If you use Mozilla Thunderbird to read email and RSS Feeds you may want an integrated calendar to round things out. You can just use the Lightning Add-on for Thunderbird to get basic calendaring functionality but it has a few shortcomings. One big one is the absence of email or SMS alerts (email alerts are due to be added in version 1.0) and the lack of built-in shared calendar functionality (although it does support CalDAV and iCalendar). Furthermore, if/when Thunderbird supports email or SMS alerts it can only generate these alerts if you have Thunderbird up and running.

The approach outlined here leverages the functionality of Google Calendar and uses the Provider for Google Calendar Add-on to get Thunderbird integration. Here are the steps required to get this up and running:

1. Install Thunderbird - If you are reading this page you are probably already a Thunderbird user. But, if not, just download and install it. Thunderbird is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Note that you will have to be using the 2.x, or newer, version of Thunderbird and not the older 1.5.x version.

2. Verify Thunderbird Version - On the CS Linux systems, the default version of Thunderbird is 1.5.x. In order for the calendaring to work, you must be using the newer 2.x version. To see which version of Thunderbird you are using, select "About Mozilla Thunderbird" from the Help menu. If you are using a 1.x version, you should exit Thunderbird and run the newer version by running /l/thunderbird-2.0/thunderbird.

3. Install Lightning - You need to install the Lightning Add-on. Just go to the Lightning Add-on Page and follow the instructions there.

4. Install Provider For Google Calendar - You need to install the Provider For Google Calendar Add-on. Just go to the Provider for Google Calendar Page and follow the instructions there.

5. Create Google Mail (gmail) Account - Before you can set up your Google Calendar, you will need to create a Google Account. If you don't already have a gmail account just go to Google Mail and create one.

6. Create Your Google Calendar - You can set up your Google Calendar by just going to the Google Calendar Page and setting things up. Just login with your gmail username and password. I'm not going to go into all the details about setting up and using the Google Calendar so see the on-line help for that.

7. Configure Google Calendar For Email or SMS Alerts - If you want to use email or SMS notifications of calendar events, just go to "Settings" within the Google Calendar, click on the "Calendars" tab, and then click on Notifications. Here you can set the default notification to be via email or SMS. On this same page, you can also set things up so you receive a daily email agenda.

8. Configure Google Mail to Forward Email - The email alerts sent by Google Calendar will go to your Google Mail account. If you want a copy of these emails to go to some other email account (like your CS account) then go into Settings in GMail (not Calendar), click on the "Forwarding and POP" tab, and set up forwarding to an alternate address. This way any email you receive in your gmail account will also be copied to your other email address.

9. Add a Google Calendar Entry - Go ahead and add something to your Google Calendar. We need an event in the calendar so we can verify that it appears when we incorporate the Google Calendar in Thunderbird.

10. Incorporate your Google Calendar into Thunderbird - The Provider for Google Calendar allows you to incorporate your Google calendar into Thunderbird. To do this, you will first need to get the URL of your Google calendar. To do this, go to the Settings link inside Google Calendar. From there, click on the "Calendars" tab and then click on your calendar (probably just your name). This will show you the details of your calendar so just scroll down to "Calendar Address" and click on the XML icon (NOT the HTML icon). Copy this URL since you will need it in the next step.

    Then, from inside Thunderbird, click on the "Calendars" tab in the lower left corner of the window. If you don't see this, verify that you have the Lightning Add-on installed. From this Calendars tab, click on "New...". Select "On the network" and then select "Google Calendar" as the format. If you don't see Google Calendar as one of the format options, verify that you have the Provider for Google Calendar Add-on installed. Then, just enter the URL you got from Google Calendar into the Location field and click Next.

    If this is working properly you should see the events from your Google Calendar on your Thunderbird calendar. If you have any trouble with this, you may want to go back to the Provider for Google Calendar Add-on Page for further help.

11. Tweak Thunderbird for Email or SMS Alerts - As of this time, Thunderbird with Lightning does not support email or SMS alerts (although email alerts are on the roadmap for the 1.0 release). Since Lightning only knows about popup alerts, you will find that calendar events added via Google Calendar have the default email or SMS alerts working but the events added via Thunderbird will have popup alerts. There is a hack that lets you get around this problem. You will need to locate the calGoogleUtils.js file in your Thunderbird config and edit that file manually. On the CS linux systems, you can locate this file by just running:

    find ~/.thunderbird -name calGoogleUtils.js

    Edit that file and on line 516 change

    gdReminder.@method = "alert";

    to

    gdReminder.@method = "email";

    for email alerts or

    gdReminder.@method = "sms";

    for SMS alerts.

12. Adding Events in Thunderbird - At this point, things should be ready to go and you can add calendar events in Thunderbird normally. In Thunderbird, you just need to be careful that you are adding events to your Google Calendar and not the local Thunderbird Calendar (which I believe is called "Home" by default). I would recommend making them different colors so it is obvious which calendar they are in. To make sure they are in the Google Calendar, just check the Calendar setting when you add the event. The pulldown menu lets you select the proper calendar and the default should be whatever you last used.

    After you add the event in Thunderbird, it should appear in your Google Calendar by just reloading the page in your browser.

13. Adding Events in Google Calendar - You can also just use the Google Calendar web interface to view or add events. When you add an event via the Google Calendar Web interface, it will appear in Thunderbird once you do anything that updates the calendar display. The easiest thing is probably just to click on the current date from the calendar display and it should show the added event.

14. Pitfalls and Limitations - Here are some notes about various things that can go wrong.
    • Missing Events - If you are adding events in Thunderbird and they are not showing up in Google Calendar, verify that you are adding them to the proper calendar. You are probably adding them to the local Thunderbird "Home" calendar instead of the Google Calendar.

    • No Email or SMS Alerts - If the events are being properly added to your Google Calendar (and NOT the local Thunderbird calendar) but are not generating email or SMS alerts, then check 1) Google Calendar is set to use email or SMS alerts by default, 2) that the email alerts aren't going to your gmail account only and you are just not seeing them, and 3) that you properly edited the calGoogleUtils.js per the above instructions.

    • Multiple Alert Mechanisms - One thing I would like to do that I don't know how to do (or if it is even possible) is to receive alerts via both email and popups. This is possible when events are added via Google Calendar by just setting up multiple alerts in the default settings for new events, but events added via Thunderbird are limited to one alert type.

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