Tabbed browsing and better search is the biggest news in the new version of e-mail client.
Mozilla Messaging is scheduled to arrive with the final version of Thunderbird later today, local time. This is the first major upgrade to the e-mail client for more than two years, after a rather turbulent period for the project, with limited access to resources and major organizational changes.
It has recently been raised about the project in the future will have better access to both financing and developers than has been the case until now.
Thunderbird 3 is based on Gecko 1.9.1.5-platform, which is known from Firefox, and has been built heavily on both above and below the shell. This will give better performance, stability and Web compatibility, in addition to the code has been simplified. Moreover, the client has of course been more functionality.
Many people receive today a lot of e-mail, and then it's not always easy to find the exact message you are looking for. That's why Mozilla Messanging have focused a lot on search and filtering capabilities of Thunderbird 3
The new global search box allows you to search within collections of messages, which have been filtered to get as sender, title, recipient, folder, attachment, or different tags. It is also possible to filter e-mail by using a timeline tool.
Also new is a database of e-mail settings for accounts at popular email services. This saves the user having to find the server names must be entered. Instead, the user fills in only the name, password and email address.
Tools menu has the standard layout has been simplified by the fact that frequently used buttons for your reply, forwarding, deleting, and marking of spam is a part each e-mail message.
If you double click a message in your inbox, open it now in a new tab, similar to web pages can be opened in most common browsers today. The tabs that are open will be opened again after a restart of Thunderbird.
A concept called "Smart Folders" to make it easier to combine special folders such as Inbox, from multiple email accounts at once. This is now standard functionality in Thunderbird 3 The program can also import these settings from including Outlook and Outlook Express.
E-mail client also has a new archive feature where messages are placed in folders by the year they were sent.
Thunderbird 3 has also been given a new tool for managing the expansion, themes and plugins, which will make it easier to find, download and install this addition to the application.
It also promised improvements in the address book, and improved integration with Gmail, including versions of the e-mail service that is not in English.
In Windows Vista will be the contents of Thunderbird 3 could be integrated with search results in the operating system. It is unclear whether this also applies in Windows 7
On a Mac, Thunderbird 3 is integrated with Spotlight, and can import from Mail.app, read the address book in the operating system and use Growl for notifications of new e-mail.
On the performance side particularly the synchronization of IMAP folders, which now can happen in the background, either for selected folders or for all.
In the time of writing the final version of Thunderbird 3 has not yet been posted, but it is scheduled to be made available on this page during the evening / night.
