Dec 09
Thunderbird’s Extreme Mac-over
2004 at 04.37 am posted by Veerle
If you’ve ever tried to create good-looking icons then you probably know that some icons can be a real pain, especially getting the message(purpose) across can be difficult. My motto is a program has to look good or otherwise I will loose interest in it even when it has amazing useful features.
My guess, that’s a typical Mac/Graphic design thing since most of the Mac users I know care deeply about that. A good example is the Thunderbird email application. For the moment I don’t use it since my mail is handled by Entourage, that’s because of all the features like reminders, appointments, syncing with my phone etc.
The reason why it is a Mac thing is proven by Kevin Gerich’s and Stephen Horlander truly inspiring work that they have done in creating a good looking interface. Kevin Gerich has published an insight in the evolution of the design process. An interesting read because he shows several design proposals and explains why a certain choice has been made. I know it’s hard to find the right balance between being original and recognizable. You clearly see an evolution in the design and the end result is a application that has a well balanced UI. Very slick and congrats are in order.
4served
1
LOL - I just wrote an item on this too. You know what they say… great minds think alike!
here’s the link
2
I have made the switch from AppleMail-Safari-NewsFire to Thunderbird-Camino last week. This Mozilla tandem starts looking like a native MacOS applications and have great features!
3
@Reinier: Just read your article… and I can only confirm what you’re saying above :-p
@Cedric, it’s great to hear that Mozilla gets all that much needed publicity. We can only dream that one day Firefox will be enough threat to make MS get their act together and bring out a new ‘improved’ I.E.
4
I currently use Thunderbird on Win XP. I have been a follower since the project was called Firebird. The only thing that needs to be incorporated as far as im concerned is the e mail calendar reminders. Then it will be up there with Outlook. As far as outlook express is concerned, I can not see it being compared to Thunderbird. Thunderbird is a higer caliber program, and despite the criticism Ballmer (who I feel has lost touch with reality living in his micro-world) and Gates (who was never in touch) stamp open source with, superior products to certain MS products have evolved from such a category