Thunderbird 115: Changing font size in the Message Panel

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[WCHS]

I’ve just upgraded to Thunderbird 115 from 102.
I can’t figure out how to reduce the font size in the messages that show up in the left-most panel.

This is the font size in the Message Panel on the left in TB 115:

This is the font size in the Message Panel on the left in TB 102:

Under General > Language & Appearance | Fonts & Colors, the settings are the same for both 115 and 102. But 102 is rendering the font smaller than 115 is. I’ve played around with font sizes in 115, even under the ‘Advanced’ button, including unticking the boxes under ‘Font Control’, but no changes seem to be happening afterwards, even after closing TB and opening again. Resizing the TB window doesn’t change anything either.

How do I change the font size in the Message panel?

• This topic was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by WCHS.

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Ver 115.2.2: In the menubar, try View\Font size Does that make any difference?
You may have to right-click\show menubar.

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Sir_George, WCHS

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It makes a difference in the center panel, where there’s a list of messages.
But, not in the right-most panel where the message itself appears, i.e., in the Message Panel.(I should have said “right”, and not “left” in my OP.)

However, I did discover that when the cursor is on a message in the Message Panel, I can press the CTRL key and roll the mouse wheel to resize the contents of the Message Box in the Message Panel!! This won’t resize the entire TB window, and you have to be sure the cursor is in the Message Box in the Message Panel. If the cursor is in the Message Header in the Message Panel, it doesn’t resize. And this is true of 102, as well — nothing new. Evidently, the migration to 115 didn’t pick up the size of the Message Box in 102.

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When you changed the Sizes in the Advanced section, did you do it with Fonts for: Latin and repeat with Fonts for: Other Writing Systems, and uncheck ‘Allow messages to use other fonts?

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Yes, I did that, but it made no difference in the Message Panel on the right side.
It did change the size of the font in the Message List in the center panel. (I don’t use the ‘card’ view for the center panel, so I don’t know about that, but I assume that the font size would change for it, as well).

The key to changing the font size in the Message Panel is simply to roll the mouse wheel with the CTRL key depressed. The cursor has to be in the Message Panel itself, not in the Message Panel header.

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I was about to suggest the CTRL-mousewheel zoom. I am using Thunderbird 115 now, and while it has been a bit bumpy getting things back to where they were, it is going well now. I had noticed it seems to keep the zoom setting I selected better than previous versions of Thunderbird. I had an addon to set the zoom of every new email to a fixed value, but it was not updated and no longer works with current TB.

FWIW, CTRL+scroll is a shortcut you will find works in a lot of programs, including most btowsers, file managers, picture viewers, and so on. I use it constantly!

I started to write a bit about my impressions of TB 115, but it became another long post about UI design and the friction between people like me who desire maximally usable tools and designers who want things to look pretty. Fortunately, I was able to undo the silliness in Thunderbird 115 and make it as good as or better than previous Thunderbird, using a crude userChrome.css stylesheet I wrote over the past couple of days. I can post it here if anyone is interested, but it will likely need tweaking to be “right” on different PCs. Even moving it from my 14 inch laptop to my 13 inch laptop made things look a little “off.”

I am not sure if the older Thunderbirds had this, but there is a pref to set the UI font size specifically (not using the font settings UI). It’s ‘mail.uifontsize’, visible within the Config Editor in Thunderbird’s settings (first page in settings, scroll all the way down, on the right). By playing with that and the pixelsperpx setting, you have a little more space to customize the UI to your liking, should you desire to.

 

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Glucose, WCHS

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Ascaris wrote:

Fortunately, I was able to undo the silliness in Thunderbird 115 and make it as good as or better than previous Thunderbird, using a crude userChrome.css stylesheet I wrote over the past couple of days.

Hi @ascaris
Could post a screenshot? or two?

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Sure. I am using a dark theme here, but the layout would be the same with any other colors. Please excuse the redactions to eliminate sensitive info!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Cybertooth, WCHS

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It looks like one or more of your tabs accesses a website (for example, the tab that says ‘Help – Dark’)? If so, how did you manage that?

In 102, I had a tab in the Tab Bar that accessed a website But, it did not carry over to 115. And I see no way in 115 to create a tab like that. Here is an image of the 102 tab. Albeit, it accesses a TB URL, and at the very least, I thought I could have one like it in 115, too. Or maybe, a tab for non-TB URL?

That seems to be one of the 102 features that is missing in 115 — it wasn’t replicated when I updated from 102 to 115, but maybe there’s a way to do it??

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Just go to the Tools > Addons and Themes, then enter some search terms in the box on the upper right. That takes you to the TB addons page on the web.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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WCHS

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Yes, as you can see, I already have a tab for a TB add-on TbSync (the 5th tab – the one that says ‘Tb Sync::Add-ons for Thunderbird’), so I know how it works to get a tab that leads to an Addons-and-Themes selection. But in 102, I had a tab that led to https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/102.9.0/releasenotes.

In 115, I can’t seem to create a tab that will lead to the 115.2.3 release notes (which is at https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/115.2.3/releasenotes). Even if I try to replace the URL-field-under-the-TBSync tab with the 115 URL, it won’t let me do it because I can’t backspace over it or delete it to do the substitution.

Do you have any idea now I can get a tab for the 115 release notes?

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You could set that URL for the patch notes you cited as the start page in the TB UI. It would not change with the TB version, though, if that was the goal.

You had asked how to get to a web page, and the TB addon site was the first thing that came to mind. I did not notice at that point that the URL shown could not be edited, so it seemed that once you got the URL bar, you were set. I never tried that… I have always just used my browser.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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WCHS

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Ascaris wrote:

I have always just used my browser.

True. This is a change that I’ve noticed in 115 — you can’t use Thunderbird anymore as a quasi-browser–maybe for security purposes — not even anything in its own domain, except for add-ons.

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Ascaris wrote:

I was able to undo the silliness in Thunderbird 115 and make it as good as or better than previous Thunderbird, using a crude userChrome.css stylesheet I wrote over the past couple of days. I can post it here if anyone is interested

I would be very interested, Ascaris !  Is your offer still valid?

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This isn’t the same issue, but I’ll  ask about it here, it’s similar. Anyone seen this?

On my replies, the font always goes smaller – a lot. Like say, regular is 12pt, it goes to 6 pt.

That’s only in the compose window. When it’s actually sent, it’s normal size. My recipients aren’t complaining. But it’s almost hard for me to read. It’s legible, but barely. And just… WHY!? Yes, I can change it to a bigger size, but sticks only for that message, and that’s pretty tedious to do EVERY message. Thank you.

 

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I’m at the point I hate Thunderbird. If I didn’t have so many inboxes and emails I’d trash it. I missed TB 78. Is there a way to roll back to then? I doubt it.

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Hi,

I’m sharing everyone’s frustration. I found that this is the setting to use. AND you have to restart TB for it to take effect. Interestingly (and seems like a bug), the default font doesn’t apply to the message text – it applies to the header bar in the pane. And it takes effect immediately. I haven’t figured out what the “Advanced” fonts do.

Settings->General->Fonts and Colors ->Size

I took a screenshot but haven’t figured out how to insert it.

I hope this helps.

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At the bottom of the Edit box
Attachments -> Select file -> Highlight the file in Explorer -> Open.
This will upload and attach the file. You will have the choice to “Insert in text.” It will show up wherever your cursor is in the text (should be on a separate empty line).

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