Hmm, did you actually look at the options. I seriously doubt it or the second half of your questions would not be there. This change explicitly allows adding domains (sites) to the remote images whitelist, and in a single menu click.

The old way is gone as the address book will hopefully be replaced in the next version and to make way for that change it's use as a whitelist for remote images was terminated. Hence an options button instead of a show images button.

The first option on the menu equates to the old show remote images for this message. The second option links to the options dialog where you can edit your previous white listing decisions. The subsequent options make permanent white list entries, so selecting the email address, or one of the sites in the mail with remote images will permanently allow the address or site.

As for placing the button on the tool bar. That would be a rather wasteful use of tool bar space as the button only appears on messages that have blocked remote images. Placing such an option on the toolbar would lead to discoverability issues as well as the message and the action button are not really linked in any way so how do you know which button to use when your told that the message has blocked remote content.

There is a knowledge base article here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remote-content-in-messages

First, I did look at all the options and if you have looked at them then you would realize that it still doesn't have the ability to add the domain the email comes from, just the email address and the servers, which depending on the email could be many of them that the images and other content are coming from. So the email I received notifying me of your reply had the no-reply@support.mozilla.net and two other servers support.cdn.mozilla.net and secure.gravatar.com. This does me no good other than to tell me where the content is coming from. If I have to start adding servers then the exceptions list will become a nightmare being that one email I looked at had 5 servers it was getting content from.

Yes I saw I could show remote content but now I have to click on options and then click on show remote content when I was just clicking on one button before. It may not sound like a lot but It just more clicks I have to go through and I click on enough stuff already.

So no I really don't see this as an improvement. One of my emails had 5 servers that content was coming from so do I have to add all 5 servers or go back to adding email addresses like I have been doing for those emails I want to see the images right away but some emails change the name before the @ sign every time which makes adding them useless. Others I might only read it if there is something of interest so I click the show images button. After reading the information on the link you provided it seams you have to manually add the domain name to the exceptions which is some improvement but they could of added that to the options button to just add the domain in stead of the whole email address again. And there is no way to edit the exceptions so I would have to go back and manually add all the domains from scratch and remove all the email address rather then removing everything up to and including the @ and save it.

And as far as wasting tool bar space I have no problem with that if it makes my life easier and with all the emails I get every little thing helps. They could have left the show images button and put the options button up by the spam button or better yet have the show images button with a down arrow showing there are more options if you want to see them.

And the reason I'm pissed is because I've been waiting years for Mozilla to fix the location of the dialog boxes instead of popping them up on my other monitor that Thunderbird isn't even on. And last I looked it was in the bug list but don't know why no one has fixed it yet. I don't think it is that hard to make a dialog box center on the window that had the button you clicked to open it. I compose an email on my right monitor and the spell check when I send the email shows up on the top left of my left monitor. I think pretty much all the dialog boxes are messed up on where they pop up and moving them does no good because Thunderbird doesn't save their position.

Thank you for your reply, at least I know I can add domains to the exception list and they are moving away from the address book for this.

Jeffery

Lets look at this sensibly.

The domain the email comes from is simply not relevant to the security of the images the mail contains. The domain that hosts those images is however quite relevant. If does not matter who sends them, but images from say the NSA are suspect.

The option to white list a Domain a mail came from has existed since version 1 I think. It was certainly in Version 2. See this article http://kb.mozillazine.org/Privacy_basics_%28Thunderbird%29 Note the mail.trusteddomains discussion. However this change may invalidate that white list I really do not know. Perhaps you could try it and tell me.

---The reason your pissed---

Apparently you are not aware that Mozilla does not develop Thunderbird. Whilst Thunderbird is under the Mozilla umbrella. There are no paid developers for anything but security and stability issues and certainly not for new features. As a matter of fact the Thunderbird governance model prohibits the Thunderbird community from hiring a developer to do work. Individuals and companies however can hire developers to contribute patches to Thunderbird. It is only the community that can not hire anyone.

I get the annoyance that dialogs half on one screen and half on the other can cause. I suffer from the same issues. I have no time or skills to fix the issue so I put up with it.

Thanks Matt, you have been great on explaining all this.

I understand the reasoning that using the email domain to show images can be a problem due to spoofing and that and allowing content from specific servers is much better but from a user point of view how do I know what servers are safe. For example secure.gravatar.com which is a server in the email I receive telling me there has been a reply to this topic. I have no idea what that server is and why the email is using it for content. I went there and can see now it is about Globally Recognized Avatars but how do I know it to be safe. I'm guessing it is being used to show your thumbnail picture in the email.

Also something I just realized, if I put the domain mozilla.net in the allowed domains does it look at that as a server the content is coming from or the email domain or both?

I did not know that Mozilla does not develop Thunderbird and I'm deeply thankful to the developers for what they have done with Thunderbird which to me is the best email program that I've found that fits most of my needs. I wish I had the level of programming knowledge to fix and add to Thunderbird myself and I try to donate to all the open source programs I use especially the single programmers that are making add-ins for Thunderbird and Firefox. I wish I could give more but barely making it myself. I've often thought if I had the money I would hire a programmer to fix some things but from what you said I couldn't do that anyway. Not sure the reasoning but I'm guessing it is a legal thing for licensing and copyright.

In general in the software industry, not just open source I'm getting real tired of this Less is More type of programming where they are dumbing down the interface and removing options to be able to have the program work the way I want it to. One reason I don't use chrome very much is the fact that they don't have basic things like Firefox to just switch to the new tab when it pops up. I have to have an add-on for that which I think is sad and that chrome doesn't seam to have nearly the options Firefox does as far as configuring how things work. But I'm off topic.

I would suggest to any Thunderbird programmers if they are reading this that they think about making the options button the Show Images with a drop down arrow next to it showing that there are more options.

And I'm sorry I get frustrated at times, you've done some great work on Thunderbird and I'm very thankful for that.

Thank you Matt for taking the time to give me more insight on what all is going on with the new options button and about how Thunderbird is being developed. It makes more since now why some things are not being fixed that are mostly annoyances.

Jeffery