Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by RickW on Jan. 14, 2012 ·

This is an excellent add-on that really needs to be incorporated into Thunderbird itself. The functionality of this add-on is already built into TB with the F(orward) and B(ackward) keys on the keyboard, but without the buttons/icons on the Mail toolbar, which this add-on supplies (note that you must customize [right-click] your Mail toolbar to actually add the buttons). F = Real Next [right arrow]; (next item down); B = [left arrow] Real Previous (next item up), regardless of the date-sort selection chosen. The standard Previous and Next buttons supplied with TB jump to the next UNREAD message (ggrrrrrrhhhh!). Most people would want the (real) next or (real) previous message as the default, regardless of the read/unread status.

The add-on does require the Add-On Compatibility Reporter (ACR) add-on to be installed to overcome TB's current reporting of RealPrevNextButtons as incompatible. However, the add-on works with TB 3.0-9.0 at least. Be sure to send a compatibility report to TB for this add-on so that Mozilla knows it is compatible with 9.0 at least. (An alternative solution to the incompatibility problem is to modify Darth_Vukster's July 14, 2011 instructions [below] for the version of TB that you have).

With our Win Vista Home Premium TB installation the buttons were initially blank/invisible (no problems at all with Win XP), as some other reviewers have reported, but that was fixed by installing the Classic Reloaded appearance/theme (1.5.2 at time of writing), and has now worked for every TB from 3.0-9.0.

This add-on is highly recommended! Please, Mozilla, include it with TB as standard - it only requires you to add icons to match the F and B keys that are already part of TB's functionality!

TB 9.0.1, FF 9.0.1 (on both Win XP SP3 and Win Vista HP SP2)