Calendar:Deprecated:NewRoadmap

THIS DOCUMENT IS STRICTLY A DRAFT! DO NOT MAKE PLANS BASED ON IT! NO ONE IN THE CALENDAR TEAM OR MOZILLA HAS BLESSED IT! IT IS BUT A FIGMENT OF ONE TROUBLED PERSON'S IMAGINATION!

Introduction

Much work has been done to both define and synchronize the roadmaps of Sunbird and Lightning. This work is by no means complete, and given the evolving nature of software, will likely never be. Regardless, in order to help drive both projects, this tentative and historical roadmap has been created.

For the fullest understanding of this document, and some context as to why some features are slated for which timeframe, it is useful to review the defined target users and their use cases.

Disclaimers

Any "Calendar Extension Roadmap" documents that may continue to be floating around are deprecated and should be treated as such. Long ago, it was determined that in order to improve stability and flexibility, much of the original storage codebase would need to be rewritten. In addition, the standalone calendar app Sunbird gained popularity. However, being one of the first applications based on the nascent Toolkit API, this also skewed any existing roadmaps somewhat.

A note or two about version numbers

Prior to the release of Sunbird 0.3, various alpha, beta, and release candidate (RC) releases were used. It was decided that such formality was inappropriate for a pre-1.0 product, kept us in an almost constant code freeze, and stymied further development. Sunbird 0.3a2 is the last release with such filigree. Until we reach 1.0, future releases of both Lightning and Sunbird will use 0.n version numbers only. No alphas or betas will be released.

In addition, to help alleviate confusion regarding the equivalent feature sets of Lightning and Sunbird, it was decided to skip Lightning version 0.2. Lightning's next release will be 0.3, to coincide with the feature set of Sunbird 0.3.

Historical Releases

The roadmaps for existing releases are provided here for context and historical purposes only.

Sunbird 0.2

Sunbird 0.2 still used the original underlying code from OEOne which stored events and tasks as .ics files on the local hard drive (or remote WebDAV server). It relied on libxpical to provide an XPCOM wrapper around the libical library. While much work went in to creating a useable Toolkit-based app, it was clear that future development would require refactoring of the backend storage mechanisms, both for stability and for flexibility in supporting new types of calendar "stores" such as CalDAV.

Sunbird 0.3a1

Released 2005-11-04

This was the first release using the refactored backend storage. All data is stored in a SQLite database which is accessed via a unified storage API, and uses custom providers to translate between specific protocols (.ics, CalDAV, etc.) and our unified storage API.

Release Goals:

• Fix regressions from the backend API rewrite, in a way that Sunbird gets usable again.
• Not all bugs need to be fixed in the cleanest way.
• Continue to use old (Sunbird 0.2/non-XBL) views and UI.
• Intent is to get testing of the providers, and to be able to close old bugs that are fixed by the new ics provider or the new libical.

Notes for Sunbird 0.3a1: This release has old views and stuff. Those views are fixed to a point where the events show up, but there might be glitches in the display. This release was not meant to test the views, but to test the calendar backend code. Please don't file bugs on misaligned event boxes, wrong colours, or whatever else looks wrong. Please do file bugs on events not showing up, events showing up with wrong times, crashes, hangs, errors etc.

Lightning 0.1

Released 2006-03-14

This was the first release of Lightning, the integrated calendar extension for Thunderbird. Like Sunbird 0.3a1 before it, Lightning used the new backend storage. Bug fixes for issues found in Sunbird 0.3a1's new backend storage were also included. Lightning also introduced views (Day, Week, Multiweek, Month Views) written in XBL rather than the XUL-based ones used in all previous Sunbird releases, and dating back to OEOne. Since the XBL views can tie more directly to the data, significantly less code is required to keep what is displayed to the user in sync with what is in the database.

Release Goals:

• XBL views
• Localization support
• No known dataloss bugs when editing ICS files exclusively with Lightning
• Basically functionally usable as dogfood with local database & ICS calendars
• Project Page: Calendar:Lightning:0.1
• Release Notes: Calendar:Lightning:0.1:Release Notes

Sunbird 0.3a2

Released 2006-05-11

This release switched Sunbird from the original (Sunbird 0.2) XUL-based views to the XBL ones originally released in Lightning. Soon after we began to see customizations of views that would have been previously impractical to implement, such as ones that with one button click rotate 90 degrees (day on the x-axis, and hours on the y-axis).

Release Goals:

• Switch to new XBL views.
• Sync the UI as much as possible with Lightning 0.1.
• Intent is to test the new views and associated UI.
• [[Calendar:0.3a2_Task_List|Tentative Goals (outdated)]

Notes for Sunbird0.3a2: These views are what we plan to use moving forward. Now is the time to file bugs on misaligned event boxes, wrong colours, or whatever else looks wrong.

Future Releases

Lightning and Sunbird 0.3

Tracking bug: 335745

As mentioned earlier, it was decided to synchronize Lightning and Sunbird in terms of bug fixes, feature set (where applicable), version number, and release timing.

Sunbird 0.3

Release Goals:

• Bug fixes for items found in 0.3a2.
• Move locales into l10n repository. bug 267981
• Migrate preference system from xpfe to Toolkit. bug 333923
• Mac only: Become a Universal Binary bug 339986
• Release from Gecko 1.8 branch.

Options on the table:

• Installers?
• Easily installable language packs?
• Generic branding except for release?

Lightning 0.3

Release Goals:

• Bug fixes for items found in 0.1
• Obtain "feature parity" where applicable with Sunbird bug 339331
  • printing
  • display of calendar colors in the calendar list
  • task list details
  • ability to hide days off
  • ability to hide tasks in views
  • clipboard
  • exposed preferences (alarms, default event length, *categories*, etc)
  • new event start time (Lightning = midnight, Sunbird = current hour, Both are probably wrong in day/week view)

Lightning and Sunbird - Future Ideas

New features and their order of implementation and release will be mostly driven by the previously defined, and constantly refined target users and their use cases

Disclaimer: These are entirely ideas. Don't bet the farm on the fact that they're listed here. They may, and some likely will, never actually make it into a shipping product.

• Make Sunbird a child app of XULRunner.
• Integration with Mozilla Software Update.
• Possible view eye candy using Cairo?
• Ability to consume Google Gdata?
• Merge Lightning and Sunbird into a single entity that acts appropriate depending on the host app it is running under?
• Better Thunderbird integration
  • email<->task linkage
  • iMIP support
• Improved CalDAV support
• Cached calendar support for offline
• Device synchronization