Finally, Icedove 3.0.4 is available in Debian sid through apt. I tested the new release once in a while on one of my windows boxes (not that i use windows just for gaming heh) and I did not really like the improvements. But hey, now I just ran into it through normal apt-get update && apt-get upgrade so let’s give it a try:
During upgrade it tells me that my calendar addon named lightning is not compatible. I am aware of this, it was a bunch of googling to get the old 0.9 version for Icedove/Thunderbird 2.x – but one nice thing – it searches for the updated version and install that automatically.
Starting it for the first time after upgrading, the so-called “Migration Asisstant” pops up. Nice eye catchy stuff – more windows are organized as tabs, finally. Just like Iceweasel/Firefox does, a really appreciated feature (I am one of those guys who work with 20++ tabs open 😉
The new toolbar is a bit too new, I liked the old more (I am using Thunderbird ever since 0.2).
But hey, look at another new feature – all IMAP folders should be downloaded automatically (synchronized to disk). Regarding my grown mailboxes not really a good idea. Furthermore I get a lot of monitoring report emails and other stuff which relates to “if I click on the mail please download it”. So this option is nice to have, but turning it on by default is fail imho. It changes the beloved feature of Icedove/Thunderbird in comparison ot M$ Outlook or similar products – only download mails i really need.
I’ll recommend to turn that off – just as I did now with clicking on “don’t synchronize any”.
Next thing – the toolbar. Hmmm imho a bit too less buttons for working fast. I’ll admit that in Icedove I preferred working with a mouse, also because of the bunch of windows and email sorting etc. Maybe this behaviour changes with 3.x – we’ll see.
But the toolbar does not fit in my Icedove picture, so I clicked on “use original toolbar”. Depends on your needs, if you are a shortcut geek, leave it alone 🙂
Last but not least another new feature which I really don’t like. Might be useful for others having their main mail accounts bundled at the top of the tree and everything else sorted in below. This does not fit for my mailboxes – everything is organized within them, own sub trees and of course I want to organize each mailbox for its own, moving mails, reading mails and not looking on the main mailbox. Not to forget, I’ve mail filters defined, which always generate new emails not only in the main mailbox.
Again, /me is against the proposal of having this enabled – clicked on “use all folders mode”.
Icedove now recognizes mailing lists and adds an own reply to button next to all the new and fresh buttons directly into the mail preview window.
Another nice feature for new users and account creation is the automated search for account setting after typing in name, email address and password and clicking on “continue”:
Also nice – after having the account created (if not the first one) mails are being check at startup and every ten minutes. I remember the times when clicking around for each and every second, third, fourth mail account. That’s no history. Only regarding the fact, that emails will be left on the server for at least 14 days – I don’t like that default for POP3 accounts. More or less I am not using them anymore, just for spam – with IMAP there is no problem with leaving emails on the server, this is protocal based 😉
Hm, the integrated search index runs in a background thread through all my emails. This takes quite a long time at initial startup and may disturb everyone switching over… just a killall -9 icedove-bin helped me out then. On the other side, indexing is much more nice for live search – this quite cool because I know how long a normal search on 5k mails will take when searching whole context 😉 The indexer can run in the background, it’s just fine and now let’s enjoy the show 🙂
And also the possibility to try new addons – the Debian package maintainers waited a little while before they took 3.0.4 of Thunderbird up into the next Icedove generation. So all addons should work fine, at least those which are actively developed. And it’s more easy – there are recommended addons available.
PS: Images uploaded with Imageshack Uploader – looks nice indeed 🙂