In some cases, Thunderbird+Lightning plugin (calendar plugin) do not process an email with an attached ICS file as a calendar event. Bug report. Yet another years-old bug not being handled :s.
Anyway, workaround: open the Today Pane (F11) and drag&drop the ICS file on there. Interface isn’t brilliant, but it works for now.
Part 2 of getting set up. Obviously, I have an Exchange calendar. Obviously, people are going to be using that to gauge when I’m available. So I need to manage that calendar in a way that works.
Enter the Lightning plugin for Thunderbird! With the previously mentioned DavMail, you can get your exchange calendar in Thunderbird. Which kind of beats Microsoft’s web interface – though not by much.
I also added a Google calendar via CalDav (which works directly with Lightning). Adding and deleting events is nicely synchronized :) Adding another (big) Google calendar, however, borked the overview (appointments no longer shown), though the list above the calendar still showed correct info.
So, my new employer uses Exchange servers for email (i.e. Outlook for clients). I’m not on an Outlook-supported platform, so that’s not ideal.
DavMail to the rescue! It’s a piece of software that runs under Windows, Unix and OSX. What it does: it translates the secret Exchange-Outlook mail protocol into public protocols (POP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDav, LDAP, …).
And it works quite beautifully! Though you’ll need openjdk-7-jre for it to run.
Next, you can set up Thunderbird to get your Exchange mail via DavMail (username at the OU: XXX@pwo.ou.nl). And it works beautifully!
In related news: it seems you cannot stop Thunderbird from checking an account: if you’re online, it’s trying to check that account. Annoying if you have an old account to which you no longer have access (but have a local archived copy).
I like cleaning up my inbox. Right-click a message, “move to” and select a folder.
Except that sometimes, I right-click a message, but before I can select “move to”, the context menu is gone again. Annoying. Apparently, I’m not the only one.
Work-around: minimize the window and then restore the TB window again. The bug is still being hunted, as far as I can tell.
I’m quite happy about Thunderbird (mail reader). Yes, I’ve had my struggles with it (as those of you who follow this blog know), but in the end, it all works.
All?
Almost all.
There is one button, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get to work.
You see, Thunderbird has a “Get mail” button. And I press it and press it, but do I get mail? nooooo….. ;-)
My Ubuntu 11.04 at home was still running the old Thunderbird. The old, end-of-support-almost-reached Thunderbird. Time to fix that. Lessee, open Thunderbird and look for “update”… nope.
Hmms, get updates for Ubuntu then? … nope.
Hmms. Okay, let’s do this the hard way. Download the new TB, run it… hey, that looks a lot like my old TB! “Help > About”… it is my old TB?! WTH?!
Okay, turning to the Google for more updates.
Aaah, here’s how it’s done: tell your system updater to include packages from Mozilla, and then it should work.
Test one: err, nothing to update?
Test two (a few days later, different package-address included): still nothing??
You know what, this is silly.
And just when I was ready to give up:
Apparently, there are all sorts of mozilla-related valid words (e.g., combinations with “security” and “release”) you can enter after “ppa:”. Some of them work , but don’t update your system. Such as the aforehinted mozilla-security-ppa and mozilla-release-ppa. This one does.
@Mozilla: is this really necessary? Just provide some sort of warning with pointer to the right location in the non-updating PPA’s, would you?
The time of messages in Thunderbird always used to be annoying (i.e. non-24hrs format). This post explained what that’s due to: Thunderbird takes your default locale and presents time in the view due to that.
Somehow, the default locale it took was not my default locale (LC_ALL=C). So, to fix this minor annoyance, I changed the Thunderbird launcher to env LC_ALL=C thunderbird %u (where %u passes arguments — I just left it there).
Okay, so my previous post on the default sort behaviour of Thunderbird was largely correct — I just need to learn to read instructions better :)
In a nutshell, I set mailnews.default_sort_order to 22: sort by thread (where previously I tried 18 and other combinations of settings). Le duh. Now It Works(tm)
KeyConfig addon, and configure a new key: CTRL+ALT+M as binding, code: goDoCommand("cmd_attachFile") (note: no “;” at the end!), and voila, you can attach messages with CTRL+ALT+M!
And yes, there’s a similar extension called Nostalgy, which hides this behind Esc+A. I tried it, and it worked… if I kept Esc pressed while pressing A. That’s awkward. This is way better :)
More Thunderbird news: how to set default view. It is possible, though in an awkward manner.
The trick: use the config editor (Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General), and fix the view according to this comment in Thunderbird’s bugtracker bug about this. I like my mails threaded (in all folders), and sorted with newest on top. You can set this per folder, but I want to do it once and be done with.
To do this:
I want descending (sort_order: 2), date-sorted (sort_type: 18), threaded (view_flags: 1) mails.
So change the relevant mailnews.default_* values to reflect that :)
The comment in full (to safeguard, and in case your settings don’t match mine):
(PS: Note that according to comment 102, further below, the linked comment had _type and _order swapped. That’s changed below.)
Prefs are named as follows; first three apply to Mail and RSS folders, the second three to Newsgroups.
mailnews.default_sort_order
mailnews.default_sort_type
mailnews.default_view_flags
mailnews.default_news_sort_order
mailnews.default_news_sort_type
mailnews.default_news_view_flags
In about:config (Tools | Options | Advanced | General, Config Editor),
you can enter "news._def" to filter out all the prefs but these.
sort_type:
byNone 17 byPriority 23 byLocation 29
byDate 18 * byStatus 24 byTags 30
bySubject 19 * bySize 25 byJunkStatus 31
byAuthor 20 * byFlagged 26 byAttachments 32
byId 21 ** byUnread 27 byAccount 33
byThread 22 byRecipient 28 byCustom 34
* = commonly desired values
** = by Order Received (?)
sort_order:
ascending 1
descending 2
view_flags -- the second group of values can be added to one of the first group to combine effects,
with several limitations:
Unthreaded 0
Threaded 1
Grouped 64 [mail only (?)]
ShowIgnored 8 [news only]
ShowUnreadOnly 16
ShowExpanded 32 [doesn't seem to work]
ShowUnreadOnly will check the View|Threads|Unread menu; this will cause only
unread items to be seen, but doesn't force a threaded view.
Edit: of course, afterwards I find the add-on to do just this :)
Edit 2: Again, no convincing case… not sure if this works …
Edit 3: Nope, it doesn’t work. :(
Edit 4: see next post, kind of got it working.