What do I need to make Lightning work with thunderbird

[Fabian Rodriguez]

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Eberhard Roloff wrote:
> Mark Pyles wrote:
>> Hi everyone:
>>
>> I have been having the absolute worst time with trying to get lightning 
>> 0.9 to work with thunderbird 2.0.0.19.

Here's my notes about sync'ing TB and Gcalendar. It works very nicely in
8.04 and 8.10. In Jaunty many steps I present here should not be
necessary as it ships with Lightning 0.9 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.19.

Ubuntu Hardy (8.04.1) and Intrepid (8.10) both ship with Thunderbird
2.0.0.17 (20080925). Lightning's versions are 0.7 and 0.8 in Hardy and
Intrepid, respectively. Those have several important bugs and
limitations specifically tied to Google Calendar integration and
synchronization. If you wish to use such features, you will need to use
Thunderbird binaries from Mozilla.org, and Lightning 0.9 with Provider
for Gmail [1] calendar directly installed from their respective sites
(NOT from packages).

I personally use this method and it works fine for me, however you will
need to do this again when you change Ubuntu versions. I can personally
recommend this because:

   1. I trust Mozilla.org binaries
   2. I trust the ubuntuzilla package to do install Mozilla binaries for me
   3. Thunderbird has its own mechanism for checking updates for itself
and for extensions, thus providing the functionality Synaptic would
provide if using official packages

This means you won't be using official packages and as such your
installation can't be supported and have automatic updates/upgrades (or
commercially, by Canonical). Please only do this if you are comfortable
with this level of risk.

If you've read through here and want to go ahead, follow these steps:

   1. Backup your Mozilla Thhunderbird data. The folder
.mozilla-thunderbird contains all profiles, email and other settings.
   2. Remove Thunderbird using Synaptic or sudo apt-get remove
thunderbird - this will keep your profile, email etc. intact
   3. Get the ubuntuzilla package, install it, and execute the script to
get the latest Thunderbird version [2]
   4. Start Thunderbird. Check that your previous settings and email are
intact.
   5. Install Mozilla Lightning[3] and Provider for Gmail calendar[4]
extensions
   6. Follow these instructions[5] to enable a calendar. An illustrated
HowTo is also available. [6]

Finally, make sure you review the FAQ for the Provider extension[7], as
it mentions several limitations and know issues, most of which I have
found are easy to work with.

Tasks

When using Thunderbird, Lightning and the Provider for Gmail extension,
you won't be able to create any news tasks if you don't setup a Local
Calendar and choose it first. More information about this:
    * Changes in Tasks usage in Lightning 0.8+ [8]

Last but not least, there have been a lot of new developments in Googles
sync strategy and software available. If anyone has a better way of
doing this, I'd be happy to see this guide posted somewhere where it can
be edited by many and updated properly (not in official docs for reasons
stated above).

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631
[2] http://ubuntuzilla.wiki.sourceforge.net/#tochome5
[3] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/
[4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631
[5] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:GDATA_Provider#Accessing_your_Calendar
[6] http://bfish.xaedalus.net/?p=239
[7] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:GDATA_Provider
[8] http://blueclock.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/changes-in-lightning-08-tasks/

Cheers,

- --
Fabián Rodríguez, FSF #3877
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MagicFab
Montreal, QC, Canada


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