As of version 0.9.1, a SmartTemplate4 icon is displayed on Thunderbird's status
bar, pushing, for instance, the calendar add-on Lightning's date/day icon to
the left. There is no way to hide or move the SmartTemplate4 icon unless one
creates a userChrome.css txt file in Thunderbird's profile folder and fiddles
around with it, which is quite a hassle for inexperienced users like me (and
many other people). I was informed by the developers that there is no way to
hide the SmartTemplate4 icon. I think that users should be able to choose
whether they want to see the icon on Thunderbird's status bar or not. Although
created with the best of intentions and for reasons of convenience, I find the
icon visually intrusive, especially because it shoves the Lightning icon out of
the way, and the Thunderbird user has no say in the matter.

Thanks for the suggestion. We are planning to add global options in version
1.0, so this is likely to become one of them. I might post a test version to
this bug for testing.

In the meantime, you should be able to remove the button by adding the
following rule to your userChrome.css:

#SmartTemplate4Messenger, #SmartTemplate4Messenger:not(:hover) {
  display: none !important;
}

if you have a very old version of Tb (before Tb4), just use

#SmartTemplate4Messenger {
  display: none !important;
}

Thank you very much for your time and response. Unfortunately, neither of those
two codes work in Thunderbird 14.0 (which is the latest version). Nothing
happens. The SmartTemplate4 button remains. 

+1 for removing the annoying SmartTemplate4 icon that is displayed on
Thunderbird's status bar as of version 0.9.1.  I've also tried and failed to
remove the icon using the code detailed above (I am using Thunderbird 10.0.2)

(In reply to comment #3)
> +1 for removing the annoying SmartTemplate4 icon that is displayed on
> Thunderbird's status bar as of version 0.9.1.  I've also tried and failed to
> remove the icon using the code detailed above (I am using Thunderbird 10.0.2)
> 

This worked for pother users. Make sure that the file is really called
userChrome.css (some operating systems hide file name extensions, and chances
are that it might be called userChrome.css.txt and not displaying the .txt). Of
course Thunderbird will ignore the file if its name doesn't end with .css

If your file explorer supports "hiding extensions of known file types" I highly
recommend switching off this option, and then rip the knob off.

Created an attachment (id=7340) [details]
0.9.2 prerelease 5 attempts a fix

Here is an attempt to fix this issue. There was also another issue with plain
text signature being attached as "quasi html" which didn't look nice, which
this also tries to address.

(From update of attachment 7340 [details])
Sorry, I meant to attach this to a different bug: [Bug 25093]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > +1 for removing the annoying SmartTemplate4 icon that is displayed on
> > Thunderbird's status bar as of version 0.9.1.  I've also tried and failed to
> > remove the icon using the code detailed above (I am using Thunderbird 10.0.2)
> > 
> 
> This worked for pother users. Make sure that the file is really called
> userChrome.css (some operating systems hide file name extensions, and chances
> are that it might be called userChrome.css.txt and not displaying the .txt). Of
> course Thunderbird will ignore the file if its name doesn't end with .css
> 
> If your file explorer supports "hiding extensions of known file types" I highly
> recommend switching off this option, and then rip the knob off.
> 

Yes - that worked. In Vista and Windows 7, when accessing a folder, one has to
do the following to unhide the file name extensions: 

Navigate to "Organize" -> "Folder and Search" -> "Options" -> "View" -> uncheck
"Hide extensions for known file types". Also, in order to access the chrome
subfolder in Thunderbird, these instructions have to be followed:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird#Finding_your_profile

Once you're in the chrome subfolder, create a Notepad file, name it
userChrome.css and paste Axel's code into it:

#SmartTemplate4Messenger, #SmartTemplate4Messenger:not(:hover) {
  display: none !important;
}

Make sure Thunderbird is closed during this process! Thanks for your help,
Axel, but I do hope this option can be added to the SmartTemplate4 add-on for
the sake of convenience :-)

PS: the userChrome.css icon displays a gear wheel alongside a notepad.  

I would have told Bill Gates, but he didn't listen. Hiding file extensions was
probably the stupidest idea he had in his whole career. It is responsible for a
large number of virus infections (e.g. you can rename any program into
something that looks like a jpg image) 

Why they chose to hide this by default in any Windows installation is beyond
me, it is always the first thing I disable on any Windows. 

Anyway, we will add an option to hide the icon to the st4 options dialog
eventually, and will close the bug as soon as that's done.

*** Bug 25116 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Created an attachment (id=7398) [details]
0.9.2 prerelease 84

Here is a version with global settings that allow to hide the icon. You can
also influence the 'SmartTemplate4' label behaviour if you do not like the way
the label automatically shows up when you hover on the icon, by right-clicking
the option; this will open about:config with a numeral setting

0 - never show label
1 - expand label on hover (default)
2 - always show label