Betterbird: Release Notes

Based on Thunderbird 102.11.1, release notes.

Fixed in this version:

NEW - Improved icon configurability. Configured icon (messengerWindow.ico) now used on all windows, compose window and calendar dialogues (add/edit calendar, add/edit/summary event) have their own icons - GitHub #151
FIXED - Update check didn't take policy DisableAppUpdate into account - GitHub #158
FIXED - Stability fix for folder search and Quick Filter in encrypted messages

Based on Thunderbird 102.11.0, release notes.

Fixed in this version:

NEW - Windows only: Icon files messengerWindow.ico and newmail.ico placed in C:\Program Files\Betterbird\chrome\icons\default\ override the standard program and system tray icons - GitHub #151
FIXED - Issue with complex search terms when inserting a term at the top
FIXED - Improved the Sending progress dialogue: Incompatibility with add-on MailMerge - GitHub #150
CHANGED - Pref browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir now set to true to avoid .partfiles on desktop when opening attachments from the compose window - Bug 1800328

Fixed in Betterbird, not fixed in Thunderbird 102.11.0 yet:

Fixes provided by the Betterbird project and integrated into Thunderbird to be released later

CHANGED - Improved the Sending progress dialogue: Now works during retry if previous dialogue was cancelled (fixed in 102.9.1) - Bug 1824624
FIXED - Hang when viewing HTML message with many links as plain text (possible denial of service attack vector) (fixed in 102.9.0) - Bug 1812386
FIXED - Subscribe/Unsubscribe buttons didn't check/uncheck the respective checkbox for the folder) (fixed in 102.7.1) - Bug 1813346
CHANGED - Selecting or unselecting a dictionary in the editor context menu doesn't close the menu (fixed in 102.0) - Bug 1761417
FIXED - Various problems when saving the compose window as file (fixed in 91.9.1) - Bug 1676825
FIXED - Status text sometimes displayed "null" (fixed in 91.9.0) - Bug 1766578
FIXED - .startup-incomplete not deleted from profile (fixed in 91.8.0) - Bug 1762043
FIXED - Inserting links with spaces gave random erroneous results (fixed in 91.0) - Bug 1563452

Various minor fixes that Thunderbird ins't shipping yet:

WITHDRAWN (as of 11th May 2023) - Problem with Google calendar descriptions - Bug 1792078
FIXED - Lost writing style on various occasions, for example after image insertion - Backout of bug 1730429
NEW - New preferences mail.biff.show_tray_icon_always to always show the system tray icon (in Betterbird effective for Windows and Linux) - Bug 1727874
FIXED - Cropping of subject lines with UTF-8 emoticons - Bug 1799093
FIXED - Send progress dialogue collapsed when sending encrypted message - Bug 1777788
CHANGED - Preference mail.smime.remind_encryption_possible set to true enabling the notification for possible S/MIME encryption - Bug 1808295
Other fixes: Bug 1528297, Bug 1708320, Bug 1782415, Bug 1783517, Bug 1790619, Bug 1793313, Bug 1794117, Bug 1794180, Bug 1798597, Bug 1801286, Bug 1802685

Fixed in prior 102.x versions (Betterbird specific):

CHANGED - Linux: Using EGL 1.5 graphics now instead of GLX 1.4 fixing fuzzy fonts for some users (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED - Linux: Now supporting sideloaded "application" add-ons stored in betterbird/extensions. To enable those add-ons, preference extensions.autoDisableScopes needs to be set to 3. (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED - Multi-line support when add-on "Conversations" is used. Second line can be aligned with "Between" column. (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED - Improved portable launcher. Can now be registered as default mail application on Windows. (fixed in 102.7.1)
CHANGED - Update check will now handle failure better (fixed in 102.6.1)
CHANGED - Followed Thunderbird by adding an "end-of-year donation appeal" (fixed in 102.6.0) - Bug 1801200
CHANGED - Reverted portable laucher to previous version so add-ons start more reliably without setting preference extensions.startupScanScopes to 5 or 7 (fixed in 102.5.1)
NEW - Re-enable additional languages (via Betterbird language packs) and language switching in the settings (fixed in 102.3.0)
NEW - Thunderbird language packs which are incompatible with Betterbird can no longer be installed (fixed in 102.3.0)
CHANGED - WM_CLASS on Linux is now "betterbird" (fixed in 102.3.0)

Features and fixes exclusive to Betterbird (new in the 102 series):

NEW - Preference mail.startupMinimized to minimise the main windows after startup (aka "startup minimised") (fixed in 102.10.1)
NEW - Preference mail.multiselect_message_shows_current to disable summaries on multi-select and display the last selected message (fixed in 102.10.0) - Bug 364896
CHANGED - Newsgroup folders now display the last selected message when multiple messages are selected. This also applies when when preference mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads is set to false. (fixed in 102.10.0) - Bug 364896
NEW - Improved display of complex search terms in filter editor, search window and virtual folder/saved searches window (fixed in 102.10.0)
CHANGED - Improved the Sending progress dialogue, no longer showing 100% when sending is cancelled (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED - Improved the Sending/Saving progress dialogue now showing 100% successful sending (fixed in 102.9.0)
NEW - Short date entry in Calendar with formats DD, DDMM, DDMMYY and DDMMYYYY, for example 0505 to mean the 5th of May of the current year (fixed in 102.8.0)
NEW - Regular expressions in search terms (folder search and filters) (fixed in 102.7.1) - Bug 19442
NEW (Linux) - System tray support for Linux (fixed in 102.7.0) - Bug 18732
NEW - Insert menu for plain text compositions (fixed in 102.7.0) - Bug 230684
FIXED (Mac) - Dragging a message to the desktop didn't work (fixed in 102.7.0) - Bug 1455429
FIXED - Problems with invalid S/MIME signatures on servers which add empty lines (fixed in 102.6.1) - Bug 1805558
FIXED better - Multiple spellcheck dictionaries not reliably set in new composition and not restored when editing draft (fixed in 102.6.1) - Bug 1775376
NEW - Restored Unix Movemail support (Linux and macOS) (pending GitHub #104) (fixed in 102.5.1) - Bug 1728778 Bug 1802145
FIXED - Folder search and search/virtual folder not working when based on more than 500 folders, also causing MSF file loss (fixed in 102.5.0) - Bug 1554188
FIXED - Status display "Searching..." not cleared when messages loaded for search/virtual folder (fixed in 102.5.0) - Bug 561328
NEW - More menu options for selecting multi-line view: All folders, individual folders, switched off (fixed in 102.3.1)
FIXED - "Open in Conversation" not present on menus when collapsed thread was selected (fixed in 102.3.1) - Bug 668491
FIXED - Fix drag of image from MyPhoneExplorer (MPE) to compose window (fixed in 102.3.0) - Bug 1790291
NEW - Added non-breaking hyphen (U+2011) and em-dash (U+2014) to "Insert Character/Symbol" menu (en-dash was added previously) (fixed in 102.2.1)
FIXED - Compositions using "fixed width" text at a non-default size erroneously downgraded to plain text (fixed in 102.2.0 )- Bug 1786162
NEW - By popular demand, the multi-line view now also supports threading (fixed in 102.0)
CHANGED - Better styling for summary lines in "grouped by" multi-line views (fixed in 102.0)
NEW - Option to send message as HTML or plain text, depending on whether rich formatting is used (fixed in 102.0)
CHANGED - Unlike Thunderbird, Betterbird does not use a threaded view for new folders (preference mailnews.default_view_flags, 0 = normal, 1 = threaded) (fixed in 102.0)
FIXED - Some disturbing error console messages (fixed in 102.0) - Bug 1744944
FIXED - Multiple spellcheck dictionaries not reliably set in new composition and not restored when editing draft (fixed in 102.0) - Bug 1775376

Features and fixes exclusive to Betterbird (already in the 91 series):

NEW - Multi-line view. View > Layout > Multi-line View On All Folders or per folder in the column picker
NEW - Search terms now allow for complex expressions by adding a group feature - Bug 297852
NEW - Quick Filter untagged messages - Bug 683809
FIXED - Global search in encrypted messages (needs to be enabled in preferences) - Bug 188988
NEW - Regular folder search and Quick Filter in encrypted messages - Bug 1562737
CHANGED - Windows system tray ("systray") tooltip now showing list folders with new messages - Bug 1721063
NEW - Context menu in a news message now includes "Open Message For ID" (message pane only, not in message in tab)
FIXED - New posts in ignored threads caused "phantom" unread messages. "Mark > Thread As Read" will fix corruption - Bug 799040
NEW - Preferences mail.addressDisplayAuthor and mail.addressDisplayRecipients (1 = name, 2 = e-mail, 3 = both) for message list display - Bug 697031
NEW - Showing file URL for detached attachments, correct size and strike-through for deleted files - Bug 1740956, Bug 1741093
NEW - Folder context menu now offers to set folder as startup folder (instead of last visited)
NEW - Add Recent menu to allow attaching recently used files (Windows only) - Bug 1560737
FIXED - Issues when dragging Windows shell link (.lnk) or folder to Write (compose) window - Bug 276869, Bug 524874
CHANGED - Activity manager opens in tab
FIXED - Attachments saved via double-click didn't get listed in the list of saved files (Ctrl+J) - Bug 1744709
NEW - Ctrl+Shift+Space inserts NBSP now, also mostly fixes "automatic" unwanted NBSP replacement - Bug 532712
FIXED - Copying NBSP replaced NBSP with regular space (fixed in 91.8.0) - Bug 359303, Bug 1769534
FIXED - Repair Text Encoding didn't repair the subject - Bug 1739609

Not mentioned in the front page feature table:
NEW - Preference mail.openpgp.ignore_missing_mdc to allow display of attachments with missing MDC - Bug 1729221
NEW - Added preference mail.biff.show_for_server to optionally suppress biff notifications for server root folders.
FIXED - Subject change with "new subject (was: old subject)" didn't work - Bug 1680425
FIXED - Feed reader didn't tolerate any XML errors; now it will try fetching the feed as HTML as a fallback - Bug 1746749
FIXED - Moving multiple IMAP folders didn't work - Bug 589008
FIXED - Copying an embedded image didn't work under certain circumstances - Bug 1760365
FIXED - ... and a few more: Comma in detached file name (Bug 350825), Charset forward detection (Bug 1737245), Charset detection (Bug 1746695)

Previous release notes for the 91 series