Unfortunately it’s not done yet. The big issue remaining is to ensure the Thunderbird UI doesn’t completely freeze up (which many people apparently don’t like). I just don’t feel it’s right to release like this, since it’s annoying and problematic. My first stab at it was unsuccessful, so I’m taking it on from another angle, but need some solid time to sit down and really dig into it. I’ve been hoping to also handle non-ASCII characters as well, but that might get pushed out to the next release. My plan was to have done this already, but real life interferes with my plans at times. This week is Thanksgiving (read: I’m not coding when I can be eating, as I’m sure most of you can relate with), and I’ve got finals rapidly approaching (read: less coding time). I’ve also got a few other projects that I’m balancing here. There’s lots of great announcements coming up on this blog in coming months, so keep an eye on that RSS feed.
So how much longer?
The correct answer is “when it’s done”. My true hope is by the end of the year at the latest (which is only a couple weeks). Hopefully earlier than that (I’d really like to have it by early December). It all depends how much time I get to work on it.
I guess that’s just life… everything takes a little longer than you want.
Daniel Glazman is sitting on two really sweet extensions (CaScadeS II and OpenWengo), and hacking away at them ever so diligently. So I’m not the only one making people crazy by not going fast enough (seriously, check out some of those screenshots on his blog. Really cool stuff he’s been working on).
While your waiting, check out the Mozilla Quality Blog for ways you can help ensure 1.5 totally rocks. There’s no such thing as too much testing.
Update [12-26-2005]: It’s out, and available here.