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Interview with Mozilla Lightning lead Mike Shaver
synopsis5 writes "The Lightning project (tight calendar integration into Mozilla Thunderbird) is one of the hottest things to come in the Mozilla world. In this interview Lightning lead developer Mike Shaver responds to questions from the Mozilla user community."
So is Lightning a new name for Sunbird? Or is it a codename?
Should I start searching for Lightning as a side project, or is it a dialect of Sunbird?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
oh what a world we live in
apple wrote a sync engine named isync that works...
it is a syncML server and has proved thats what you need
(palm has a known way of sync and very much just for palmOS so target phones then palm not the other way round)
for standards please please
The standards that need to be addressed are RFC 2445 (iCalendar), RFC 2446 (iTIP), and RFC 2447 (iMIP)
read and make sure you can work with Evolution and lotus notes
regards
John Jones
How? Anyone know?
Once this is complete the integrated product will be called the, "Mozilla Suite".
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
I still don't use calendar programs. We use them at work, as we develop one of the better known enterprise grade calendar servers, but I still don't make use of it. I don't make use of any kind of calendaring system whatsoever. I just remember things like a normal person.
However, I would gladly begin using one if there was a broader standard that was accepted and implemented that didn't lock me into one solution forever, could easily be synched or access from anywhere (no central server - maybe even let me just FTP it somewhere like the Firefox extension I use that automatically synchronizes my bookmarks anywhere I want using my FTP server).
This is a good step in that direction and as soon as something robust comes along (Sunbird) to fit in with the Firefox and Thunderbird family, I'll be all over it.
I used Sunbird awhile back. It's decent. Not solid enough for me to adopt it and start calendaring - but not bad, either.
Seriously that's like toaster and coffee maker 2000. Nice concept and all but not needed.
With this setup, you can have remote and local access to shared family calendars relatively easily. Also, its all very portable without lockin. The files are just text files.
If the Moz team continues in this direction (making it easier, better PIM features, etc), this will be a killer OS app. If everone got on the same bandwagon of standards, you could actually have access to your calendar, to-do lists, email, and contacts from any device... on or off line.
p.s. I just started reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen... Highly recommend it for managing said to-do lists.
This calendar discussion made me wonder if there would already have been rumors of a Google calendar. Obviously, it would have to be called Galendar, wouldn't it?
Well, it turns out that even though some are waiting for it, (the Google Calendar), it would have a naming problem: Galendar.com exists already, and happens to be very unlike Gmail.com.
However, I would gladly begin using one if there was a broader standard that was accepted and implemented that didn't lock me into one solution forever
iCalendar (link goes to RFC) - it's what Mozilla Sunbird, as well as some non-free calendar apps (Apple's iCal being one) , use. iCalendar is an open, text-based standard that can be parsed very easily.
When it comes to publishing, you've got two real choices, FTP (as you mentioned) and WebDav. There's already a simple PHP based viewer that has a WebDav handler that purports to work with iCal and SunBird.
As for your comments about remembering what you're doing, that's all well and good, but where I work I often need to know what somebody else is doing so I can schedule meetings when nobody has anything planned. I can remember everything I'm doing, just not what all the other people I work with are.
I am NaN