04.12
@Update: 2nd November, 2007: Updated guide for Lightning v0.7 and Provider 0.3.1 releases — Jonny
For a long time I have been looking for a rock solid calendaring system. I’ve gotten too used to working for companies who have Microsoft Exchange (or, God forbid, Scalix) installed which allow me to edit and update a calendar from multiple locations and even sync it with my Mobile Phone. When I first heard of Google Calendar I hoped that I would be able to enjoy such benefits again, but I am not a great fan of web-apps, and prefer a nice, solid desktop client to do my email / organisation from.
Queue Lightning, the calendaring extension for Thunderbird which brings the desktop email app one step closer to becoming a viable alternative to Microsoft Outlook. Installation can be a little bit confusing and you must remember that this add-on is still in the 0.x stages, so may be a tad unstable at times (but that’s ok, we love this kind of thing!)
Open up Thunderbird (I am using the 2.0.0.6 release) and on the Top Menu, go to:
Tools -> Add-ons
When the Add-ons window opens, click on the Install button on the bottom left and paste in the following URL to install the latest release of Lightning (Windows Only, Linux / Mac users will need to get this link by copying the XPI download path from the Mozilla Add-on repository, located here.
Win32 Lightning Add-On XPI Download Link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/downloads/file/20424/lightning-0.7-tb-win.xpi
If you get a warning similar to “Lightning could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox” then you are trying to install the XPI directly into Firefox. Instead, you need to either “open” the link from inside the Thunderbird Add-Ons Install Window, or save the XPI to your desktop and then drag it into the Thunderbird Add-Ons Window.
Once you have installed the Lightning Extension, Thunderbird will ask you to restart. Upon restarting you will be greeted with a new Sidebar on the right displaying tasks and events and a tool bar underneath your folder list.
This is all well and good and provides us with an easy to use local calendar, but that’s not much use if you wanted to update it at work, or on the road / mobile device. This is where the Provider Add-on comes in to play.
Provider allows bidirectional syncing between the Lightning Calendaring Extension in Thunderbird and Google’s GCal Service. This is possible because Google, being the lovely chaps that they are, decided to opt for the iCalendar standard in GCal, well done chaps :)
Installation of Provider is pretty similar to that of Lightning. Again, go to the Add-ons Window (Tools -> Add-Ons) and Install the XPI available for download from Provider’s Page in the Mozilla Add-on repository.
Win32 Provider Add-On XPI Download Link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/downloads/file/20552/provider_for_google_calendar-0.3.1-tb+sb.xpi
Again, once installed, Thunderbird will have to be restarted.
Now, the last piece of the Pie is to tie our Google Calendar into our Lightning Calendar. First of all, you will need to log into your Google Calendar account. Once you are at the main page, click on “Settings” from the Top Right Menu:
Once on the settings page, you need to drill down into the “Calendars Settings” screen and then click on your Calendar from the list (I only had a single calendar.)
Now, finally, you need to copy the URL of your Private Address XML Feed into the clipboard.
You’re done in Google Calendar for now and we can head back to Thunderbird to finally wrap this tutorial up ;). Once you are back in Thunderbird, you need to create a new calendar in Lightning. You can do this by clicking on the following Menu item:
File -> New -> Calendar…
Upon clicking the New Calendar menu item, another window will appear. The first option is the location of your Calendar – select “On the Network” and click Next.
The next option allows you to specify the Format of the Calendar, slect the “Google Calendar” radio button (if you don’t have a Google Calendar radio button, make sure your Provider Extension is installed correctly). In the location input box, paste in your Google Calendar Private Address XML Feed that we extracted above, and click Next.
The next window asks you to give your new Calendar a Name and a Colour, I will leave these entirely up to you ;)
Finally (yes, at last) you will have a “Google Calendar Login” window which will ask for your Google Account login. If you only have a single Google Calendar, Provider will have automagically extracted your username from the XML feed you just specified; however, just double check that it reads @GMAIL.COM. Then enter your usual GMail password.
Well done, you can now enjoy the many benefits of being able to view and update your Google Calendar directly from Thunderbird – nice work ;)
wow thanks you couldnt have put it better :)
Hey, this is a great step-by-step…however is there anyway to sync old calenders that you have already made before learning that you could have them sync with Google? Because I have already made a calender for work,school,home,and couple other things that are on “My Computer” and was wondering how I could change them to be on “My Network – Google Calender.” Thank you.
Great job — thank you for the pics and clear instructions!
THANKS! I got T-bird talking to Google and now I have officially cut all umbilical cords to Outlook. Happy day!
hey thanks for the tutorial it really helped!!
I had the same problems as Kinnie and sridhar: I can’t use the Google settings with Google Calendars if the calendar is not associated with an @gmail.com address. However iCal seems to work fine and I can’t see any disadvantage. It looks like the hard-coded requirement that the calendar account end with @gmail.com is a bug in Lightning (and probably also in Sunbird). Otherwise, these directions are great.
Thank you for tutorial. Wow I feel like a genius now. Thunderbird, Lighting, Google Agenda and BlackBerry Agenda all Sync’ed !!! Now just waiting for a better way to import Google Maps Locations to Thunderbird… still not happy about that. Any suggestions anyone?
really this was very very nice.
thanks man, excellent tutorial and it worked just as advertised. Now my iPhone is synchronized with google email,calendar and contacts. Awesome.
Working great here, tnx for the developing!
Great tutorial. Tks!!
Long time looking for something like this, and with your help now I have it.
Thank you so much, it’s so easy when someone help you…
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Great stuff!
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Very usefull and clear ! thanks a lot
Tres utile et clair ! Merci beaucoup.
This is great!!! I have office 2007 and linked it to Hotmail or Live mail.. and it is fine. But I would hate to tie myself to Microsoft products that they change and may require you to purchase new software everytime they release new software. I like thunderbird and after looking for a browser such as SeaMonkey and Opera that have email clients built in, Thunderbird along with this solution gives me more than just email. It allows me to update my contacts and calendar as well, just like office 2007 and live(new hotmail) mail without the Microsoft strings.
Great solution. Plus Live mail makes my pc run extremely slow. It may be my three month old laptop or it may be that Live mail is still in its first release…
this syncs up much easier and faster than Hotmail and office 2007..
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This is spectacular! I may tear up. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Is there a way to manually edit the colors (by rgb code, for example)? It find is psychologically confusing that the Google web interface has slightly different colors from the Lightning interface…
@Dustin: Take a look at how to set up a userChrome.css. The DOM Inspector will help you to find out the IDs. If all you want to do is change the calendar colors, you can use the sqlite manager to change the database that holds the calendar list.
I must admit its surely not the easiest thing to do, but afaik noone has created a full theme for Lightning to match Google colors.
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thank you for your help
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I love you! I love you! I love you! Please have my children. No, honestly, thank you very very much!
Excellent tools,thanks
[...] tutorial kako nastaviti sinhronizacijo najdete tukaj. Dodatek vsem, ki ste do sedaj Thunderbird in gCal uporabljali lo?eno toplo priporo?am. Dela kot [...]
thanks this really works well, now all i have to do is use my newfound calendar/email/prodigy!
Thank you very mutch, works like a charm
This tutorial requires me to create a new calendar within Thunderbird. I already have an existing calendar, is there any way to sync my existing calendar events with me new Google Calendar?
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It’s still unclear to me how each primary calender syncs to one-another w/o having to make multiple calenders. How do I get thunderbird to push to gmail?
What I would like to do is make my calender events in lightning, send to google calendar, and then sync to a blackberry.
I’m at a loss, I followed the instructions and got contact between lightning and google calendar. The Google calender sent test events to lightning, However, I cannot figure how to send the info from lightning to Gcal?
[...] Thunderbird Plugin muss man sich als erstes noch einen Link zu seinem Kalender besorgen. Eine gute grafische Anleitung gibt es auch [...]
Excellent!
This is just what I needed.
Now I can have the same calendar on my desktop and laptop.
Plus can share others who use Outlook via Google’s calendar.
Thanks!
I am still having problems getting 2 directional syncing. I am able to pull events from Google but not push. Any thoughts?
Well When I go to calendar settings, the xml option doesnt show up, am I missing something?
Thanks for this, it works an absolute treat.
Karl
http://www.craig-west.co.uk
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Thank you for this great tutorial. Good screen shots make it clear to follow, unlike some of the other guides. I live on a boat and am not always online so this sync feature is very useful to me. Thank you once again.
Thank you very, very much for this usefool explanation.
Since 2 weeks I own a smartphone and I hate agenda’s.
I use a agenda just for my work to put my working days in.
But now with your explanation and the fact that I love Thunderbird Lightening and Google Agenda, it is fun to put my agenda in the smartphone full with stuff.
Greetings Peter from Holland
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THANKS !!! A THOUSAND THANKS for such a helpfull job for newbies like me. It works !
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I have followed the directions but I keep getting the following errors in the console:
Warning: There has been an error reading data for calendar: basic. However, this error is believed to be minor, so the program will attempt to continue. Error code: 0×80004003. Description: Component returned failure code: 0×80004003 (NS_ERROR_INVALID_POINTER) [calIDateTime.timezone]
Any tips? Thanks in advance…
This is exactly what I’ve been searching for. BUT…
Following the instructions. Anything I add to the Google calendar appears almost immediately in my Lightning calendar. But none of the Lightning events go up to Google. No “BiDirectional”. Using the latest of TBird, and both add-ons.
Two possibles I thought of:
1) I had been using Lightning before. So I removed it, as well as the Provider I’d installed as part of this, and started from scratch. Same result. The Google Calendar events came down as soon as i added the XML address. Nothing went up.
2) You mentioned expecting ‘@GMAIL’ in the XML address. My Google account uses my earthlink address. Is this a stopper?
Would love to get this working.
Ultimately, I want to get Lightning to my Palm, so Google Calendar is the key.
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Thanks a lot for all the advice, none of which is transparantly available at Google. It works and is too cool for school!