Thunderbird 78 does not indicate which folders contain new emails, folder name text does not change color to light blue(win7)
Has anyone else found that with Thunderbird 78 the file folder icon and the text name of the file folder may possibly be changing color from black to possibly a very dark navy when new mail is filtered into them via a message filter. But the difference in color so slight that it is almost impossible to see the difference. This is on the regular setting with a white background.
Under Thunderbird 68, the file folder text would change to a light blue when new messages were filtered in, so it was easy to see when a particular folder had new mail in it.
Could whoever set this up for Thunderbird 78 please change the folder name text color indicating new emails from the dark navy text, back to the light blue text, so we can see when a folder has new email filter in when Getting Messages? Again, this is for the regular white background.
Does anyone know how to get them to do this?
Otherwise, the only work around appears to be to change the color of the folder icons from black to some other color, e.g. gray, for all those folders that do not have message filters. And change the color of the folder icons for those folders with message filters from black to some other color, e.g. red. Then when the new mail comes in, the folder icon color for those with filters changes to that dark navy, so you can tell you have new mail in that folder.
As soon as you click on the folder with the new mail to look at it, the folder icon color goes back to red for the next time you Get Messages.
Has anyone else come up with a better work around?
Thanks
Modified by Wayne Mery
All Replies (7)
Is it better for you if you install https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/phoenity-icons/ ?
Thanks for sending the link for the addon for alternate themes. Before I try this, have you tried it? And if so, does the name (text) of the email folder change color to a visible light blue on the white background (or some other visible color on the white background) when Getting Messages and new email is filtered to an email folder?
If not, i.e. if you still can't tell when new email is added to a folder, then this looks nice, but it won't solve my problem. I really need to know (have some indicator) of when new emails are added to a folder.
I'm getting used to my work around, but it just seems odd that whoever coded Thunderbird would change the new email indicator color from a readily visible light blue to an almost black that can't be distinguished from all the other black folder names (text). It was fine in v68, instead of improving things they made it worse, harder to find new emails and much more time consuming. So, far 78 is worse than 68, I don't see any improvements.
Thanks again for your help.
There is a bug report which has been discussing colours and seeing what works best, so reaction from users is helpful feedback.
I restarted my version in SAfe mode and white theme to try to understand your problem. I can easily see the blue, but I will admit, it looks really wrong to have new mail dark blue and I agree it does not have the eye catching effect one desires. It looks very wrong in the dark theme where unread is a more promanent brighter light blue. The problem is that users see colours differently and not all computers are set up with the same brightness settings or graphics cards. Colours also work differently when used on White and Dark themes, so one fit does not work for both. A bold black font on a white background will work very well, but a bold white font on a black background does not command the same obvious difference compared to normal white font.
I was only expecting the unread font colour to change to a darker blue for Dark theme, so I have no idea what went wrong, but the results are not very good.
Apparently, the devs say nothing should have changed, so they are checking out what is going on. I'm using Windows 10 OS. Are you using Windows 10 OS ? or another Windows OS ?
78.6.0 is being built today, which may offer some relief. Will post the link here when it becomes available.
Thanks for the replies. I've been using a Dell Optiplex Desktop PC with Windows 7 32 bit Professional for work and will need to continue with this for the foreseeable future.
It's been working fine for everything including Firefox 83 and Thunderbird 68. Thunderbird 78 is the first update that hasn't been a smooth transition and that is due to the change in the color scheme. It looks like the theme defaulted to "a theme with the operating system color scheme" which is the long standing original Windows color scheme. I really don't want to experiment with some other color scheme right now, there is just no time for me to do much at the moment. My Windows 10 Pro 64 bit set up has been delayed indefinitely. So, right now all I have is Win 7 Pro 32 bit.
Thanks again for all the information.