x installation) it never showed the little “down arrow” along with magnifying glass (drop down list) for C+K search box! Also, the magnifying glass was on right side of the search box. On my colleague’s setup I found magnifying glass and the little down arrow on the left
Also, it never updated message list as I type in. I always had to hit Enter that opened new tab 
So, I’m lost. Seems a new bug??
Also, I use IMAP and “Subscribe” feature didn’t show me all folders!! I even deleted my IMAP a/c and recreated but no luck. This setup is at my work so I couldn’t afford spending more than a day to fix this so I ended up switching back to TB 2.x!
When I get hold of another PC or have more time on hand I’ll give a try to TB 3.1
@Satyen
Thats because it was only in 3.0.x… I think it was 3.1b1 that introduced the new Quickfilter Toolbar which replaced the old combined quickfilter+global searchbox…
In TB 2, I was able to create my own filter that showed unread and starred. Is this possible in TB 3+? I’m at a loss.
So… how do you now ‘save as search folder’? I cant figugre out how to do this anywhere, was so easy before o_O. Please advise. Thanks
@Tom Talbott and @Simon:
Yes, but you have to use the Advanced Find: Ctrl-Shift-F
Create your query, then click the ‘Save as Search’ button at the bottom…
Any chance of making this add-on available again. Ubuntu 64 bit users are stuck with TB 3.0 until the next Ubuntu release.
Hmm… Tried @Charles suggestion, but didn’t get it to work. Kept saying “Searching…” at the bottom, but never came up with results. Also, it kept wanting to put the search folder under gmail and it got confused. I tried under “Local Folders”, but got the above result. At this point, I don’t see much reason to stick with Thunderbird and might as well go to Mail.app. Oh well.
@Tom…
What were your search criteria? How many folders did you include in the search? How big are they?
Is the Virtual Folder you’re trying to create for an IMAP or POP account?
As for where it puts the Virtual folder – it puts it under the account you create it for, so if it is putting it under.
I loathe Mail.app, but whatever turns your crank…
One thing I really miss in TB3 is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to have a different filter setting for individual accounts. I tend to only want to see unread messages in mail and all messages in news. Right now I have to toggle the quick filter. Many thanks for TB!
@Dave…
I think what you’re looking for is the ‘View:’ filter selector – it is account+folder specific (remembers how it is set for each account>folder)… I rely on it heavily…
Thanks Charles! That’s it exactly.
I feel much better now.
Glad to help Dave… I hated TB3 at first, but have grown to really like it. There are only a few real irritations left – the Quickfilter Toolbar being one of them…
It really really really sucks.
- takes a lot of space. Very bad for people with low resolution laptops
- when (for those space reasons) the tab bar is disabled, the quick search is not accessible anymore
- the button style might be nice for dumb windows users. In fact, it needs much more clicking around before you really have filtered messages, in contrast to TB2 where you clicked once and that was it.
I might be nice for some uses. Reading in http://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging you will find enough people who dislike the new way and want, like me, just the good old small straight quick search box from TB back, and in the mail bar, not in an additional unneccessary new bar.
Why can’t you keep the old quick search box as addable field for the mail bar, in parallel to the global search field? Then everyone can chose between the new search bar + global search field, or just the old quick search field in the mail bar (possibly even hiding the tab bar).
It’s never a good idea to change concept completely and then forcing everone to use it. Make it an option (and make it the default) while still keeping the option to revert to the old way just as it was, and everybody is happy.
@Frank…
I used to feel the same way, but it really really really doesn’t suck.
In fact, the *functionality* is very much improved.
Your gripe about the space it consumes is a valid one however, but you are wrong about the toolbar not being available when the tab bar is hidden (I keep mine hidden all the time). CTRL-F will bring it up (although this can be confusing because the ‘Find in message’ toolbar shares this keyboard shortcut) and ESC will hide it again – or you can always use ‘View’ > ‘Toolbars’ > ‘Quick Filter Bar’ to toggle it.
I have used keyconfig to eliminate the CTRL-F confusion, so now for me CTRL-ALT-F brings up the Quickfilter bar and ESC hides it. This is bearable, but…
Since I share your desire to have the old searchbox back, I opened bug 570815, to make the new toolbar optionally available as a standalone searchbox widget much like the old one in TB2, but with the benefits of the new functionality, so please feel free to add your vote:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570815
Thanks for your helpful comment! What you propose in the bug report is exactly what I want
Voting there.
Hi guys,
I’m a new user to TB, installed 3.1 at home and at work. Strangely the quick filter bar is present at home, not on my work PC. I tried to look everywhere how to make it appear, found nothing. Any idea ?
The matter of entering filter criteria and then selecting the type of search is incredibly annoying. I don’t want a search underway until I tell it the type of search I need. I enter enter a word and Thunderbird begins to look for it before it knows that I need it by Sender – Recipients – Subject – Body. Once I select the right buttons, it looks for it again! You can solve this by making the Sender, etc. buttons visible to begin with, before the criteria are entered.
alain: try pressing Ctrl+F or click a small magnifier icon in the right top corner…
jim broyles: i agree completely…would be nice if the options were available before typing any filtering text…on the other hand the filtering is very quick (even in folder with nearly 2000 messages) so it is not the major thing for me…
…by the way i am very glad for this feature…unlike some people here i usualy need filtering more often than global search as i have all messages sorted in different folders…
Thanks for the tip. It works. Rather stupid problem, but what it shows is that the help facility is not what it should be. Some more efforts on this side to ease the use of the mailer and its tools would be good.
Hi,
-. Now, with the latest release, we have 2 function duplicated twice, just as improvement 
Today I made the “mistake” to upgrade my TB to the last version 3.1. And surprisingly, I had discovered this “improvement”. I use for my every day work one laptop and as a consequence I don’t have to much space to waste on my screen, therefore this new “feature” I consider it as a BUG. Therefore this evening I have downgraded my TB to 3.0(In my opinion the best version so far for laptops!)
I have liked the previous version with pop-up menu, on the same search box. I don’t think that separating the search function in 2,3 separate tabs reconfigured to perform the same function with different settings could be called optimization(because someone don’t like pop-up menus) except if we believe in Murphy laws ( ~ when improved, things tend to go beyond the point of practical usability ~ )
This “improvement” is just aligning itself in the queue with the one with icons in message header – who had that great idea should stop drinking
I always liked TB because of its versatility. You’ve always got one blank software and you were able to customize it with different addons. Unfortunately, starting from this year most of releases from Mozilla had included a lot of addons inside of the “blank” delivery, limiting our configuration’s options
Feeling so much the same…
The author of the “unified search” plugin said he intends to write another addon allowing to hide the quick filter bar completely and performing all filtering from the global search box in the button bar. Likely not with a dropdown but with a pop-up like proposed in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570815
I guess some feedbacks on his unified search together with support for his idea for the new addon (see my review of the unified search plugin on the mozilla addon page and his answer) will help him keep going
Btw, we plan to buy new laptops for our chair. All the new T-series Thinkpads in 14″ or 15″ now have 1440×900 screens. This is 150px less than the old Thinkpad T60 in 1400×1050.
I wonder if the mozilla team ever tried Thunderbird on a laptop screen with 900px height. Along with the new “great” buttons in the header and the completely useless tab bar with the quick search bar you might still be able to see 3 or 4 lines of the message body, so I guess we need another new feature to hide the mail body completely! Maybe we could make a new separate toolbar for the gloda below the normal button bar… hmm…