Automatic configuration is on my wishlist. If I have to talk my client through setting it up over the phone AGAIN, I swear I'll go crazy. As far as I know, there's just no nice way of doing it at the moment.

There should be a file created by the ISP that can be run on the host machine's email client to do this, I totally agree. You'd think that someone would have developed this sort of thing already.

IE & Outlook supported autoconfig scripts as you used to get them available to download from Freeserve, it created your mail account and the usually changed your default IE homepage, search engine, proxy servers and other annoying things.

But as the file was just a text file you could cut out all the crud and just leave the email config part.

Google are good at giving instructions for configuring a decent variety of mail clients for accessing their service whereas most ISPs assume you are using Outlook and if you use anything else you must be techy enough to not need instructions.

As Google are working closely with Mozilla if you make the suggestion directly to Mozilla they will do something. Although Thunderbird already supports Gmail as a specific type of mail account to do most of the config but it doesn't give the option of using imap for it, that's still a manual setup.

I'd like to see:

Exchange Server support with calander and contacts (evolution does this but the windows port is worse than awful)

Writable LDAP contacts - currently does not support adding new contacts to the remote DB

And finally, the annoying bug i have - list all contacts in an LDAP DB (when not searching) and not just what you've searched for.

Please for the love of all things, make this more useful than outlook!

I use Thunderbird for encrypted email, and Outlook for everything else, because its callander and contacts address book work.

Dave, I hear your LDAP woe. I've been searching for a client that will simply display the list of contacts on the LDAP server for ages.

Trying to get people to type the first couple of letters of the person they require is a nightmare, they likes their scrolling they do.

What if you could use your mailbox as a file storage? I'm sure this has been done, but if you could just drag a file onto an area in your mail client, have it upload, then grab it at the next place you connect (e.g. work -» home).

Just a thought :)

Why do we need Yet Another Instant Messaging Program? Pidgin seems great. How about if the Thunderbird people work on making Thunderbird better?

For instance, so I don't need to rebuild the index on my inbox every day. Or so that saved searches work better, or so that it integrates with gmail better, or so there can be automatic configuration, or making searches more accurate?

"This used to work OK in Lookout Expre$$ but M$ have b0rken it in Vista Mail so the only way to do it there is to have a seperate Window$ login for each identity (obviously M$ have absolutely NO IDEA how people work in the real world."

That should read "...Vi$ta Mail..." Otherwise, I don't think it gets your intended point across, which I'm guessing (and really, this is just a shot in the dark) is about Microsoft being all about money, or something.

Thunderbird can read mail settings for outlook express, and eudora - so it does support auto-configuration, doesn't it?

THis should be a top priority.

It is a PITA not being able to update my contacts directly to and from my phone. I have to keep a copy of outlook which I use only as a "master"contacts list to update my phone and Thunderbird from.

How about re-instating the ability to filter mail based on the content of the body of the email just like outlook. No more 'it's too difficult' nonsense.

Little things like that and then it might have a chance against outlook. Also, no more of this calendar plug-in nonsense. It needs a fully integrated calendar like Outlook.

Sorry to harp on about Microsoft, but they are the competition to beat and if you don't have the same features right from the outset, then you stand no chance.

I am forced to use Thunderbird after years of Outlook use and it just is not up to the job yet. Keep working on it as I would really like it to succeed..............

...and this may already have happened, but being able to use Thunderbird as a client on a Domino server would be excellent. I could finally ditch that Notes client at work...