Thunderbird Configuration
From Sw
Thunderbird is a great email client. When you enhance it with Lightning and ScheduleWorld it's even better because you can also manage, share, and sync your address books, calendars, and task lists. See more about Mozilla Thunderbird
[edit] Simple Installation Via Email
- Sign up for a ScheduleWorld account!
- Visit the email installation page (login required).
- The email installation page has a button that will email you a personalized installer as an attachment. Just open the attachment to install it.
- After you install the syncSW.xpi add-on and restart Thunderbird you will find your new sync options available under Tools -> Sync SW.
- Optional: click Tools -> Sync SW -> Configuration Wizard to start a wizard to guide you through some configuration options.
- Highly recommended: Download the Mozilla Lightning extension from here: Mozilla Lightning and install it. This will enable you to sync your calendars and task lists.
- Previously 64-bit Linux users had to install the 32-bit version of Thunderbird because only 32-bit Lightning existed, see: install 32-bit Thunderbird in 64-bit Linux. 64-bit Lightning builds can be found on the public Mozilla ftp-server, e.g. version 0.8: Lightning contrib dir.
- Enjoy!
[edit] Manual Installation
You should only do this if there is some sort of email problem preventing the simple installation method from working.
- Sign up for a ScheduleWorld account!
- Download the Mozilla extension from here: syncSW.xpi Note: you MUST download and save the syncSW.xpi file to your computer, then continue.
- Start Thunderbird and select Tools -> Add-ons.
- Click 'Install' and refer to the syncSW.xpi you saved in step 2.
- Restart Thunderbird. A wizard will pop up to guide you through the configuration.
- Highly recommended: Download the Mozilla Lightning extension from here: Mozilla Lightning and install it. This will enable you to sync your calendars and task lists.
- Previously 64-bit Linux users had to install the 32-bit version of Thunderbird because only 32-bit Lightning existed, see: install 32-bit Thunderbird in 64-bit Linux. 64-bit Lightning builds can be found on the public Mozilla ftp-server, e.g. version 0.8: Lightning contrib dir.
- Enjoy!
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[edit] Supports Windows, Mac OS/X, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD
The ScheduleWorld add-on works on every Thunderbird (1.5 or greater) platform:
- Windows
- Mac OS/X
- Linux - If you're running 64-bit Linux you can get help installing the 32-bit version of Thunderbird here so you can install the 32-bit version of Lightning.
Note: Sunbird (0.7 or greater) is supported too.
Note: Solaris and FreeBSD support is not tested but should work because the add-on is pure JavaScript and should work with any OS that can run Thunderbird.
[edit] Synchronize Thunderbird Contacts and Lightning Calendar Events and ToDos
ScheduleWorld now provides a Mozilla extension for Thunderbird. Some features are:
- Contacts synchronization with ScheduleWorld.
- Calendar events and todo (if the Lightning add-on is also installed) synchronization with ScheduleWorld.
- Calendar sharing with friends and family.
- Fast synchronization.
- Full UTF-8 support for all Thunderbird and Lightning properties.
- It 'just works'.
- Full interoperability with SyncML by using ScheduleWorld as a SyncML bridge.
- Keep as many Thunderbird instances in sync as you like.
- Powerful addressbook sharing.
- Free.
[edit] Synchronizing Shared Calendars
The steps to configure this are:
- Share your calendar with a friend using the appropriate 'Sharing' button on the preferences page. Each calendar has a 'Sharing' button.
- Your friend needs to do three things in Thunderbird:
- Create a local (On My Computer) Thunderbird calendar to hold your shared calendar data.
- Start the syncSW wizard (Tools -> SyncSW -> Configuration Wizard) and map the newly created Thunderbird calendar with your shared calendar.
- Finish the wizard and save this new configuration.
From this point forward you will be calendar sharing.
NOTE: None of the SyncML options for syncing categories and other things apply to SyncSW/Thunderbird syncing because none of those options are required. If you create an event in a specific calendar it will stay there until you move or delete it.
[edit] Syncing And Sharing Address Books
ScheduleWorld (via the syncSW.xpi add-on) enables you to sync or share any number of your address books.
[edit] Syncing Address Books
Simple synchronization is possible simply by opening the syncSW configuration wizard and:
- selecting which address books you want to sync.
- choosing a default addressbook (Receives New) to receive new contacts Thunderbird hasn't seen before.
[edit] Sharing Address Books
This powerful feature enables you to share an address book with one or more people who are also using Thunderbird. This saves each of you from having to update the same contact. With address book sharing only one person needs to create or update a contact and everyone else automatically receives the new info.
For example: your wife has an addressbook for her side of the family. All she has to do is share that addressbook with you and you'll always have the latest contact information for her side of the family.
Sharing an address book couldn't be easier:
- right-click an address book and select 'Share'.
- select who you want to share with and click 'Save'.
- If you select people that do not have a ScheduleWorld account, then ScheduleWorld will email them an invitation to sign up to ScheduleWorld. Once they have signed up they will automatically share the contacts you wished to share with them.
[edit] Deleting Shared Contacts
Deleting shared contacts will not delete the same shared contact in anyone else's shared address book. The rationale is that once you have shared a contact the recipient(s) virtually have their own copy of it. The recipients would not expect to have their copies of shared contacts to be deleted by someone else.
[edit] Enhancements Provided By SyncSW
The syncSW.xpi add-on enhances Thunderbird with more features and property support so it works more like Outlook / Exchange.
[edit] Many More Properties
The syncSW.xpi add-on extends the Thunderbird address book to manage most of the properties supported by Outlook and even some new ones.
[edit] Merge Contact Duplicates
Do you have two or more contacts with the same display name? Wouldn't it be nice if you had a merge feature that combined them into one contact? Now you can with the syncSW.xpi add-on "Merge Contact Duplicates" feature!
It works like this:
- Select Tools -> Sync SW -> Merge Contact Duplicates.
- You're presented with a list of contacts that have at least one duplicate. ScheduleWorld considers one contact to be a duplicate of another if they have the same display name.
- Click 'Merge'. This will remove the duplicate contacts. That's it! Some details about how this works:
- All of the data from both contacts will wind up in a single contact. No data will be lost (contact photos are a special case described below).
- One contact will have all of the data and the other will be deleted. When you sync you'll see the updates and deletes are sent to ScheduleWorld.
- If a property can't have multiple values (like birthday or anniversary) and the duplicate contact had a different value it is placed in the 'Notes' property.
- If the original and duplicate contacts have a JPEG photo the duplicate photo will be discarded.
[edit] Known Issues
[edit] Lightning Rendering Bugs
If you create an event using Thunderbird (Lightning 0.8) that occurs monthly on the 5th Tuesday the event will disappear and will not render in any view. You can still sync the event to/from ScheduleWorld and it displays fine in ScheduleWorld.
[edit] SQL Storage
It's been reported that Lightning can save events that it can't load later on (events saved without a start date). This will prevent syncing from working because an exception is thrown when the event is loaded. The solution is:
- delete the calendar from Lightning and recreate it.
- use the wizard to enable the newly created calendar for syncing.
- do a 'replace local data' to retrieve your events from ScheduleWorld.
Another similar error was reported recently that looks like this:
Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [mozIStorageStatementWrapper.step]" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: file://.../extensions/%7Be2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103%7D/js/calCalendarManager.js :: anonymous :: line 733" data: no] Source File: file://.../extensions/%7Be2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103%7D/js/calCalendarManager.js Line: 733
The reported solution was to do a repair install of Thunderbird. This might be better than removing and recreating a calendar but I don't know what the 'repair install' feature really does. Using the steps 1-3 above means you'll be in a known state when you're done.
