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Thunderbird Supernova Preview: The New Calendar Design

In 2023, Thunderbird will reinvent itself with the “Supernova” release, featuring a modernized interface and brand new features like Firefox Sync. One of the major improvements you can look forward to is an overhaul to our calendar UI (user interface). Today we’re excited to give you a preview of what it looks like!

Since this is a work-in-progress, bear with us for a few disclaimers. The most important one is that these screenshots are mock-ups which guide the direction of the new calendar interface. Here are a few other things to consider:

• We’ve intentionally made this calendar pretty busy to demonstrate how the cleaner UI makes the calendar more visually digestible, even when dealing with many events.
• Dialogs, popups, tool-tips, and all the companion calendar elements are also being redesigned.
• Many of the visual changes will be user-customizable.
• Any inconsistent font sizes you see are only present in the mock-up.
• Right now we’re showing Light Mode. Dark and High Contrast mode will both be designed and shared in the near future.
• These current mock-ups were done with the “Relaxed” Density setting in mind, but of course a tighter interface with scalable font-size will be possible.

Thunderbird Supernova Calendar: Monthly, Weekly, Daily Views

The first thing you may notice is that Saturday and Sunday are only partially visible. You can choose to visually collapse the weekends to save space.

But wait, we don’t all work Monday through Friday! That’s why you’ll be able to define what your weekend is, and collapse those days instead.

And do you see that empty toolbar at the top? Don’t worry, all the calendar actions will be reachable in context, and the toolbar will be customizable. Flexibility and customization is what you’ve come to expect from Thunderbird, and we’ll continue to provide that.

Speaking of customization, visual customization options for the calendar will be available via a menu popup. Some (but not all) of the options you’ll see here are:

• Hide calendar color
• Hide calendar icons
• Swap calendar color with category color
• Collapse weekends
• Completely remove your weekend days

You’ll also see some new hotkey hints in the Search boxes (top middle, top right).

Speaking of Search, we’re moving the “Find Events” area into the side pane. A drop-down will allow choosing which information (such as title, location, and date) you want each event to show.

Thunderbird Supernova Calendar: Event View

The Event view also gets a decidedly modernized look. The important details have a lot more breathing room, yet subheadings like Location, Organizer and Attendees are easier to spot at a glance. Plus, you’ll be able to easily sort and identify the list of attendees by their current RSVP status.

By default, getting to this event preview screen requires only 1 click. And it’s 2 clicks to open the edit view (which you can do either in a new tab or a separate floating window). Because you love customization, you can control the click behavior. Do you want to skip the event preview screen and open the edit screen with just 1 click? We’ll have an option for that in preferences.

Feedback? Questions?

Life gets busy, so we want our new calendar design to look and feel comfortable. It will help you more efficiently sift, sort, and digest all the crucial details of your day.

Do you have questions or feedback about the new calendar in Thunderbird Supernova? We have a public mailing list specifically for User Interface and User Experience in Thunderbird, and it’s very easy to join.

Just head over to this link on TopicBox and click the “Join The Conversation” button!