14 DAY TRIAL // Thunderbird 3 Beta 3 has been released into the wild and is now available for download. The new version of the email application comes with a wide range of improvements over the previous one, and also includes a series of new features and a lot of bug fixes. The one thing that users should take into consideration when downloading it is that the app is still in beta and that it has been released mainly for testing purposes.
The new flavor of Thunderbird 3 comes with over 500 changes, a lot of which are meant to offer the base for future modifications that will be made to the application. Developers, for example, will see that it comes with Thread Pane and Tab Refactoring, as well as with a series of fixes for Extension Developers. The Thread Pane UI refactoring discussion along with Thunderbird Extensions and Thunderbird HowTos will provide more details and documentation to those interested in the matter.
When it comes to the user experience that Thunderbird 3 beta 3 is capable of delivering, among the new features we can mention Tabbed Email Messages, which will offer users the opportunity to open messages in a new tab window by double clicking on the message or by hitting enter on it. In addition, they will also learn that the visible tabs will be saved when quitting the application and restored when opening Thunderbird next time.
The new feature also comes with a Tab menu so that users will be able to easily switch between tabs. Also, the application comes with New Message Summary View, which delivers a summery view of emails when multiple messages are selected. The Column Headings enables users to select what column headings to be displayed and the order in which they are listed on a per-folder basis.
Other new features are the Smart Folders and Improved Gmail Integration, and the developers also say that a new Mail Account Setup Wizard is currently being tested so as to make the email account setup process easier than before. The application is available for download for Mac OS X 10.4 or later (Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 Tiger are no longer supported). However, Thunderbird 3 beta 3 is available in a variety of languages (you can check on them here).
Download Thunderbird 3 Beta 3 for Mac OS X 10.4 or later here. Download Thunderbird 3 Beta 3 for Windows here. Download Thunderbird 3 Beta 3 for Linux here.