August 26, 2020

Thunderbird - unmapping the keyboard delete key

Thunderbird ships with a bunch of keyboard mappings. In particular the keyboard delete key will delete messages. I hate this more than words can tell, simply because I get ready to reply to a message, select text and want to delete it, and then the swearing starts. Of course what I need to do is first hit reply, and then select and delete text. But I am not perfect, and it does not look like I will be anytime soon.

I had this figured out once, but after a clean install of thunderbird, I need to figure it out again and then record the process here so I will know how to do it the next time.

Not only that, but the Thunderbird nitwits have broken add-ons like Keyconfig.

Keyconfig add on

Shockingly enough, Thunderbird provides no facility for managing its keyboard shortcuts. This is typical "we know best" attitudes from software developers, or just plain laziness. But there is an ancient add-on that may well solve the problem. The "Dorando" Keyconfig add-on is circa 2016 at least and looks hopeful (I am running Thunderbird 52.1.0 at the time of this writing).

As of Thunderbird 68.11.0 this no longer works. Apparently the Thunderbird "team" made changes and broke this and other extensions. The author of the Dorando Keyconfig add-on says that he tried hard, but it is now too big of a mess for him to deal with.

Downgrading to Thunderbird 60 is probably the best option at this time.

Installing the Dorando Keyconfig

Thunderbird knows about its own add ons and adds them for you via the Add on dialog. So you don't have to download something and then insert it into thunderbird.

In thunderbird, use the "hamburger" at the upper right and select "Add ons" from the menu. This brings up an Add on manager" tab, which is a very poorly designed page. Somewhere in the midst of all the hype is buried a "see all" link that gets you what you really want. Type "Dorando" in the search box and it offers you version 2016.2 along with a big button that offers "add to thunderbird". Click this. Then click "install now" in the dialog that ensues. The original description warned you that this requires a restart. There is an easy to miss "restart now" in the upper right.

And this seem to work with 52.1.0 just fine.

Control-Shift-F12 gets you to the control screen to disable keys (or do whatever else you want to do).

Another way is to use the hamburger and then "Add Ons" to get to the lame and stupid add-on manager page, but then go down to "Extensions" and you will see Dorando keyconfig along with the Lightning calendar thing. You can take this opportunity to disable lightning (and I do since I don't use it and I have heard it being implicated with Thunderbird slow downs.). I restart Thunderbird to make this disabling take effect.

Supposedly there is also supposed to be a way to get to the Dorando control screen via the hamburger and then tools, but I sure don't see it.

Using the Keyconfig control screen

This is pretty simple. You select the keys you want to modify one by one and then click "disable" or do whatever you want to do. There is no way apparently to disable all keyboard shortcuts with one keystroke (too bad). I disable the 3 bindings to the delete key as well as the "a" key to archive messages.
Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org