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Mozilla Releases Mozilla Sunbird 0.2

Posted by simoniker on from the flutter-by dept.

Gentu writes "Along with the new Mozilla-Japan initiative and the release of Mozilla 1.8a3 today, the Mozilla team released the first 'official' beta release of Mozilla Sunbird, version 0.2, a stand-alone calendaring application (similar to Apple's iCal). There are two flavors of this project, one that works as a ~700 KB plugin to Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla (titled Mozilla Calendar) and the ~8 MB stand-alone calendaring application, Mozilla Sunbird (rate the apps over at GnomeFiles.org). These builds are the first to feature a new default theme, a new logo and the customizable toolbar functionality. Note that Sunbird is still an experimental technology preview that contain bugs, but it is pretty stable."

48 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the Readme:
    • At-rule for matching on site/document URL. Among other things, this makes site-specific user style rules possible (Great for changing it.slashdot.org's color scheme!)
    • Undetected document.all support has been added to Mozilla (Good for some dumb IE-only sites)
    • Support for translucent windows on Windows and GTK2 (Oohh!)
    • Preliminary support for CSS columns has been checked in (Too bad IE won't support this for years, if ever)
    • The new npruntime plugin scriptability API (Good, good)
    • Users can now disable CSS via Use Style > None or a global preference (Well, they can't all be exciting)
    1. Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by jZnat · · Score: 3, Informative

      At-rule for matching on site/document URL. Among other things, this makes site-specific user style rules possible (Great for changing it.slashdot.org's color scheme!)

      Maybe it'd be helpful for this to be an extension until they add it to Firefox and for Mozilla 1.7 users. The only thing you can do with M1.7 and FF0.9.3 is add a patch to it, but most people don't want to download and install Cygwin, then wait 1-3 hours for it to fully recompile. =S

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    2. Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Already is an extension called URI ID, although it's not quite as nice as a built-in version as it requires a screen redraw.

    3. Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by medeii · · Score: 5, Informative

      Read the damn bug yourself. (Note: copy and paste the link, Bugzilla rejects visits from Slashdot.) It is not designed to encourage bad writing: support for document.all will ONLY activate if the web developer really was stupid and did not use any sort of test to detect it.

      Additional discussion can be seen from the Mozillazine article published weeks ago.

      --
      got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
    4. Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Since when have Mozilla folks started to work around IE brokenness, and why?

      When? Looks like about July 2002.

    5. Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Uhh, IE has CSS column support? Where? I didn't even think it was in draft form when IE6 was released.

  2. no Palm support by js7a · · Score: 5, Informative
    The calendar does not yet synch with your Palm Pilot.
    -- Sunbird FAQ
    No synching with outlook clients (e.g. Pocket PCs), either, just Outlook .ics format export-import.
    1. Re:no Palm support by ptbarnett · · Score: 4, Informative
      If I can figure out what the heck a webDAV enabled webserver is, maybe I can drop yahoo...

      http://www.webdav.org/

    2. Re:no Palm support by deputydink · · Score: 5, Informative
      apache with mod_webdav is what you want. It works out of the box on Mac actually, since Apple's iCal is built on webDav, which means they'd be compatible (sort of)

      I think it works out of the box on Fedora as well.


      Pretty much any modern web server can do webdav, or has a module that can do it.

    3. Re:no Palm support by irix · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sync support is planned eventually, but some of us are starting to look at it now.

      --

      Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
    4. Re:no Palm support by Aero+Leviathan · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can sync it to an iPod, you know.. the iPod software (at least the later version that has the built-in calendar) uses the .ics format. (Kind of obvious, but oh well.)

      In fact, I'm surprised Slashdot hasn't made a separate story out of this fact yet ^_~

      --
      ~ Aero
  3. Can't sync my PDA with Mozilla software by y2imm · · Score: 2, Informative

    As far as I know anyways. I'd love to use them, if they're as good as Firefox is, but I need Outlook for my PocketPC.

  4. Re:Holy shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    It's just the XUL toolkit. You already have it installed if you have firefox or thunderbird. So, really, I don't see your point. You're going to have that 8 meg around somewhere.

    Anyways, it's 8 meg. What's the problem with that? It's freakin tiny!

  5. As usual... by almostmanda · · Score: 5, Informative

    The logos are adorable.

  6. Re:Sunbird? Firefox? Firebird? by LiquidMind · · Score: 1, Informative

    Although i agree with you on this, I do like the fact that they are developing a seperate app for all these. There is nothing worse than a bloated app. Remember ICQ?
    I used to use Opera religiously but i switched once i found out about firefox. I went back to Opera just to see what they added to the new version, and holy shit, is it ever bloated with gadgets, buttons, toolbars, and the kitchen sink. I really don't like looking at a gazillion items on a browser. yes it can all be turned off, but that's just one less point for opera in regards to simplicity (in my book anyway).
    That's why i like the 'modular' designs a lot more (e.g. extensions in Firefox), you can decide how complicated you want your application to be.

    Now if opera would come with an automatic blow-job attachment.....hmm....that gives me an idea...anyone know opera's development hot line?

    --
    This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
  7. And file compatible with Apples iCal too .. by Macka · · Score: 5, Informative

    From their web site:

    iCal and the Mozilla Calendar use the same file format, so events from one should show up without problem in the other. You can also subscribe to the list of events on Apple's website if you like.

    This is great news, and should help to promote both applications.

  8. Re:Strange math.... by TheUncleBob · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Mac version is 8M, windows installer is 5.9M, and windows Zip 5.5M, so I guess the maths is

    Firefox Installer (4.8M) + Plugin (700k) = Sunbird installer (5.9M) - Nightly/debug extras (400k)

  9. It's got my vote by inflex · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been using the Mozilla Calendar for the last few days (strangely conincidental one might think) and I'm definately liking it. I'm using it for tracking a lot of business activities, so it's especially nice how it issues email notices and allows you to repeat things even "once a year".

    While there's nothing spectacular about the calendar tool it does do the job and so far it has been running without issue the last 5 days without requiring a restart.

    I'm further delighted about this because it means I don't have to walk down the path of Evolution just to get a calendar. One last thing though - when (if ever) will Mozilla mail change away from using .mbx/mailbox files and move to something like what Sylpheed uses (1 file per email).

    PLD.

    1. Re:It's got my vote by Spaceman40 · · Score: 3, Informative

      One last thing though - when (if ever) will Mozilla mail change away from using .mbx/mailbox files and move to something like what Sylpheed uses (1 file per email).

      One possible reason for the .mbx is that NTFS is so freakin slow at operations involving many small files. ReiserFS rocks at it (as well as a couple other non-FAT/NTFS systems), but all the Windows people (>80% base) would be left wondering where all their speed went.

      Now if MS would create a GOOD filesystem (see ReiserFS 4 - maybe they could just grab that!), it would be more feasable for those people with 3,000 e-mails that they don't want to bulk delete.

      (btw - I work a helpdesk, I know about those people.)

      --
      I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
    2. Re:It's got my vote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I don't agree on 'easier to backup', unless you always do a full.
      When you do incremental backups, the maildir format is much better, since 1 new email in a mbox type mailbox would result in the entire mailbox having to be backed up in stead of just the new mail.

  10. Re:NAME CHANGE by EvanED · · Score: 2, Informative

    Serious answer: Pontiac probably won't be able to do anything about it. The changes to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox were because other software had that name. Any trademark in cars Pontiac has over Sunbird won't extend to software.

    Glib answer: When someone releases Sunsomething as a plugin

  11. Re:Not released by caillon · · Score: 2, Informative

    > Its not done till I can install it in a way that won't screw up my system later on down the track.
    > Mozilla makes great software, but never finishes it - that's for the distro packagers to do.

    And you didn't really finish your comment. What specific qualms do you have? Please clarify. And even better, please make sure a bug is filed at bugzilla.mozilla.org

    > If Dag and the Debian guy (and whoever else for whatever other distro) could hook up with the Moz people, you'd have a much better experience.

    Red Hat, IBM, Sun, and a few other distributors have people in touch with the Moz guys. In fact, all of those companies employ people to specifically work on Mozilla.

  12. Sunbird has no support for proxies - no worries! by hallucination · · Score: 5, Informative

    If, like me, you need to use a proxy server in Sunbird, but found that it doesn't allow you to set one up, you have two choices:

    Use the thunderbird/firefox calendar plugin instead

    OR

    Copy the network.proxy parts of your thunderbird/firefox prefs.js file into your sunbird prefs.js file.

  13. Re:Possibly a very important project for Open Sour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not sure that this would help. It doesn't have the same level of integration as outlook at all, and the single most important thing about outlook is really exchange - the central server thingy that makes group calendaring work.

    But wait! what's that over there, in the forested depths of germany?! It's KDE 3.3 Kolab! Marvel! (and slap forehead in horror at stupid "K" theme name).

    http://kolab.org/images/shot-kde-client-calendar1. png

  14. Re:Sunbird? Firefox? Firebird? by traveyes · · Score: 2, Informative

    well... not a solution to closing the tab, but you could get UndoCloseTab extension to uh, Undo the close.

    .

  15. Re:Possibly a very important project for Open Sour by Senjutsu · · Score: 5, Informative

    (though there could be something already out there... I just don't know about it ;) ).

    Ximian Evolution is the Managerial, Outlook-esque product for Linux that you seem to be missing.

  16. Re:Strange math.... by jsebrech · · Score: 4, Informative

    The firefox installer skims off a few megs by using 7zip compression (which is why the linux and mac builds are so much bigger, no 7zip). I would imagine the sunbird installer exe isn't built with 7zip support yet.

  17. Re:good news by Erwos · · Score: 3, Informative

    Huh?

    Apple's using KHTML, pal. Nothing to do with Moz.

    Linux+Moz, maybe.

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  18. Etymology of Mozilla by sbszine · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well what can you expect when the entire project is apparently named after a giant, fire breathing lizard?

    Intarweb folk history has it that the word Mozilla is a contraction of Mosaic-Killer (with a nod to Godzilla, of course).

    --

    Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling

  19. Re:Firebird .. Thunderbird .. Sunbird by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 2, Informative

    Thunderbird is older, dates to 55 (it was a competitor to the then brand new Corvette) I think, and it's heydey as a cruiser really was the 50's. Had a revival when the SuperCoupe came out - that thing was a work of art - but it was bloated and eventually was canned for the retro-Cruiser Thunderbird, also canned.
    Firebird is from the 60s, came out when the Camaro did, as a competitor the the original Mustang, so porbably 63-65 range.
    Sunbird came out originally as the J2000 in the mid-80's, I forget when the rename was.

    I think it more shows that there are no good names left. Either you reuse something for the billionth time, or you make up stupid shit like Achieva.

  20. Minimize to tray by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If you want minimize to tray functionality for Sunbird/Calendar in windows, so you can have it running all the time for alarms, try

    Suntray
    http://users.dart.net.au/~srgeorg/

  21. Linux Install Scripts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I made scripts to make installing firefox,thunderbird, and sunbird nightly's easy.Get them here..

    http://www.mandrakeclub.com/modules.php?op=modload &name=Splatt_Forum&file=viewtopic&topic=26413&foru m=11&start=0

  22. Re:Open Contacts format by Ramsed · · Score: 5, Informative

    vCard ?

  23. Re:Open Contacts format by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, Mozilla, KAddressBook, and OpenLDAP support LDIF. That seems like a pretty feature-complete standard for sharing directory information.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  24. Re:Possibly a very important project for Open Sour by t482 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have a look at the kde pim - pim.kde.org it's already very good as of 3.2.1.

    I find the calendar klunky.

  25. Re:Strange math.... by brsmith4 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Because, as a plugin, it will use Firefox's gecko/xul/interface libraries. As a stand-alone app, all of these components must be installed with the calendar for it to function...

  26. Suntray by oddman · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is a great little helper application named Suntray. That lets you minimize Sunbird to your system tray (windows obviously.) Once I got I was amazed that I ever ran Suntray without it.

    http://users.dart.net.au/~srgeorg/

  27. Setting Sunbird Date Format by sbszine · · Score: 2, Informative

    According to the FAQ, Sunbird gets the date format from your OS. To use the ISO format, go to the Windows Start Menu, then Settings > Control Panel > Regional Options (not Date/time) > Date tab.

    --

    Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling

  28. gecko by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why must every Mozilla app either be part of a "suite" or a "plugin" or a "standalone" app, complete with every Mozilla-specific library?

    Why, for instance, do Firefox and Thunderbird each need their own Gecko? (Or don't they?)

    Why is Sunbird a 700k plugin or an 8 meg (!) download?

    Couldn't they install system-wide libraries? Wouldn't that make everything smaller, neater, even faster (less to cache when running firefox/thunderbird simultaniously)?

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:gecko by mh101 · · Score: 3, Informative

      But only for Sunbird though... There's no "plugin" version of Thunderbird for if you already have Firefox installed.

      --
      Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
  29. Re:Not released by caillon · · Score: 2, Informative

    > Do you think this has a chance of being addressed if I did file a bug? As opposed to the no chance you'd get without filing one? Yes. For what it's worth, it was tried at one point (you can find .spec files in older sources I think). I'm unsure as to why it still isn't the case.

  30. Re:Still lacks most important feature: useful alar by helix400 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A minimize to tray extension is in the works that would help this problem out to a degree.

    Minimize To Tray Extension

    The extension works pretty well for Firefox and Thunderbird, and if/when Sunbird allows extensions, it will be extended to work with that too. This of course means Sunbird/Calendar would always be running, able to send out alarms, but not taking up lots of room on the taskbar. At the moment, the minimize to tray extension is only for Windows, and it's not a perfect fix, but it may help out some people who just want any solution for this issue.

  31. Re:Still lacks most important feature: useful alar by helix400 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or as this person pointed out in this comment, there's a windows application that hides Sunbird into the tray when Sunbird's minimized.

  32. Re:what about HTML editor? by alfredo · · Score: 2, Informative

    NVU.com

    --
    photosMy Photostream
  33. Re:Enquireing minds....... by sconest · · Score: 2, Informative

    CTRL-3 is reserved for AIM/ICQ in Netscape 7 thus not used in Mozilla.

    I don't know about CTRL-7 though.

    --
    Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
  34. Re:So is it bad when install fails and then pegs c by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 2, Informative

    I did the same and I didn't realize it would delete my calendars.

    The demo of this program was able to "undelete" them from my ntfs partition.
    http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  35. Looks nice - but no syncing with Nokia 6820 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I've played with the calendar plug-in before, and although the previous versions worked well this certainly looks and feels somewhat better. I would gladly ditch Outlook for it, but I have the same problem as many other people: I synchronize my Outlook calendar with my Nokia 6820.

    Until there is a (good, solid) way to do that with Sunbird I will not switch. I imagine lots of people with mobile phones, PDAs etc. are in the same position. I am not sure if the solution for this problem should come from the hardware manufacturers or from the OSS community.

    Still, nice work!

  36. Better than it looks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I downloaded and used this calendar as a Firefox plugin. It's definitely rough around the edges, but it does provide Linux and Windows users a way to create calendars in the .ics format. And it allows you to easily publish that .ics file to a web server. What's so great about that? Well, you can view multiple calendars via a web browser with this wonderful PHP, RSS Enabled, GPL calendar parser. Plus... you can dump the .ics file into the "calendars" folder on your ipod and carry your calendar with you.