For those who want more screen space, Thunderbird 9 (scheduled for release on December 20th) will give you the ability on Windows to hide the Menu Bar (File, Edit, View) like you can now in Firefox. Just like in Firefox, you can press the ALT key or F10 to temporarily display the Menu Bar. To permanently restore, press ALT then go to View > Toolbars > Menu Bar. Alternatively, if you still have the Mail Toolbar enabled, you can right-click and select Menu Bar as well.
If you want to try to Thunderbird 9 Earlybird or 8 Beta,they can be obtained here.
I just started using Thunderbird again (after trying other things for a while like Pop Peeper) and I think it was the (somewhat) recent upgrade to Thunderbird 7.0.1 where I noticed they changed the menu like FireFox did back in 4.0 (I think that was when they changed things) and the menu bar is so big and ugly now and I haven’t been able to figure out how to “hide” it ala FireFox. I guess I can’t right now (I mean not in this version).
At least I found this article (via google) so I know I’m not “crazy”
Can’t wait for this functionality to be added but I shouldn’t have to wait until the end of December to have such a simple change. I guess what I mean is that if they changed the menu to the FF style they should have also (at the same time) added the “hide” function.
Anyway thanks for the information.
Thunderbird has always been a few versions behind Firefox when it comes to features. I’ll check around and see if there is a stylish script or an extension that will get you this behaviour prior to the Thunderbird 9 release in December.
I can’t wait for this. Ever since I upgraded to version 7.0.1 the menu has been bothering me. But now this leads to a new question. Version 9? Are they skipping the number 8?
They are not skipping version 8. Firefox and Thunderbird 8.0 will be released on November 8th and then six-weeks later is when Firefox and Thunderbird 9.0 come out on December 20th.