/thunderbird

A combination of Bauhaus, IKEA, and yellowing magazine pages as palette inspiration—Primary is a theme for people looking for a certain nostalgic warmness. Read and write your emails with comfort, and playfulness.

Primary LanguageCSSMozilla Public License 2.0MPL-2.0

Primary 🟨🟥🟦

Banner Image for Primary for Thunderbird

Originally an award-winning theme for note-taking app Obsidian.md, Primary is now available for Thunderbird!

THUNDERBIRD STORE STATUS:
UNDER REVIEW

Support Primary's Development ☕

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📌 Primary Development Roadmap

Primary is currently on the works to bring its warm palette to other apps!

A combination of Bauhaus, Scandinavian and yellowing magazine pages as palette inspiration—Primary is a theme for people looking for a certain nostalgic warmness.

It is toppled with functional pop of red blue yellow colors. The perfect mix of loud and reserved.

Playful, reminiscing, productive.

Available in both Light and Dark modes. Relax and have fun while you read and write your emails!

🌈 Overview

This add-on fully customizes the Thunderbird app, unlike the standard theme. It sets a new interface design (altering the text and background colors, fonts, spacing, adding shadows, etc.) to Thunderbird features. This allows you to read and compose mails or news messages while enjoying the warmth of the Primary Theme. It includes design for the following:

  • Inbox
  • Message (Only available in Plain Text and Simple HTML Views)
  • Composer
  • Address Book (Coming Soon)
  • Calendar including Today Pane
  • Tasks (Not Fully Tested)
  • Chat (Not Fully Tested)
  • Notification and Modals (Coming Soon)

See Key Features for full details.

The Primary Theme add-on requests persmissions for messagesRead, messagesModify, compose, storage, tabs, and other experimental APIs. These permissions are only used to style Thunderbird’s interface; i.e. changing colors, fonts, spacing, adding shadows, etc. No data is collected and/or transferred elsewhere. It also doesn’t communicate with any external service; so everything is stored locally on your machine.

📖 Table of Contents

🔐 Permissions & Security

Primary for Thunderbird under the hood works more like an extension than a theme.

Permissions requested are messagesRead, messagesModify, compose, storage, tabs, and other experimental APIs. These permissions are only used to style Thunderbird’s interface; i.e. changing colors, fonts, spacing, adding shadows, etc. No data is collected and/or transferred elsewhere. It also doesn’t communicate with any external service; so everything is stored locally on your machine.

Be reminded though, that it is still at your discretion to continue installing the extension. If you see parts of the code that may be a security threat, let me know by posting an issue or if you can, I’d appreciate a pull request!

👁️ Goals

  • Help users give instant visual context of their emails through colors and scale that is both beautiful and useful.
  • Create a playful, elegant, easy-going, complete and beautiful environment in Thunderbird.
  • Offer a balance of fun and serious work.

💎 Key Features

  • ✨ Primary Color Palette by ceciliamay
  • Featuring a beautiful color palette that eases eye-strain from prolonged reading with digital displays
  • Playful color queues throughout the interface that will bring you joy the more you use it
  • Colored Blockquotes to help you keep track of your conversations (only in Plain Text and Simple HTML Views)
  • Includes interface design for:
    • Inbox
    • Message
    • Composer
    • Address Book (Coming Soon | 🆘 Help Wanted)
    • Calendar including Today Pane
    • Tasks (Not Fully Tested)
    • Chat (Not Fully Tested)
    • Notification and Modals (Coming Soon | 🆘 Help Wanted)
  • Planned Support for Conversation Add-on (🆘 Help Wanted)

Available in both Light Mode and Dark Mode! To lean how to activate your preferred mode, read the Complete Guide to Installing Primary below.

📥 Complete Guide to Install Primary for Thunderbird

Due to some restrictions or unfound solutions in implementing some parts of the design, there are extra steps needed to complete the Primary experience. Here's the full guide:

  1. Start by setting your Thunderbird theme to default. To do this, go to the Settings by pressing the cog on the left vertical toolbar. If you aren't seeing this your left toolbar might be collapsed, so open it by pressing the arrow on the leftmost part of the bottom status bar. Once you've opened the Settings tab, press Add-ons and Themes which should take you to another tab. In the Add-ons and Themes tab, press Themes.
    • If you plan to use Primary in Light Mode, install Thunderbird's Default Light Theme.
    • If you plan to use Primary in Dark Mode, install Thunderbird's Default Dark Theme.
    • Do not install the System Auto Default Theme. Primary breaks with that option, sorry!
  2. Next, install Primary by getting the .zip file from the Latest Release page. This is currently the only way to install Primary as it is still under review by the Thunderbird team.
  3. Open up Thunderbird. On the menu bar, go to Tools, hover over Developer Tools, and press Debug Add-Ons. A new tab should open up.
  4. Press Load Temporary Add-on. Then, select the downloaded .zip file.
  5. (OPTIONAL, BUT NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THE EXPERIENCE) If you'd like to use the font that Primary uses for its interface for your messages and composer, follow these steps:
    1. Download and install the Inter font (Pressing the link automatically downloads the .zip file from the official Inter Github Release).
    2. Once installed, open Settings by pressing the gear icon on the Left Toolbar.
    3. Under General → Language & Appearance → press the Advanced button.
    4. Set your Sans-serif font to Inter.
    5. Set your Monospace font to Inter.
    6. Uncheck "Use fixed width font for plain text messages".
VIDEO TUTORIAL TO INSTALL COMING UP

🎨 Suggested Tag Colors

Coming Soon! Stay Tuned.

🎉🥳 And you're all set! If you like it, consider supporting ☕ Primary's development

🖼️ Screenshots

Light Mode Dark Mode
Inbox in Light Mode
Inbox		 Inbox in Dark Mode
Inbox
Composer in Light Mode
Composer		 Composer in Light Mode
Composer
Calendar Day in Light Mode
Calendar Day View		 Calendar Day in Dark Mode
Calendar Day View
Calendar Week in Light Mode
Calendar Week View		 Calendar Week in Dark Mode
Calendar Week View
Calendar Month in Light Mode
Calendar Month View		 Calendar Month in Dark Mode
Calendar Month View
Tasks in Light Mode
Tasks		 Tasks in Dark Mode
Tasks

🔍 Details

Here's a showcase of the wonderful interactive details that Primary provides:

Light Mode Dark Mode
Tab Switching in Light Mode Tab Switching in Dark Mode
Folder Switch in Light Mode Folder Switch in Dark Mode
Mini Calendar in Light Mode Mini Calendar in Dark Mode

🤍 Credits

Thank you to my supporters for making this project happen! And thank you to the Thunderbird Community for all the resources!

Blockquotes and Messages coloring is credits to 🔍 Quote Collapse by Alexander Ihrig. Functions to make theming work is credits to 🔍 Monterail Full Dark by conema.