Lightning & Sunbird 0.5 RC2 have landed!!

Hi everyone!
As some of you have already found out by watching the mozilla.org ftp server, Lightning 0.5 RC2 and Sunbird 0.5 RC2 have been released.

We have the Sunbird RC’s for all our supported locales as well as the Lightning RC’s for all our supported locales, but unfortunately Lightning 0.5 RC2 is not yet available for the Mac. We will offer a universal Mac build of Lightning as soon as possible.

Here’s where to get your hands on the RC:

Please hammer on those builds as much as you can. If no serious issues are identified in the next few days, these builds will become the official Lightning and Sunbird 0.5 release.

27 comments

  1. thanks for all the excellent work!
    I don’t know if this blog is the right place to make this suggestion, but I would find it really handy if lightning would come with a note-taking tool… (e.g., a fourth tab, next to agenda, todo, calendars).
    fred

  2. that’s a very good news, indeed.
    but could you also make a xpi for the mac, please?

  3. @karl
    look at the comment at the beginnng of the article.
    “We will offer a universal Mac build of Lightning as soon as possible.”

  4. Thank You for all the great job!
    I agree with fred post. The only function, that I a haven’t find a compelling alternative is to the task manager capabilities in Microsoft Outlook. I use Thunderbird and Lightning for all the rest, but for task management, i still need to use Outlook, because their capabilities to manage and display tasks.
    I will be trilled when I see that kind of functions in Lightning. But I can only imagine, the huge amount of work, that this represent.
    So the least I can do, is thank you a lot, over and over, for this great product totally free, and open source.
    I will continue to advocate it, as a useful piece of software, worth to use it. And If possible contribute in another ways to improve it.
    If you have time and patience, please see the Task Coach Software (http://www.taskcoach.org), it’s also FOSS software, and I think, if possible, the Calendar project can benefit a lot from their work. Is really a great software to manage our tasks, and as soon as possible I will change from Outlook to them.
    To finish. Again: Thank You for all the great job!

  5. Very nice work! I’m tracking Lightning’s progress and waiting for it to mature enough to start using it. I can’t wait to be able to switch from Outlook to Tbird. Outlook is horrible at managing emails, while Tbird looks reasonably logical to me. However Outlook still is the only one that has Email + cal + tasks that work together in one place.
    Suggestion/Feature request:
    —————————
    The one thing that I find very important, and that’s missing in Lightning is to be able to look at the 30-day calendar, (single-)click on a day and just type in an event *right* on the 30-day calendar (no separate windows opening, dropdowns, ok, cancel, etc). Double clicking and entering times, etc takes too long when you’re entering things all the time — it’s enough to make me stay with Outlook.
    I click on Tuesday, drag over to Thursday, and type “write paper”. That puts a bar from Tuesday to Thursday that shows that project going on.
    What there isn’t in Outlook, but would be even more awesome is to type in “2-4pm meeting” and for the calendar to automatically parse out that the meeting is from 2pm to 4pm.
    I know that not contributing code to this myself, and given that it’s free, I don’t have a lot of justification to ask for features, but I think this would be a great add-on, it would be enough to make me switch, and I think it would be an important improvement over Outlook in the calendar area.
    In general, I think simple, intuitive data entry is important.
    Hope this helps. Looking forward to the coming releases. Keep up the great work.
    Milos

  6. Philip Fields

    What about bug 377641 (Outlook does not read iTIP/iMIP invitation ) on Lightning RC 2 ???

  7. @Philip
    according to the bug tracker it’s fixed since april
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377641

  8. Please add “week of year” in lightning month view. Thanks

  9. When I want to add some “attendees” to a meeting, it look like that no lookup is performed in the contact database to auto-complete the email-addresses.
    This is definitely a must have…

  10. Right, bug 377641 is fixed, but I’v installed Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 and Lightning RC2 and I’v sent invitation to Outlook user (Outlook 2000 9.0.0.3821) and (Outlook 2002 10.2627.3501 ).. The user, who recived the email, double-click over the attached meeting file, then the meeting window opens with the correct data about the meeting but the “accept and decline” buttons appear disabled …. What’s wrong? ouch …

  11. Hello,
    I am an old user of sunbird and lightning.
    Today, I install 0.5 rc2 of Sunbird and lightning (with thunderbird 2.0.04) and i have the same bug in the 2 programs.
    I use network calendars on iCal Exchange and when I want to see my events for the month of june, it’s OK, if I click on july or on another month, there is no events, it’s empty. If I want to see june, it is also empty.
    If I install the rc1 of the two programs, all is fine.
    My error console in Sunbird 0.5 rc2 give:
    Erreur : [Exception… “Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIHttpChannel.requestSucceeded]” nsresult: “0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE)” location: “JS frame :: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js :: anonymous :: line 383” data: no]
    Fichier source : file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js
    Ligne : 383
    Thanks for your work and for your help.

  12. I really like the visual improvements to 0.5 – it’s sharper and easier on the eye. My only suggestion, though, would be a little bit more freedom with the width of the calendar/task list view beneath the folder pane. I find it to be too wide; or, conversely, if it must be that wide, could it be redesigned so it accommodates the space demands better? I find all the negative space a little bothersome…a very, very minor point, granted. I also second the request for a note taking area in the same area. Now if only the calendar and contacts in TB would sync with my Palm (which I know is in th e long-term plans for this, so I’m not complaining!), my switchover would be complete.
    Great work, and thanks!

  13. @Philip
    This looks more like bug 377761, which is not yet solved : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377761

  14. I think you should also take a look at taskfreak (http://www.taskfreak.com) for the use of tasks. I think this GPL-Software handles tasks much more comfortable as taskcoach and it is not so full of bloat ;-)

  15. Kudos to the development team!
    You guys and gals (any involved?) are doing an outstanding job.
    I noticed that colorizing a category in setup does not colorize an event assigned to that category. [Win2000/ Lightening RC2 /TB2.0.0.4(June 4, 07)]

  16. Hi,
    Thanks for a great tool. Keep up the good work. I am having few problems with TB 2.0.0.4 and Lightning0.5rc2.
    1. I am unable to send invite to people using Outlook 2003. It gives error when they open the mail, it says calendar entry not found meeting is either moved or deleted.
    2. I gave category to my events but unable to see them colored in the calendar.

  17. @Angrez
    1. i think its bug 377761
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377761
    2. its bug 340601
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340601
    these are not blocking-bugs for lightning 0.5

  18. If I can’t send invite to outlook 2003 then isn’t its better to stick to 0.3.1

  19. When is Lightning for Mac 0.5rc2 being released?

  20. Bas van den Bosch

    @Angrez: there’s lots of other enhancements in outlook2003 already. The other versions of outlook work allright, it’s just 2003 afaik…

  21. Lightning 0.5 RC2 looks good! Finally, no more webdav-password-questions at startup :)
    But there is a new drop-down-box below the small calendar with the current date. What is it good for? I click on it and get a calendar – same as just above the box. Looks like a waste of space.

  22. Hmmm. Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 with Lightning 0.5rc2 is unable to open an *.ics file. Why?

  23. 10 days and no status update! No more nails to bite! ;)
    Are we looking at a RC3?

  24. I really like sunbird, I like the layout, being able to see and customize my task list and see my calendar all in one view is really great.
    the only thing that would make it over-the-top fantastic, would be the ability to put my contacts info in it.
    any chance of that? I looked through the extensions, doesn’t look like a contacts extension exists.

  25. Great job, but I too have the problem with catagories. They do not show up as coloured in the calendar. The colour I have choosen for my ‘home’ calendar over rides any colours choosen for the catagories. thanks

  26. I have the same problem as reported earlier here:
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I use network calendars on iCal Exchange and when I want to see my events for the month of june, it’s OK, if I click on july or on another month, there is no events, it’s empty. If I want to see june, it is also empty.
    If I install the rc1 of the two programs, all is fine.
    My error console in Sunbird 0.5 rc2 give:
    Erreur : [Exception… “Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIHttpChannel.requestSucceeded]” nsresult: “0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE)” location: “JS frame :: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js :: anonymous :: line 383” data: no]
    Fichier source : file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Sunbird/components/calICSCalendar.js
    Ligne : 383
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I do not use Outlook. The calendar that is causing the error console entry is generated automatically by the WebCalendar program at SourceForge.
    I have 3 other calendars that are shared data files on a WebDAV server. These files were created by an earlier version of Sunbird. Only 2 of the 3 work. In the case of the 3rd that doesn’t work, I get no errors, but nothing on the calendar displays.
    I use Sunbird 0.3.1 on another computer and have no problems at all.