Calendar Talk:Release Notes

Sunbird 0.3a1 Release Notes (Draft)

On __ September 2005, the Sunbird/Calendar project announced the availability of a Sunbird 0.3a1 Release Candidate.

These release notes are intended to inform users about what they should and should not expect in the Sunbird 0.3a1 Final Release.

This is a testing release and is not production-quality. The developers desire to get their latest efforts into wide use so testers can find bugs, give usability feedback, and see all the cool new stuff! Anyone willing to bear the risks associated with technology preview software can volunteer to test Sunbird. We welcome all feedback relating to this release candidate is and will be greatly appreciated!

Those wishing to perform more rigorous testing can use the Calendar:Tests page as a guide.

On __ September 2005, the Sunbird/Calendar project released Sunbird 0.3a1. This is the first official milestone that includes the re-written backend code.

Goals of the 0.3a1 Release

The first goal of the release is to attract more testers to the Sunbird community and to test the new backend code as much as possible.

To attract testers, the project tried to get the new backend code to a level of functionality similar to that of Sunbird 0.2. Beyond that, volunteers testing this release should enjoy the following improvements:

• Better calculation of recurring events.
• Better storage capabilities for local calendars via embedded SQLite.
• Better support for normal remote calendaring via WebDAV.
• Partial support for Calendar Server Extensions for WebDAV or CalDAV.
• Hopefully, some relief for those who were experiencing bug 134432: ICAL component not registered.

Also, to reach the broadest audience of testers, the project has provided new versions of the Calendar extension for Firefox 1.5, Seamonkey 1.0, and Thunderbird 1.5.

The second goal of the release is to get feedback concerning these tasks:

• Setting up a new calendar using the wizard
• Setting or changing color preferences for categories
• Setting or changing the connection & proxy configurations

Limitations and Known Bugs

The Sunbird 0.3a1 milestone is intended only to showcase and test the new backend code and is not production-quality. Please be aware of the following limitations of Sunbird 0.3a1 before using it, and please do not file bugs on these issues.

Major:

• Windows versions of Sunbird will crash trying to handle dates after year 2037.
• Cannot set the timezone preference.
• Cannot switch from Task to Event in the 'Event' dialog.
• Cannot convert attachments to events.
• 'Tasks in view' option does not work.
• Printing does not work (but might soon).
• Email alarms do not work.
• Alarms missed while Sunbird is closed will never sound.
• Alarm 'snooze' is limited to 5 minutes.
• Support for localization is incomplete.
• Poor reporting for publishing errors.
• Support for drag-and-drop is severely limited compared to Sunbird 0.2.

Minor:

• All-day events cause the Week/Day view to start at 12:00am.
• Possible JavaScript errors in preferences when starting with a new profile.
• Possible JavaScript errors when unchecking a calendar.

The Next Step

The next step for the Sunbird/Calendar project is to implement the new UI elements designed to allow Sunbird to better integrate with Lightning. Among the new elements are:

• Calendar views that support inline editing.
• Full support for drag-and-drop.
• Improved visibility. (? - accessibility?)
• Improved 'Create Event', 'Publish', and 'Import' dialogs.
• More!

Keep up with all these new features and help us improve them by downloading nightly builds and trying them out!