Mozilla has released version 0.3 RC1 of their calendar products called Sunbird and Lightning.
Mozilla Sunbird is a standalone calendar application that is great for people who do not want to use Mozilla Thunderbird. Compared to Lightning it does require more memory to run and does not integrate itself with other email software that you may use.
Mozilla Lightning, on the other hand, is an extension for Mozilla Thunderbird that will let you access the calendar features from within Thunderbird. This doesn’t integrate itself very well at this time (such as with the address book) but they plan on improving that for future releases.
Here are the download links:
- Sunbird 0.3 RC1 (Linux, Mac, and Windows)
- Lightning 0.3 RC1 Thunderbird Extension (Linux, Mac, and Windows)
Here’s what’s new (since 0.2) in Sunbird 0.3 – Release Notes:
- New storage architecture handles calendars with hundreds or thousands of events more responsively.
- More intuitive interface shows you more of what you need, and less of what you don’t.
- Redesigned preferences allow you to easily customize Sunbird for your needs.
- Add-ons support allows you to extend Sunbird’s functionality with extensions, themes, and language packs from [addons.mozilla.org].
- New Windows installer makes it easier than ever for Windows users to install Sunbird.
- Better printing gives you more ways to print your calendars. Mac users can now print as well!
- 24-hour views show you your entire day, not just a few hours.
- Reliable alarms ensure you are notified about events or tasks.
- Improved localization support means Sunbird can easily install, enable, and disable language packs, and Lightning is mostly localizable as well.
- Vastly improved reliability makes it much more difficult to lose data.
- Many performance improvements
Here’s what’s new (since 0.1) in Lightning 0.3 – Release Notes:
- Basic handling of events received in email allows you to easily add iMIP events to your default calendar.
- Reloading network calendars is now possible.
- The Agenda view rolls over at midnight.
- 24-hour views show you your entire day, not just a few hours.
- Reliable alarms ensure you are notified about events or tasks.
- Improved localization support
- Vastly improved reliability makes it much more difficult to lose data.
- Many performance improvements
News Source: Mozilla Calendar Blog
May be I’ll take a look at these…but I still prefer to use Yahoo! for my calendar. I am stuck using Outhouse…er I mean Outlook at work which is not always a bad thing…
Just downloaded Sunbird since i start school on friday. I’m gonna use it to keep track of my classes
the good news is that the good ppl at [weblogs.mozillazine.org] (Personal Application Manager) from the Sunbird/Lighting Project. hope it will roll out soon. cause the slides in the presentation looks very nice.
According to this article over on [mozillalinks.org] Mozilla is going to add Lightning like functionality to OpenOffice.org
That is really cool! It is about time that OpenOffice starts attacking the Outlook market even if they aren’t doing it themselves.
It is even cooler to see them partnering with Mozilla. I know the lack of a calendar/schedule feature would be one of the reasons why my company would not want to switch from Outlook. Not even sure if Thunderbird could handle the massive amount of e-mails we produce. Further I am not sure if it even supports Global Distribution Lists?