Image by David Ascher via Flickr

So after I started using Rainlendar as my Desktop calendar, now I had two calendars to maintain. One was Rainlendar Calendar, and other was Thunderbird calendar via lightning plugin. It would asoon get cumbersome to update both the calendars. Wouldn’t it be nice if they shared the same calendar ? If they did, irrespective of which calendar I use to create/update the events and taks, the other would always be in sync.

Unfortunately, the default file format used by Thunderbird ins’t .ics (or iCalendar format). By default, it stored the calendar in storage.db. But there is a way around it.

While Thunderbird does not use .ics file format for its own calendars by default, it supports use of iCalendar on the network (like Google Calendar) But Rainlendar calendar is not on the network.  So you trick Thunderbird (or lightning, depending on the way you look at it)

• Go ahead, and create new calendar on network.
• choose .ics format, but use file:// protocol to point to existing calendar created by Rainlendar.
• Then you can delete the default one called Home. (If you have only once calendar, you are unable to delete it.)

Thanks to this thread on Ubuntu Forums for providing me this idea.

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As the thread above mentions, Lightening team has to bump up the minVersion to 3.0b2pre. That means you need to get nightly build (at least as of this writing. Once Beta 2 is released, it is recommended you use Official Beta 2, rather than nightly builds.) You can get the nightly build from here.

Since I downloaded the .zip file, there are no installation involved for me, just unzip the contents into desired folder. Personally I would suggest this method to you all, since this provides portability.

Setting up Gmail IMAP Account

Setting up regular IMAP account was very easy with TB 3.0b2pre. But what amazed me was how simple it is to setup Gmail account.  Gmail IMAP is already a preset option when you try to add a new account. In second (and only real) step you need to enter your Name (as it will be displayed to your recipients) and your email address. That is all there is to it.  The last step is confirmation, where is shows your choices, and you need to click Finish so that account is created. So all practical purposes it is essentially one step process.

Compare it to the instructions you need to follow for Thunderbird 2.0 (Latest TB released version as of this writing)

Before you set any calendar, you need to install and configure the plugin. The instructions are same as listed in my previous post. I had bit of a problem the first time, as in the New calendar option was not enabled. Restarting Thunderbird resolved the problem.

URL to your Google Calendar

1. Go to your Google Calendar
2. Go to Settings.
3. Go to Calendars Tab, and Select the appropriate calendar.
4. Scroll towards end of the page where you will see entry titled Private Address, and three icons next to it. (XML, ICAL and HTML)
5. Copy the URL for XML (Right Click->Copy Link Location in Firefox, Right Click->Copy Shortcut in IE)
6. You need to use this URL in Step 4 below.

Private Address URL for your Google Calendar

Setting up Google Calendar

1. File -> New ->Calendar (You need to be in Inbox view. If you are already in Calendar view, you will not see menu option)
2. On Network
3. Format -> Google Calendar
4. Location  :  As discussed in previous section. Use your Private URL here.
5. You need to Provide name and select color for your Google Calendar.

That’s it. Now you can see as well as update your Google Calendar from Thunderbird.

Note : Since the Lightning plugin was broken, I installed the nightly build of Thunderbird in different folder, just in case I need to go back to my working email environment.  If you are installing it afresh, ignore this comment.

Then I found out a way to get this working with the Tunderbird 3 Beta

Install the Extenstion

1. Get the extension from here.
2. Download the .xpi file on your computer.
3. Go to Tools->Add-ons. Click on Install button. Point to the newly downloaded .xpi file.
4. Restart Thunderbird 3 Beta for the Add-on to be active.
5. Now you should see Lightning Nightly Updater in Add-ons list.

Configure

1. Click on Options button for this extension
2. If you actively use Google Calendar, then select second mode Also install Provided for Google Calendar
3. Leave both options under Backup as checked
4. It is good idea to click Backup Now button. If you are installing Lightning for the first time, skip this step.

This in itself doesn’t install the Lightning extension. As the name suggests, this is the extension to help you keep up to date with another extension

• Go to Help->Check for Latest Lightning update. You will now download the real Lightning extension (Two, if you have selected to download Provider for Google Calendar) 
• Download and install as usual. Restart Thunderbird for the extension to be effective.
• Now you will see two icons towards the far right of the “Tab bar”. Tooltips reveal these to be Calendar and Tasks respectively. (This puzzled me for a while, as to how do I access these functions now that I have installed the extensions)
• When you click on these icons, two new tabs will open. It is very intuitive after that.