Importable Configuration Files
Hello all,
I have been discussing possible ways to improve Thunderbird with various
members of the community (as well as shared my Email on a podcast, which
resulted in quite a lot of feedback). One recurring theme is the ability
to import a configuration file that has all the account settings for
Email accounts, calendars, etc already set up. Providers of these have
expressed their desire to be able to have this as something they could
generate for users, and I think this could go a long way toward a decent
syncing solution.
So, the question, is there already functionality like this in
Thunderbird? Is it feasible to do?
Thanks in advance for the feedback.
Ryan Sipes
Thunderbird Community Manager
----- Pôvodná správa -----
Predmet: [Maildev] Importable Configuration Files
Od: Ryan Sipes ryan@thunderbird.net
Pre: maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
Dátum: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 10:31:54 -0600
Hello all,
I have been discussing possible ways to improve Thunderbird with various
members of the community (as well as shared my Email on a podcast, which
resulted in quite a lot of feedback). One recurring theme is the ability
to import a configuration file that has all the account settings for
Email accounts, calendars, etc already set up. Providers of these have
expressed their desire to be able to have this as something they could
generate for users, and I think this could go a long way toward a decent
syncing solution.
Hi. It depends on what kind of settings this would contain.
For email accounts, providers already have ways to prepare the settings
for the user. Either get their servers into the ISPDB or have a file at
special location on their server which Thunderbird looks up when an
account is configured. User just enters his email for the new account
and TB hits the ISPDB and the server file if settings for the email are
there. The settings include pop3/imap4/smtp server name, ports,
connection encryption settings.
Is more required? What would it be? We could surely import some partial
prefs file that defines a new account, just that the pref names are
unique for each user depending on how many accounts he already had in
the profile. But that can be solved by the import tool.
The question just is what settings would the providers want to
generate/prepare. Maybe we could just add those to the existing methods
(ISPDB or server config file).
I don't know for calendars.
I think the value comes from the idea of having it all set up at once (calendar, tasks, Email, etc) all at once versus having to manually set each part up.
Right now it looks like this is done on iOS in the mail app with FastMail just by scanning a QR code generated by FastMail.
I think we can do something that makes folks lives easy like that too.
Ryan Sipes
Community Manager
Thunderbird
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 10:06 AM -0700, "ace" acelists@atlas.sk wrote:
----- Pôvodná správa -----
Predmet: [Maildev] Importable Configuration Files
Od: Ryan Sipes
Pre: maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
Dátum: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 10:31:54 -0600
Hello all,
I have been discussing possible ways to improve Thunderbird with various
members of the community (as well as shared my Email on a podcast, which
resulted in quite a lot of feedback). One recurring theme is the ability
to import a configuration file that has all the account settings for
Email accounts, calendars, etc already set up. Providers of these have
expressed their desire to be able to have this as something they could
generate for users, and I think this could go a long way toward a decent
syncing solution.
Hi. It depends on what kind of settings this would contain.
For email accounts, providers already have ways to prepare the settings
for the user. Either get their servers into the ISPDB or have a file at
special location on their server which Thunderbird looks up when an
account is configured. User just enters his email for the new account
and TB hits the ISPDB and the server file if settings for the email are
there. The settings include pop3/imap4/smtp server name, ports,
connection encryption settings.
Is more required? What would it be? We could surely import some partial
prefs file that defines a new account, just that the pref names are
unique for each user depending on how many accounts he already had in
the profile. But that can be solved by the import tool.
The question just is what settings would the providers want to
generate/prepare. Maybe we could just add those to the existing methods
(ISPDB or server config file).
I don't know for calendars.
On 25.02.18 18:06, ace wrote:
----- Pôvodná správa -----
Predmet: [Maildev] Importable Configuration Files
Od: Ryan Sipes ryan@thunderbird.net
Pre: maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
Dátum: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 10:31:54 -0600
Hello all,
I have been discussing possible ways to improve Thunderbird with various
members of the community (as well as shared my Email on a podcast, which
resulted in quite a lot of feedback). One recurring theme is the ability
to import a configuration file that has all the account settings for
Email accounts, calendars, etc already set up. Providers of these have
expressed their desire to be able to have this as something they could
generate for users, and I think this could go a long way toward a decent
syncing solution.
Hi. It depends on what kind of settings this would contain.
For email accounts, providers already have ways to prepare the settings
for the user. Either get their servers into the ISPDB or have a file at
special location on their server which Thunderbird looks up when an
account is configured. User just enters his email for the new account
and TB hits the ISPDB and the server file if settings for the email are
there. The settings include pop3/imap4/smtp server name, ports,
connection encryption settings.
Is more required? What would it be? We could surely import some partial
prefs file that defines a new account, just that the pref names are
unique for each user depending on how many accounts he already had in
the profile. But that can be solved by the import tool.
The question just is what settings would the providers want to
generate/prepare. Maybe we could just add those to the existing methods
(ISPDB or server config file).
I think the idea of the providers is that the user logs in to the
provider's web front-end (or creates a new account). The user then
clicks on "Install your account settings in Thunderbird" and everything
would go automagically (apart from entering the password).
From the user's point of view that's different than creating a new
account in TB by entering their email address and password.
-Patrick