Well, one alternative for you is to use Outlook. Developers here work hard to continue improving the product, even though fewer than 1% of users donate. You have posted to the support forum, not the forum for new design features. If interested in furthering Thunderbird, you might join a group at thunderbird dot net and participate in the process. And, no, Thunderbird does not attempt to discourage add-on developers. Also, an email client's purpose is communication, not documentation. Thunderbird will never become a wordprocessor.

Well, David, "communication" in this case means WRITING and WRITING means FORMATTING. Outlook will never be an option for me. I abandoned Windows for Linux, then moved to the UNIX-based Apple since I needed robust peripherals support no one has ever managed to obtain under Linux. I donate monthly to Mozilla's Thunderbird efforts and to LibreOffice. As to discouraging add-on developers, does Mozilla ENCOURAGE developers by working closely WITH them or by creating an INCENTIVE program for them - ONE way of doing that would be for Mozilla to offer a SEPARATE monthly support program TO a developer incentive program. That way, each developer wouldn't have to solicit donations on their own - MANY add-ons simply DIED as the Tbird ' philosophy' was being developed. I'm SURE Tbird doesn't ATTEMPT to discourage, but the RESULT seems to be the same as though they DID. Nevertheless, Tbird IS the best overall mail client.

You make an excellent point: an incentive program. I like it. There are other avenues to propose such ideas to Thunderbird and I strongly encourage you to do that. Involvement by people with expansive ideas is encouraging to all of us and your idea could only make Thunderbird better. Please check the many groups at thunderbird dot net, as I feel there are those who would welcome the discussion. You have provided me my biggest smile of the day. Thank you.

David,

I went to thunderbird.net and bookmarked it but on the main page saw no 'groups'. There IS a "Join" button. Presently, I'm stuck on Apple on Intel since they dropped the 27" iMac - my current platform. 24" is a downgrade I won't accept! Hopefully, Apple will recognize the situation and rectify it. I only mention this noticing Thunderbird (and other software) upgrades FOR Apple to accommodate Apple silicon! Having followed the 'Moore's Law' timeline for more than a couple of decades, I'm a bit surprised to see chip fabrications at 4-5nm with Intel lagging behind!! NEVER expected THAT to happen!!

Hello Paul,

the add-on Unicodify 'should' do what you want. Unfortunately the feature you want is blocked by a Thunderbird bug, and this bug is waiting since a year for the responsible person to handle it. Last time I checked, said person was responsible for 306 other issues so it's a resource problem - there are many things to do and your feature is not a priority.