Mozilla Calendar Project Blog Its about time for some news…

Before go into the christmas break, we would like to give you the last status update of 2007. Since the last status update three days ago, seven bugs have been fixed.

Here’s the list with the seven bug fixes:

• Bug 365706: Migration wizard shows oversized progress bar on import page
• Bug 406441: Add files for building universal lightning
• Bug 408740: Calendar Toolbar has conflicting accesskey in Lightning
• Bug 408743: [Mac] Today-pane close button misses active and hover states
• Bug 408826: Errors regarding gdata’s superCalendar
• Bug 409003: Rotate View is always disabled
• Bug 409346: Typo in CalDAV provider prevents PUT to Chandler svn

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

We wish everyone of you a merry christmas and a happy new year. We hope that you’ll stay with us in 2008. Great stuff is still to come…

Sorry for the late status update. I was away skiing. I hope you’ll forgive me. We have 23 bugfixes since the last status update, among them some pretty significant improvements.

Three bugfixes are of special importance and I’m really that we’ve finished those before the winter holidays. Consider them a special christmas gift from the developers:

• Bug 341576: Improved alarm dialog
  We’ve been waiting very long for this one. The old alarm dialog was looking rather dull and was also pretty light in terms of functionality. You can find screenshots of the new dialog here and here. A big thanks to Philipp and Christian, who worked this out.
• Bug 388018: Mode toolbar buttons function as drop targets
  This one may sound complicated, but is really simple. It allows you to convert an e-mail to an event, just by dragging an e-mail to the calendar icon on the mode toolbar to the left. You can also convert events to e-mail, e-mails to tasks, tasks to events and so forth. Here’s a conversion table showing you the full functionality. There are some minor regressions, but it should already be usable. A big thanks to Mickey, who implemented this.
• Bug 389854: Agenda-pane implementation
  The agenda-pane is a significant upgrade for the today-pane introduced in 0.7. Here’s a screenshot showing it in all its glory. Thanks to Berend for finishing this.

Here’s the complete list with all the 23 bug fixes:

• Bug 341576:
  A better event alarm dialog
• Bug 388018:
  Mode toolbar buttons should function as drop targets
• Bug 389522:
  move shared code from applicationUtil.js to calUtils.js
• Bug 389854:
  Today-pane: implement agenda-pane
• Bug 394902:
  libical update
• Bug 405034:
  Task list doesn’t persist sort order or column selection anymore
• Bug 405109:
  Make it impossible to use the same profile with different wcap calendar users
• Bug 405111:
  Hidden completed tasks are visible in task list after startup or reload remote calendars
• Bug 405417:
  New task mode remains empty
• Bug 405418:
  Calendar color is not applied immediately to ICS calendars
• Bug 405459:
  Task without start and due date are not displayed anymore
• Bug 405499:
  Task list behaves erratic after deleting multiple tasks at once
• Bug 405502:
  Imported task is displayed twice in task list
• Bug 406804:
  Database upgrade from Sunbird 0.3 to 0.8pre fails
• Bug 407279:
  Make CalDAV-scheduling freebusy work with Oracle server
• Bug 407574:
  calCompositeCalendar: numToSend is not defined
• Bug 407700:
  Need to filter [;:] for common names CN
• Bug 407745:
  Add lightning version in user-agent string
• Bug 407798:
  All tasks shown multiple times
• Bug 408067:
  nsIXULAppInfo.ID case is incorrect
• Bug 408227:
  calendar-alarm-dialog.ico file should include images for older platforms
• Bug 408237:
  Non working code due to setting of readonly attribute generation in providers
• Bug 408657:
  Dragging tasks/events over the calendar list causes exceptions

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

If you’re interested in helping out, 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!

Another week has gone by and another 19 bugs have been fixed in the last 8 days. Nothing particularly interesting this time, just the usual bug-fixing and polishing going on.

Here’s the complete list with all the 19 bug fixes:

• Bug 389522:
  move shared code from applicationUtil.js to calUtils.js
• Bug 390492:
  events with DURATION get serialized with DURATION and DTEND
• Bug 390495:
  datepicker combo from calendar tab is expanded after starting thunderbird
• Bug 392584:
  Calendar-Mode menu cleanup
• Bug 393816:
  Eliminate use of X-MOZ-LOCATIONPATH
• Bug 396316:
  update format of stored login manager entries
• Bug 398975:
  improvements to caldav-scheduling discovery
• Bug 399809:
  Trim down Sunbird build
• Bug 400950:
  Change calDatetime to reference its timezone definition
• Bug 403058:
  Minimonth month dropdown menu misses styling on mouse hover
• Bug 405039:
  Don’t use localized prefs for Get (extensions|themes)
• Bug 405459:
  Task without start and due date are not displayed anymore
• Bug 405833:
  Make recurrence dialog more extension friendly (be generous with ids)
• Bug 406433:
  Keyboard shortcut for menu View -> Week (Alt+2) doesn’t work
• Bug 406569:
  GData loader fails for lightning
• Bug 406603:
  Add Korean locale to Calendar
• Bug 406747:
  Exception when setting calRecurrenceRule.endDate
• Bug 406801:
  Import and display of event with foreign timezone fails
• Bug 406849:
  Remove unused entity calendarproperties.autorefresh.label from calendar.dtd

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

If you’re interested in helping out, 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!

Somewhere on Sunday evening, we passed the 3-million-downloads barrier for Sunbird and Lightning downloads in total. That’s an increase of nearly 600,000 total downloads since we started the download counting exercise on September 12, 2007 nearly three months ago.

At the moment we have 1,784,000 unique Sunbird downloads and 1,221,000 unique Lightning downloads. Sunbird has been around longer than Lightning, so the lead is to be expected. These numbers do not incorporate the downloads of people who updated Lightning via addons.mozilla.org or via the automatic update service in Sunbird.

Some additional information:

• Sunbird 0.3 is still the most popular release with 596,000 total downloads
• Sunbird 0.3.1 comes second with 494,000 downloads
• Sunbird 0.5 is hard on the heels of 0.3.1 with 474,000 total downloads
• Sunbird 0.7 has been downloaded 193,000 times since its release five weeks ago. Furthermore 137,000 installations of Sunbird 0.5 have been updated to 0.7, so the total numbers of Sunbird 0.7 downloads is at 330,000 at the moment.

We currently do not have any information about the number of different Lightning releases in the wild.

Let me use the opportunity to say “Thank you” to all our users and supporters. We couldn’t have done this without you. We hope to bring you a great 0.8 release soon (hopefully with even more downloads).

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.