Mozilla Thunderbird - new emails indication colour

Question

I've recently upgraded Mozilla Thunderbird to v3 on Windows XP.

In v2 I think when new (POP3) emails were downloaded, there were a little star icon next to my local folders where it's filtered to indicate new emails. In v3, it seems they've changed it to use different colour to highlight the folder instead. Whereas folders with existing unread emails are highlighted in bold black, folders with new unread emails are highlighted in this light grey greenish colour that's really hard to see.

Does anyone how to modify the colour? I'm guessing it's either some lines in a userChrome.css file, or modifying a field in the config editor.

Answer 1

This can be done by modifying userChrome.css:

userChrome.css in the chrome folder is a CSS file that can be used to change the way Mozilla applications' interfaces look. This file does not exist in a new profile. You can create it manually.

From Thunderbird 3.0 - New Features and Changes/Themes:

Color for New Mail

Previously, new messages in a folder were indicated by an orange star and the folder turning bold. In the default theme, the star has been replaced by the folder name changing color. Unfortunately, this color is picked from the desktop theme, and may result in awkward combinations. To set the color to something more suitable, use the following entry:

Windows and Linux:

treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(folderNameCol, newMessages-true) {
color: red !important; }

This will change the color for all states. You can have different colors, e.g., when the folder is selected (omit the focus part below), and when it has focus:

treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(folderNameCol, newMessages-true, selected, focus) { color: orange !important; }

Using the two entries above, the new-mail indication results in a red folder name if it isn't focused, and turns orange if it has focus (in which case the background color should be blue with the Windows Classic desktop theme, thus giving a nice contrast). You can specify any color as #rrggbb with 2-digit hexadecimal values 00-FF for red, green, and blue.

Answer 2

This page appears to point the way.

@namespace url(http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul);

#threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-cell-text(unread){color:red!important}