0.5 status and release plan

The Calendar developers have been discussing their plans for the upcoming Sunbird/Lightning 0.5 release and we would like you to know about our plans for 0.5.

There is a lot of good work already complete, and we all agreed that the value of getting that work out to our users is high. That said, there are still some features and outstanding issues that we’d like to see in 0.5, that aren’t finished yet, but would enhance the experience for our users a lot.

We’ve therefore created a list of blockers (we will not release 0.5 without these features) and a list of nice-to-have items (it would be great if those could make the 0.5 train, but if push comes to shove, we will release without those items).

The items that block 0.5 are:

  • Calendar view “working hours” (Bug 349520 – probably the most requested feature)
  • Event box beautification (Bug 368982 – the calendar views look so much better with this patch)
  • iTIP/iMIP accept and decline (I can’t find the bug right now)
  • Printing integration in Tb (I can’t find the bug right now)
  • Undo/redo integration in Tb (Bug 369084)
  • Copy/paste integration in Tb (Bug 367110 – already fixed)
  • UNIX printing fixes (I can’t find the bug right now)

These are the nice to have items:

We are currently planning to release a first release candidate at the beginning of April and release Sunbird 0.5 and Lightning 0.5 during the first half April. Here’s the planned release schedule:

  • March 12 – string freeze – l10n begins
  • March 24 – code freeze (If it’s not in by now, it’s missing the bus.)
  • March 26 – functional testing by #calendar-qa, localizers check their work using nightlies
  • March 30 – l10n freeze
  • April 02 – first RC
  • April 08 – release date or second RC, in case RC 1 was not good enough
  • April 14 – release date, in case we need an RC 2

I hope you are as excited as we are about the upcoming 0.5 release. Stay with us for more great things to come!

43 comments

  1. Diane in Chico, CA

    Too bad the “synch to Palm OS Treo” didn’t make it!

  2. lilmatt marked Bug# 369885 as a blocker for v. 0.5

  3. Congratulations guys, you continue in setting a great example for planning and keeping the community informed, this is a project that will not stagnate.
    Which would you say, in general, is the main focus of your efforts: Lightning or Sunbird? Just out of curiosity.

  4. matt:
    The above “blocking list” was meant to be a summary of items. There will still be some bugs marked blocking that don’t appear in that list as issues are brought to our attention by the awesome QA folks.
    Jon Prichard:
    Sunbird and Lightning are developed simultaneously. The core beneath them both is shared, so fixes in one often fix a similar bug in the other. That said, there are developers who spend more time with each app, so it’s pretty balanced.

  5. Congratulations guys, you continue in setting a great example for planning and keeping the community informed, this is a project that will not stagnate.

    Seconded!

  6. Kudos to the whole team ! Thanks for keeping us updated so well, and I can’t wait for April :Lighting will have reached a feature level that makes it fully usable at work and at home, together with shared calendars on Google Calendar, for instance (with the highly expected Google Calendar extension, that is pretty close to its end, as far as I understood).
    Thanks again to everybody

  7. Congratulations on a nice Calendar!

  8. And guess what ? I have just received a notification from Bugzilla : “Bug 355117 � Add Minimal Support for Google Calendar” is FIXED and RESOLVED !

  9. The German IT news website golem.de has a short article about the upcoming 0.5 release: http://www.golem.de/0703/50826.html

  10. Thanks for this detailed info, I’m longing for Lightning 0.5! Please update the Roadmap on the Mozilla Main page.

  11. Just wanted to say “thanks” for all the great work :-)

  12. this is the best managed project in mozilla, bar none. communication to the community is exceptional, as is encouraging wider participation in the design and Q/A processes. good luck on 0.5! (and glad to see my top bug #327783 might get in.. ;)

  13. Some suggestions (if not here, tell me where) these apply to Lightning
    1. When a “Todo” is checked, it should optionally disappear, either today or tomorrow.
    2. Todo list should have a filter – by priority and/or category (see below).
    3. Todo list should have categories or folders.
    4. Add a journal.
    5. Priorities should be expanded or add a user-defined field.
    6. Listing should be based on priorities.

  14. We have just implemented a sort of shared calendar system which is great for keeping track of mobile managers and cost almost nothing. I am glad to hear the rough edges are being smoothed out of this really useful tool. It has also resulted in the whole business moving over to Thunderbird and Firefox for email and web. The only feature I could really ask for would be a way of viewing your calendar offline (from a cache) – not for updating, just for viewing in a meeting or in the car.
    Keep up the good work. Dc

  15. PLEASE! Palm Sync support in next release PLEASE!!

  16. Is there some reason why calls for device sync-ability are being ignored?

  17. Sabir,
    those requests are not ignored. We simply do not have the resources at the moment to do development in that direction.
    Anybody willing to take a shot a device sync would be very, very welcome.

  18. Can you assign one person on your team to it? Is it really that difficult to code a Palm conduit (not a rhetorical question; I’m genuinely curious)? Thunderbird has one…
    Sunbird is an excellent product, but the lack of synchronization options is preventing it from becoming a viable alternative to Outlook. I would love to adopt it (I hate Outlook), but sync-ability is an absolute must for me. I suspect that I’m not alone in this regard; this should really be a high-priority feature.

  19. Sabir,
    this is open source, not commercial software development. We cannot simply assign a task to someone in a project, that is built on the fun of coding and the voluntariness of the tasks that someone takes onto himself.
    Device sync will certainly happen in time, but it is not as simple as you seem to think.

  20. WRT timezone support: Why is it necessary for Calendar to maintain its own timezone database? Don’t all modern OS’s supply a timezone database that applications can use?

  21. Diane, Sabir et al,
    If you want that feature, but don’t know how to program or haven’t time to spare, you could pay someone to do it. If you can’t afford that outright, something you could investigate is setting up a bug bounty. Then if enough people think it’s important enough to put their money where their mouth is, someone will find it worth their while to meet the challenge.
    Open Source isn’t magic. It needs resources to work, like anything else.

  22. Martin Zborovjan

    Great work this calendar. I love it, but please, please please please – add support for Palm Sync, I am about to throw the device away as I can’t sync.

  23. I have to agree with the user above.
    The inclusion of palm support would go a long way toward helping the project as a whole. While there are many users who simply wish to break away from outlook, the fact that palm will be moving to a linux platform will also increase the userbase. Having this support already in place can only add to the developers working on this project.

  24. I installed it, and looked at its features with longing..
    Unfortunately without Palm sync it is a no go for me.
    By the way, there is quite a number of Palm users out there. I know there are a number of programmers among them: if you start-up a sync facility (a seed, one might say), I would think some of them would want to pitch in and add their input.

  25. Eesger Toering

    I realy, realy ;) second the request for PALM OS sync capaility! That would realy make me use this program!

  26. I would just like to add my support to those calling for PALM OS sync capability. There definately seems to be demand for this option.

  27. 0.3 is released and on the download page, and 0.5 is being worked on. What happened to 0.4 since one of the add-ons I downloaded wanted version 0.4

  28. I currently use thunderbird for email and evolution for calendar because it syncs with my palm. I would do multiple backflips to drop evolution alltogether.
    +1 on getting the Palm conduit soon!

  29. I guess the whole calendar project is extremely promissing… but please, guive us Palm sync !!

  30. I would like to second the requirement to have some local caching feature. For us here it is absolutely essential because as a team of road warriors we need to be able to look into the calendar without being online. Funny thing is that the old Mozilla Calendar extension (0.2.0.2006011612-cal) has this feature and it works quite well. It’s the only reason we still have to keep FF 1.5 and cannot exclusively switch to lightning.

  31. Another vote for PALM sync. Like many others have stated, we’d love to drop outlook or palm organizer and use thunderbird/lightning if the calendar syncd with palm like thunderbird does. I wish there was something I could do to help. I haven’t developed anything since Foxpro 2.0!

  32. Hi,
    lightning looks great. I have one suggestion to make it even better (I have only just played with it so I hope that I have not missed what is already possible!).
    When using email I don’t want to look at the side pane for the calendar I want to see my full list of email folders. The reverse is true when looking at the calendar.
    Is it possible to add an option that the side paden automatically changes to reflect whether the user is looking at email or a calendar? At the moment I seem to have to manually change what I’m looking at – which is a pain and a bit ugly.
    Thanks for the great work on it.

  33. while(! PalmSync())
    {
    waitAndHope();
    }

  34. PalmSync! Please! Will donate! Promised!

  35. Palm Sync, Palm Sync, Palm Sync

  36. As with the others… Waiting on Palm Sync

  37. Do Palm Sync with calendar it is very important!!!

  38. Another vote for Palm-Sync!

  39. i would also like palm sync. Please, please.

  40. Palm Sync

  41. I am a Palm user and also wish to say, WE NEED PALM SYNC!

  42. Sunbird looks nice. Kudos to the development team, but – for what it’s worth – I’m in the same boat as the rest. Can’t really think about migrating without Palm sync. Good work at any rate.

  43. Another vote for palm sync feature. Otherwise great going Sunbird developers. Rated top calendar by linux-mag.co.uk October 2007