Archives

Lightning / Project Updates — 92 Comments
22
Jul 14

Lightning 3.3 is Out the Door

I am happy to announce that Lightning 3.3, a new major release, is out of the door. Here are a few release highlights:

  • Various components have been made asynchronous, allowing for better perceived performance. This means less hanging when Lightning is busy.
  • Improved invitation processing, as well as a few new features:
    • Restrict sending invitations to newly added attendees
    • Send one invitation email per attendee, not disclosing other attendees
    • Consider default BCC and CC of configured email identity when sending invitations
    • More actions when viewing invitations, e.g. tentative accept, accepting only occurrences.
  • When accessing Google Calendar via CalDAV, the authentication dialog doesn’t constantly reappear.

There have also been a lot of changes in the backend that are not visible to the user. This includes better testing framework support, which will help avoid regressions in the future. A total of 103 bugs have been fixed since Lightning 2.6.

When installing or updating to Thunderbird 31, you should automatically receive the upgrade to Lightning 3.3. If something goes wrong, you can get the new versions here:

Should you be using Seamonkey, you will have to wait for the 2.28 release, which is postponed as per this thread.

If you encounter any major issues, please comment on this blog post. Support issues are handled on support.mozilla.org. Feature requests and bug reports can be made on bugzilla.mozilla.org in the product Calendar. Be sure to search for existing bugs before you file them.

Addons Update:

There are a number of addons that have compatibility issues with Lightning 3.3. The authors have been notified and a few first fixes are available:

  • Calendar Tweaks: This addon causes constant flashing and makes Lightning unusable. The author has been notified and has released version 6.0 which shoul fix all issues. Plase notify him in case there is more trouble.
  • Thunderbird Conversations: There is an issue with the Lightning invitations plugin. It has been fixed in one of the nightly builds and will be available as a release soon.

Other Updates:

Project Updates — 11 Comments
16
Jun 14

Only 5 Weeks Until Thunderbird 31 – Testing Needed

Thunderbird and Lightning do major releases about every 42 weeks and by now there are only 5 weeks left until Thunderbird 31 will be released. Your matching calendaring extension version is Lightning 3.3. Betas for both products are available and now its up to you: we need all the manpower we can get to make sure there are no regressions and everything still works as expected. Over a million active daily users will thank you for this!

To get started, download the beta builds and follow the standard installation procedure.

Although I doubt there will be any issues, its always a good idea to back up your profile. I myself have been using each of the beta builds and haven’t run into any dataloss issues.

Here is a list of areas that have changed and you should especially look into:

  • The access method for Preferences has changed, test everything that looks like we might need to store options for.
  • Make sure disabled UI elements are only disabled if they should be.
  • Some theme changes have been made, also in Thunderbird. Lightning may look different, but if its odd or out of place let us know.
  • Cool new feature: There are new ways to navigate in the today pane.
  • A number of changes in the area of scheduling. Please make sure sending, receiving, accepting, declining and reopening invitations still works as expected.
  • There were changes to the autocompletion feature used in the attendees dialog.
  • Remote CalDAV calendars, especially in combination with Google Calendar.

There is one known issue if you use a localized version of Thunderbird and Lightning. Certain locales have not been fully translated, but are included in the beta builds nevertheless. We will fix this issue for the second beta build soon.

If you notice any issues please leave a comment here as soon as possible. The more time we have to fix the issue the better. If you have a bugzilla account (or don’t mind creating one for free) please comment on an existing bug or file a new one if needed.