29
Nov 07

Lightning/Sunbird weekly status update (November 29)

Another week has gone by and another 13 bugs have been fixed in the last 7 days. Nothing particularly interesting this time, just the usual bug-fixing and polishing going on.

Here’s the complete list with all the 13 bug fixes:

  • Bug 333363:
    Some providers return an allday event on the day of the event, and the day after
  • Bug 395051:
    Synchronize connection.dtd on MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH and Trunk
  • Bug 398975:
    Implement calIFreeBusyProvider for CalDav Provider
  • Bug 401000:
    make helper methods (e.g. calGetString) exception safe
  • Bug 402683:
    new category layout causes colliding event boxes
  • Bug 403061:
    [Unifinder] Edit and Delete selected event via keyboard is broken
  • Bug 404813:
    No calendars can be created, failure during startup (regression)
  • Bug 404834:
    Menuitem for show/hide Search Bar is broken
  • Bug 405006:
    Strict warning in calendar-task-tree (aRow hides argument)
  • Bug 405127:
    [Task Mode] Add ‘click here to add a new task’ feature
  • Bug 405199:
    First day of week is always Sunday in prefs window
  • Bug 405490:
    [Task dialog] Due date picker doesn’t work
  • Bug 405777:
    calUtils doQueryInterface runs into infinite recursion

Thanks again to all our developers, contributors, localizers, testers, and supporters.

Let me also point you to David Ascher’s recent blog post. He’s right in that we could use some helping hands. If you’re interested, read this article directed at developers. People without coding experience, who would like to help as well, should read this article about our recent testing initiative or our documentation efforts. Everyone of you can really make a difference here!


22
Nov 07

Lightning/Sunbird weekly status update (November 22)

One week has passed and here’s another installment of the Calendar Project’s status update with the list of recent bug fixes. 12 bugs got fixed in the last 8 days.

Especially noteworthy is the implementation of a task mode for Lightning, one of the three major feature implementations that are planned for the 0.8 release. Kudos to Mickey, who implemented this and to Berend, Christian and Philipp, who did the code review. Great work guys!

Here’s the complete list with all the 12 bug fixes:

  • Bug 253396: Implement Task Mode
  • Bug 328442: jsDate vs calIDateTime
  • Bug 341776: calICalendar::superCalendar attribute for calendar composition
  • Bug 374347: nsIClipboard uses the deprecated nsISupportsArray interface
  • Bug 398139: X-prop parameters get corrupted
  • Bug 399595: Remove unused entities from global.dtd
  • Bug 401704: Make Event dialog more extension friendly (be generous with id’s)
  • Bug 403748: Correct misspellings in Calendar code
  • Bug 403936: Activity field in today pane does not remember its last setting
  • Bug 404007:< Remove calendar from composite in onCalendarUnregistering.
  • Bug 404085: Consolidate provider methods into a default calendar implementation
  • Bug 404763: Broken instanceof test in calUtils.js

Thanks again to all our developers, contributors, localizers, testers, and supporters.

Let me also point you again to our call for help from developers. We can really use some help to finish 0.8. We also need more people doing testing or writing documentation. So if you cannot code, let this not stop you from making Lightning and Sunbird better products. Everyone of you can really make a difference here!


20
Nov 07

Help to make 0.8 a better release

We’re currently doing all the planning work for the 0.8 release. Part of the planning work is determining which bugs need to be fixed for the release and which bugfixes can wait. We call this triaging.

And here’s the problem:
Right now our list of bugs we want to fix for 0.8 (bugs marked as wanted0.8+) already contains 60 bugs (at the time of writing). If you combine this with the major feature we are planning for 0.8 (foreign timezone support, task view, offline calendar support) this makes our goal of releasing 0.8 in early February a very ambitious one.

But you can help us here:
32 of those 60 bugs (at the time of writing) currently have no owner. So this is the right time for you to step up and help us in making 0.8 a great release. You can really make a difference! If you can do a little bit of programming and want to help, just stop by in the #calendar IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org or join our weekly developer confcall and ask for help there. We’re counting on you!


14
Nov 07

Test Automation Summit Planning Meeting

Well 0.7 has released, and we have been busy laying the ground work for the Test Automation Summit. We’re ready to expose some of these preparations and plans and get to work on the documentation that we’ll need in order to do the Summit.

In order to review the plans and to parcel out the work, we’re going to discuss this at the next two QA Chat IRC meetings. These meetings occur at 17:30 UTC (click to find the time in your zone). The next one will be tomorrow, November 15. And the following one will be November 22.

Several great folks have stepped forward to help out, and we’re looking forward to making this a success. If you are waiting for to get involved, then wait no longer! We will have lots of tasks from writing code samples, to writing documentation, to doing publicity.

I imagine that for most people out there, talking and learning about test automation doesn’t sound like much fun. We’re going to talk more about this when we start doing the big publicity for this event, but I’ll let you in on a secret. We’re going to be working on XPCShell tests, which are written in JavaScript. We’re going to be teaching you what you need to know about JavaScript to be effective.

JavaScript is the heart of anything built on the Mozilla platform. That means that if you’ve always wanted to learn how to write a patch or an extension for Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Songbird, Seamonkey etc, then you will need to know JavaScript. This event (and learning by helping us prepare for the event) will help you get some hands on practice with the basics of JavaScript and start you on your way.

So, keep that in mind, we’ll be talking about it more in the coming weeks. I hope to see you at the QA Chat in #calendar-qa.

Happy Testing!


14
Nov 07

Lightning/Sunbird Status Update (November 14)

It’s been nearly four weeks since the last status update and nearly three weeks since 0.7 was released, but do not think that we’ve been idle in that time. We’re already going full steam towards the 0.8 release and have already fixed 65 bugs since the last status update.

Three fixes deserve your special attention:

  • Bug 288496: Alarm indicator icon on event box
  • Bug 372829: Integrate unifinder into Lightning as it is in Sunbird
  • Bug 400279: Category colors should be displayed next to the event boxes

With those fixes we gain the ability to easily select lots of events based on different criteria (bug 372829), a feature present in Sunbird but not in Lightning until now. Category colors assigned to an event can now be much easier identified (bug 400279) and it is now much easier to identify events, which have an alarm set (bug 288496).

Here’s the complete list with all the 65 bug fixes:

  • Bug 288496:
    Alarm indicator icon on event box
  • Bug 324440:
    Convert calendar code to frozen linkage
  • Bug 328442:
    jsDate vs calIDateTime
  • Bug 341518:
    Minimonth previous and next arrow buttons move when clicked
  • Bug 341537:
    Leaking factories/modules for some components
  • Bug 349870:
    Support building Thunderbird with preinstalled Lightning
  • Bug 354574:
    Centralize definition and getters for PRODID and VERSION
  • Bug 356569:
    Revising calendar prefs handling
  • Bug 363038:
    Recurrence preview should start at the start date of an event
  • Bug 367456:
    Memory usage increases after Reload Remote Calendars (memory leak)
  • Bug 370146:
    API enhancement: Searching for calendars
  • Bug 372829:
    Integrate unifinder into Lightning as it is in Sunbird
  • Bug 373370:
    Send If-Match / If-None-Match headers on PUT & DELETE
  • Bug 378172:
    Recurrence dialog: datepickers need a facelift
  • Bug 379174:
    readonly events should not be dragable in the views
  • Bug 379204:
    Add Open/Save As ICS in Thunderbird File Menu
  • Bug 383272:
    Recurrence dialog: weekly and monthly recurrencepattern is not in sync with minimonths
  • Bug 385155:
    Reminder /alarm dialog doesn’t show times in configured timezone
  • Bug 390508:
    Unify calendar command sets
  • Bug 391300:
    Switching to mail mode does not restore collapsed elements properly
  • Bug 392853:
    Unit test: calIDateTime’s subtractDate doesn’t honor timezones
  • Bug 395940:
    Event Dialog: Save Changes? dialog should use descriptive button labels
  • Bug 395925:
    Revise entity reminder.due.label
  • Bug 396159:
    Unused entity lightning.context.deleteitem.accesskey
  • Bug 396337:
    Some tooltips should be improved
  • Bug 396547:
    Remove obsolete entities lightning.sidebar.showCompletedTasks.*
  • Bug 397538:
    Mac: Right-click on event in calendar brings up non-functioning pop-up menu
  • Bug 397727:
    Incorrect DateTime format for (Google) Calendar request
  • Bug 397866:
    Errors are getting announced indefinitely
  • Bug 397912:
    Switch ‘app.update.url’ preference to new community server
  • Bug 397917:
    Entire today pane shifts when pressing a miniday button
  • Bug 398139:
    X-prop parameters get corrupted
  • Bug 398247:
    TodayPane: toolbar button icons in miniday are left aligned
  • Bug 398309:
    Installer needs to remove obsolete files
  • Bug 398724:
    Problems with floating all-day items
  • Bug 399764:
    Attendees dialog: error during setting zoom level and strict warning
  • Bug 399864:
    calAttendee lacks mutability checks
  • Bug 399893:
    Lightning 0.7 RC 1 on Mac: Address book icon exchanged
  • Bug 400148:
    Event dialog should compare calendars by id
  • Bug 400168:
    Remove Mongolian as supported language
  • Bug 400279:
    Category colors should be displayed next to the event boxes
  • Bug 400370:
    Weektitle of miniday is not always correctly calculated
  • Bug 400407:
    Conflicting entries in removed-files.in break update process
  • Bug 400808:
    Change default preference to false for sendEventNotifications
  • Bug 400871:
    General listener is called even when not defined (gdata)
  • Bug 400951:
    Attribute calICalendar::suppressAlarms should be removed, be modeled as a calendar pref/property
  • Bug 401362:
    Recurrence dialog: uncaught exception if creating new event
  • Bug 401389:
    Task dialog shows dots beside start and due date checkboxes when given focus
  • Bug 401428:
    Google calendars do not show up in any view (missing toString)
  • Bug 401521:
    Day, Week and Multiweek View changes to Month View after restart
  • Bug 401572:
    Selective calling of onRemoveAlarmsByItem / Error Console startDate has no Properties
  • Bug 401668:
    calendar-unifinder.css changes text color in Thunderbird
  • Bug 401678:
    Gdata preferences file is not correctly added
  • Bug 401681:
    Sync calendar-event-dialog.css between trunk and branch
  • Bug 401710:
    Unable to dismiss zero duration events
  • Bug 401739:
    Thunderbird always starts in calendar mode
  • Bug 401861:
    Send freebusy results immediately
  • Bug 401878:
    Events of deselected calendars stays visible
  • Bug 401905:
    Event grippies are no longer functional
  • Bug 402038:
    Drop Lightning support for Thunderbird 1.5
  • Bug 402197:
    WCAP calendar, all day recurrence -> deleting a single event isn’t possible
  • Bug 402516:
    Remove calIOperation::success
  • Bug 403221:
    Fix typo: explaination -> explanation
  • Bug 403517:
    New Event/Task (context) menu commands are always disabled
  • Bug 403676:
    Remove lock from calendar list column header

Stay with us! More good stuff is yet to come. Thanks again to all our developers, contributors, localizers, testers, and supporters. Keep up the good work!


01
Nov 07

A call to action: Lightning/Sunbird end-user documentation

We often get feedback from people that want to contribute to the Calendar apps, but lack the technical skills needed for programming.

This post is for you. We need your help!

We are currently lacking any kind of end-user documentation. We need tutorials, geared towards typical end-users like your neighbor or your grandma, explaining to them the basic tasks in a calendar app.

  • Installing Sunbird
  • Installing Lightning into Thunderbird
  • Switching between mail and calendar mode in Lightning
  • Creating a new event or a new task
  • Creating a recurring event
  • Changing the time or date of an event
  • Switching between the different calendar views
  • Inviting other people
  • Adding a holiday calendar
  • Exporting a calendar and sharing it with other people over the net
  • Creating new calendars
  • Printing a collection of events
  • and many more

It would be great if you could help us out here, either by writing a tutorial, contributing screenshots or thinking of other things that could be documented.
I’ve created a page for user documentation on our wiki. This should enable you to work collectively on the things that you want to
contribute to.

We really look forward to what our community can accomplish.