Development Status

[nicolindner]

Upfront, if this is already discussed somewhere else, sorry, didn't find it.

Simple question(s): Is ThreadVis still supported/further developed?
In that sense ... Will it support TB 128?

[ahubmann]

Ah, I'm still on 115 and not following Thunderbird releases too closely. But yes, definitely still supported (using it myself daily). Depending on the changes to the underlying layout (which as seen quite a few iterations over the years), this might take a while.

In short: Thunderbird 128 support definitely planned.

[jobisoft]

Hi, this is John from Thunderbird's add-on team. I would like to offer help in updating the add-on for Thunderbird 128.

Is there a WIP branch I could jump on?

I would like to suggest a fundamental change, to get your add-on to be a pure WebExtension, freeing you from having to update it for each new release (specifically with Thunderbird switching to monthly releases starting this year).

Proposal 1)

We could move the visualization out of the header area, into the message area. The message would be pushed downwards, basically adding the graph to the top of the displayed message, scrolling it out of view when the message is scrolled down. Alternatively, the graph could be kept sticky at the top. (We can fully use HTML/CSS/Javascript in the message page, like on any web page)

Proposal 2)

Use a message display button, which opens a popup with the graph. The graph would then not be visible at all time, but only when clicked on the message display button.

What do you think?

[ErikKrause]

We could move the visualization out of the header area, into the message area.

This is a great idea! It would make ThreadVis also available if the header area is reduced to one line, f.e. by Compact Headers.

[jobisoft]

@ahubmann : Are you the owner of this repo or a contributor with push access?

Have you seen my proposal in #58 (comment) ? Would you be interested in moving this forward and starting a discussion for the individual steps?

[ahubmann]

I'm the owner of the repo and yes, I've seen your proposal (only returned from a longer vacation this week). Not 100% happy with both suggestions, I (personally) prefer to immediately see the visualisation w/o having to click a button and having it full-width above the message display also doesn't sound too promising (especially for wider displays and short threads lots of space would be wasted).

But both are definitely worth a discussion - messing around with the internals of Thunderbird display code each release and relying on experiments also creates quite a bit of overhead.

Let me check the changes necessary for 128 first, if those are minimal, I'd like to get an update out first and then invest time in a more general discussion.

[ahubmann]

Ok, so here's a first iteration of an updated release for Thunderbird 128: ThreadVis-3.6.0-beta.1.zip (might need a rename from .zip to .xpi).

UI code luckily unchanged, only one breaking change (method rename in Thunderbird core). Let me know if you see any issues. Will do some more testing on my end as well and then hopefully release next week.

[eltos]

Ok, so here's a first iteration of an updated release for Thunderbird 128

Thanks a lot, work's like a charm! 🚀

Not 100% happy with both suggestions, I (personally) prefer to immediately see the visualisation w/o having to click a button and having it full-width above the message display also doesn't sound too promising (especially for wider displays and short threads lots of space would be wasted).

I agree with @ahubmann. Maybe having a vertical visualization (90° rotated) on the right of the message next to the scrollbar could be a compromise? Ideally, the user can configure the location within the message area (top/right/bottom).

[nicolindner]

Ok, so here's a first iteration of an updated release for Thunderbird 128: ThreadVis-3.6.0-beta.1.zip (might need a rename from .zip to .xpi).

So far, no issues, apart from having to tweak the sizes/spacings a wee bit, so that the "days" are displayed. But that may have been due to my custom "design" anyway.

Not 100% happy with both suggestions

I also agree here. However, if a decision is made to achieve easier maintainability, my first take would be to have the visualization "sticky at the top". Dunno if that's as appealing as I imagine, though.

[ahubmann]

Just released 3.6.0 for Thunderbird 128.x - pending review on Thunderbird Add-ons.

[ahubmann]

@jobisoft coming back to your suggestion of converting ThreadVis to a pure WebExtension: I have a quite fundamental question: is Gloda exposed to WebExtensions? I can't seem to find any hooks to Gloda directly and the messages.query() documentation does not state anything about querying messages by thread.

My code is currently calling Gloda.getMessageCollectionForHeader() with a subsequent message.conversation.getMessagesCollection() to get all related messages in a thread. How can I achieve this in a WebExtension?

[jobisoft]

@ahubmann : Gloda is being purged. The team is working on a new global message database which will also be used for messages.query(). Once the new message database is implemented, we will add new search terms to messages.query(), which will allow querying for threads.

But this is not a blocker for you. You can still work on moving the UI part into the WebExtension world and keep a dedicated Experiment (for example browser.ThreadVisGloda.getMessagesCollection(msgId)) which will be hooked up to the old Gloda in the Experiment. The experiment calls can later be replaced by calls to browser.messages.query().

I will be happy to talk about this more. Please feel free to ask questions.