533990 - Unable to switch between nw style and old style of displaying a message

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[JD]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.5
Build Identifier: thunderbird-3.0-3.9.b4.fc12.i686

The latest TB I installed is supposed to let me switch between old style of message display, where the thick bar containing 
Reply  Forward  Archive  Junk  is not displayed.
However, clicking on switch to old style does not work.
I am still getting the new style.
I prefer to get to the old style because the bar robs me of too much vertical space, so less of the message is displayed - especially if it is an image.
The new notebook screens are geared for wide screen movie
virewing, which already takes away a considerable amount of vertical space.
For example, my screen is only 1280x800, and not 1280x1024.
The new message display style bar is more space than I am willing to give up
for a very very slight convenience.
Thank you for listening.


Reproducible: Always

Actual Results:  
Displaying a message shows the thick message header bar with
reply forward archive junk and delete trash can.

Expected Results:  
No message header bar

Same problem on windows xp.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Where do you click to get to the old style ? I suppose you are talking about the header sections of an email , right ?

If this is the case you'll need some extension to get the old style (read http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/dmose/archives/2009/07/thunderbird_30b3_shipped.html)

Comment 2

[JD]

No. When I first installed it, TB came up and it had 2 tabs in it.
First tab was the Inbox the 2nd tab (which was being isplayed) was
an information page. In that information page was a hyperlink to
revert back to old style of message display. I clicked it and then
clicked on the Inbox tab and lo-and-behold, the message display
was indeed back to old style - the thick multiline message header
bar was gone. So I thought,  let me see if it can be reverted back
to the new style. So I went to the info tab and clicked on the hyperlink
for the new style - and it also worked.
Then when I tried to again revert back to old style, it will not revert,
even though the hyperlink changes it's text to something like
revert to new style. So, the third try is what broke the functionality 
of that hyperlink.
Sorry to say that I do not know how to bring that info tab back.

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

So that pages has 4 items :

Imap sync
Smart folders
New Tollbar
and Collapsed header.


If you are talking about the last item in that list it points to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/search?q=header&cat=all&advancedsearch=1&as=1&appid=18&lver=any&atype=0&pp=20&pid=3&sort=&lup= which gives you some extensions to get back the old header style (which is what I pointed to you earlier).

Is this more clear ?

Comment 4

[JD]

While having an extension to add a "hide details" in the "other actions" drop down menu is a good relief from the fat message header, it should be part of TB and not an add-on.
Also, calling the action "hide details" is a bit opaque, because it is not clear what it refers to. Why not just call it "Compact Header"?
Thanx for your help.