When I open Mozilla Thunderbird, ver 17, there used to be a menu bar on top that had File, Edit, View, Options, Tools & Help. Now it is gone. I have just one menu bar for Get Mail, Write, Address Book, etc.
When I first open the program, the Mozilla text below admits that for recent versions, this bar is missing. However, it clearly states that in the upper right hand corner there is a symbol that has a dropdown menu with all these features. There is no such thing on my screen.
When I right click on the top, I get only two choices: Mail Toolbar and Menu Bar. The latter just shows the mailbox I happen to be in. This is no use, so I unchecked it. This Menu bar is the one that used to have all the above-listed headings. The current one is useless, as all it shows is the mailbox I happen to be in. Who needs that?
The odd thing is that when I click on Write to send a new message, lo and behold, there is the old missing Menu bar that I used to have on the main page.
I tried hitting ALT+V, which has a Toolbars listing, but there again, it only has Menu Bar (the useless oen) and Mail Toolbar.
Is there any way to fix this, other than uninstalling the current version and installing a previous one?
This happened to me a couple of weeks ago, after a TB update. After a few days, the menu bar reappeared. No, there hadn’t been another update. Go figure.
My wife didn’t execute the TB update (on her japtop) until a few days ago, and now her menu bar is missing. I’m waiting to see if it also “spontaneously” reappears. Both machines Win7/64.
I assume it’s a bug with the latest update which will be corrected in the next one. That shouldn’t take too long, considering how the TB updates seem to come every few weeks.
In the meantime, you’ll see a button saying “APP MENU” toward the upper right of the TB homescreen; click it, and a dropdown menu appears with an exit option.
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UPDATE: I just updated TB to 17.02, but unfortunately, I still don’t have that Menu button in the upper right corner. Or any other corner for that matter.
So, if I want to go to Options or Tools or anything else, I have to hit Write, and then old menu bar is there. Weirdness prevails.
Try pressing the ALT key (I expect that is how TreacherousCretin got his menu back… That should make the menu bar temporarily appear (until you press ALT again), and when it is there you go to Toolbars on the View menu, and check Menu bar. Then it should stay. This page explains things (sort of)
I think you may find that you may actually do have the “menu button” that they are talking about: it is just not very obvious what it is, or even that it is any sort of button. It appears towards the top right of the screen, as three short gray lines just to the right of the search box on the Mail toolbar (the one with the icons for “Get mail”, “Write”, etc.), but, like me, you probably prefer to keep your menu bar.
Frankly I do not understand why they feel the need to change the user interface in this sort of way. It is really, really stupid. Hiding things in this way may make it look a bit prettier, and give you a tiny bit more space for the main mail pane (though this is hardly a significant consideration for an email program, I should have thought), but it makes the interface less intuitive and harder to use (even, surely, for people who are new to the program and haven’t got used to the old way). Personally, the first thing I did when I first got the versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer that hid the menu bar, was to bring it back again. In a browser, if I want more space for the web page itself to display, I just switch to full screen mode, which gives you much more than the trivial gain of hiding the menu bar. In Thunderbird I have never felt the need for either.
I believe it was Google Chrome that strarted this idiotic trend of hiding interface features: yet another instance of the implementation of Google’s new slogan/policy: Do be Evil. :mad: