Mozilla Releases Mozilla Sunbird 0.2

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."

Comments

Re:Ridiculous names

[be-fan]

Sunbird is less descriptive than Excel? Curious.

Possibly a very important project for Open Source

[techiemac]

Sunbird could very well be one of the more important open source projects out there! At least, important for the corporate adoption of Linux. While Linux remains awesome in the server/development arena (after all, it's all I use to write code at work), it still lacks in the "Management" desktop area. Before I get lots of flames about this one, I know about openoffice.org but still, if you look at the dominiance and reliance on Outlook in the corporate environment, you will see why Linux needs a good, integrate calendar application.
One CEO even mentioned this to me. He loves Linux from what he has been shown/played with but finds it hard to lose the integrated calendar feature of Outlook. For him, that's what is holding back the adoption of Linux. Believe it or not, he hates the quality of Outlook. The only reason he is tied to it is because it is the only viable solution with the proper features.
The more we look at what our targeted users are using, the better off we will be. This is what Microsoft often does well. They look at who makes the decision to deploy their product, like any good company does, and tailor their product around that user.
I simply cannot believe that we, as an open source community, have not yet duplicated the todo/email/calendar application that managers so love (with good reason too, their jobs often involve quite a few meetings/action items/communications).
Hopefully this will fill the void of an integrated calendar/scheduling application (though there could be something already out there... I just don't know about it ;) ).

Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features

[NutscrapeSucks]

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

Maybe since years of a hardline position on the point have resulted in a 2% marketshare?

Maybe they finally realized that in the big picture, the minor naming issue of "all[]" versus "getElementById()" wasn't worth getting their panties in a wad over -- especially relative to the bigger issue of XHTML/CSS versus Vendor HTML?

Either way, I welcome the new Realism over at mozilla.org.

not to mention encourages writing MORE bad DHTML

Almost everyone who actually writes Javascript understands that document.all is legacy. However, a huge portion of DHTML is just copy-n-pasted over-n-over again by Dreamweaver jockeys -- who barely understand programming much less standards nuances. Mozilla was trying to educate a group that is impossible to educate.

Still lacks most important feature: useful alarms!

[Dolphin26]

The whole point of a calendar program, at least for me, is the alarms. Sunbird has them, but they don't go off unless the calendar is open. This means you can (for example) have Thunderbird open with the calendar plugin, but if you don't have the calendar window open, you won't be reminded about anything. Sunbird won't be useful to me until this is fixed.

See requirements here
and the tracker bug here. At the tracker bug, you can add your email to the CC, and put in a comment to let the developer's know that it is important to you!

In order for this

Re:Some of the new Mozilla 1.8a3 features

[NeoSkandranon]

What it does is reduces the likeliehood of someone going "My favorite site doesnt work in Moz, so i'm sticking to IE"