Thunderbird 68 removes the limit on the number of colours available and now offers whatever the operating system of the device offers. This is usually more than 60 million.

You are using Apple, the complex things you see are part of your apple operating system. Windows users see a color picker that they pick a color from, because that is the tool windows offers up when asked.

Both operating systems should put up an equivalent to this

You can select to use the last colour you picked of revert the text to the default colour you set in preferences, or none if you set nothing as a text colour for composing.

The windows dialog you see when you click the colour bar to set another colour looks like this

Apple has something that looks like this as their operating system colour picker

They offer instructions here on using this part of their operating system.

Thank you. That was exactly what I was seeing but, having now read Apple's instructions from the link you provided, I got things to work. Actually, just to change the color of text as a highlighting method (which I would think is what most of us want) was so easy, and is now much more complex. To be honest, who needs a choice of a few thousand colors, when you may just need red or blue (say) to differentiate things? It was much simpler, and needed a lot less clicks........

While you are looking at this, I have noticed a more than occasional tendency for an email to just minimise when I click in it, requiring me to restore it from its entry I see when clicking and holding the Thunderbird icon in the dock. It's intermittent, so perhaps it's my mouse, but I wonder whether anyone else has reported this. It is only since v 68.1.1, though.

johnhkay said

It's intermittent, so perhaps it's my mouse, but I wonder whether anyone else has reported this. It is only since v 68.1.1, though.

The number of people on 68 at all is currently very low, as macos users represent only about 8 percent of Thunderbird users the number of folks using your operating system on Thunderbird 68 is probably a fairly small number.

Updates were ceased because of an update problem on windows. Me saying I have not seen it reported is really a bit of a misnomer, as there have not been the 100,000 installs it takes to start to get down to the more edge issues. where a particular brand of mouse of a particular drive revision gets identified as an issue.

I do have to wonder however why you are using individual windows to view emails. The use of a tab in the main Thunderbird window has been the default for years now. That would further reduce the likely hood of a bug being identified before release.

Sorry Matt if I didn't make it quite clear. I do use tabs, of course (I think I always have done - as you say, for years), but the whole of Thunderbird gets minimized when this happens. I have to get it back from the dock.

I'll try and isolate what and when it is happening, to see if there is a pattern. If there is, I'll let you know.

NOT HAPPY with the convoluted and time-consuming way to choose colors. Who needs a million color options for email? Now I'm not inclined to use color at all because it takes so much time. Is there any way to offer the option for the simpler, easier way like before? Very disappointed. Can I download a previous Thunderbird version?

Firstly, on the minimize problem, I bought a new mouse, and that did solve it. So, a hardware problem, not Thunderbird!

As cooler77 says, this color thing is a real pain in the neck. All we need for highlighting or differentiating are two or three colors - say just blue and red, and perhaps green.... That's all.

If one wants a million colors, you could still leave the OS option available, but please program in the old limited version! Please!!!

Ugh. I get it, but I don't need a million colors. I liked the old palette choices that gave me quick clicks on 64 odd colors for red, green, blue, etc when doing emails. In my case on a Mac, the OS picker is way too much overkill. I'd just like to setup a dozen or so "favorite" colors in TB without having to fall back to the operating system.

The issue I have on Mac OS Catalina (10.15.3) with the latest Thunderbird was stated by the original post, "Anyway, on the color wheel, I click to red, but the black box never changes. The only way i can get that text changed is by putting in the #00 whatever code for red, and then it goes red. "

This is my primary issue. I can navigate the color picker, but whatever color I choose, it doesn't appear in the HEX window nor updates the color, so it doesn't actually change the selected text.

Attached is an example after I've tried to click on a RED pencil.

I think the trick is to first close the OS X color picker, and then close the TB color picker.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1276138#answer-1278604

Thanks! That was the trick, even if a bit humbug to need to click twice to select a color.

David said

Thanks! That was the trick, even if a bit humbug to need to click twice to select a color.

The impression I got from the folks I talked to, it was the price of doing development on a mac.

I reckon the easiest way is to just type "red" or "blue" (or whatever) into the html color box, as it points out. The exact hue is hardly ever of any importance, so it's done fairly quickly. No need for pencils or color wheels.

That seems to be the answer, and I had already been told that it's a Mac OS X thing, not Thunderbird.