thunderbird-3 hack: fix number of addresses shown before the "more" link

If you use thunderbird 3, you may have noticed an annoying link labeled 'more' on every address category (to, cc) after just 1 address is listed.

It is not smart  to see if there is some more extra space to fit any more of the addresses in the category even if there is a tonne of space available.

First rule of thumb when you use mozilla products, check the configuration to see if you can increase this number from 1 to say 10 - meaning, show 10 addresses before you encapsulate the rest into the "more" container. Sadly, there was none.

Here is the hack to fix it.

Step 1: Find messenger.jar in your installation

ubuntu users: dpkg --search messenger.jar

other os users: I am sure you can find a way :)

The jar would be in the install location directory similar to:

/usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.2pre/chrome/messenger.jar

Step 2: Extract mailWidgets.xml from the jar

unzip -o content/messenger/mailWidgets.xml

Step 3: Fix the hardcoded variable maxAddressesBeforeMore in the xml file

eg:

<field name="maxAddressesBeforeMore">1</field>

to

<field name="maxAddressesBeforeMore">10</field>

Step 4: Rezip it back.

zip -f content/messenger/mailWidgets.xml

Now, restart your thunderbird, and you should see 10 emails in each category before the "more" link shows up.

You are welcome!