vcs Support

Timeline 0.3

2009-07-03T20:03:00.003+01:00

Timeline 0.3 has been released and is available from here.

This add-on adds a timeline above the status bar showing several hours (or days) into the past and future. Events are shown as boxes spanning the relevant time period and tasks with due dates are shown as lines at the due date. All Day events are shown as lines along the bottom of the timeline in the relevant calendar colour.

The display automatically updates every 30 seconds or so and moves to keep track of the current time, so events will slowly move across the screen as time goes by. A red line which does not move shows where the current time is.

Double clicking on an event or task will open the editing dialog to allow changes to be made, but it is not yet possible to drag events along the timeline, nor to show tooltips with all the event details when hovering over the events.

The timeline can be toggled on and off from the Timeline option in the View menu in the same way as the status bar can be. There is also a right click menu which toggles Events, All Day Events and Tasks on and off, available from the timeline. Unfortunately, it does not yet show the status of whether these options are on or off.

The timeline can be zoomed in and out, either by using the scroll wheel of the mouse, or from the timeline's right click pop-up menu. Degrees of zoom go from an hour taking up 256 pixels to 28 days being displayed on the timeline. extensions.timeline.log can be set to true in the advanced configuration editor to see a list of events and tasks fetched as messages in the error console.

Note that this add-on requires at least Sunbird 1.0pre or Thunderbird 3.0b1 with Lightning 1.0pre

This version adds zooming abilities to the timeline and reduces the flicker caused by reloading the timeline a lot.

Evolution Mirror 0.2.1

2009-05-30T22:29:00.002+01:00

I've decided to use this blog to announce all my extension news, not just that of vcs Support, from now on.

Evolution Mirror 0.2.1 is now available from here.

Evolution Mirror is a Linux only extension which mirrors the addition, deletion and modification of events and tasks to the Gnome clock applet. It requires Evolution to be installed, and run at least once. Evolution performs important setup procedures on the Gnome clock applet when it is run for the first time.

This version contains changes to the install.rdf file that should hopefully solve problems that people were having installing it on 64-bit systems. If there are sitll problems, then please email me at vcssupport1@gmail.com.

vcs Support 0.7b1

2009-05-19T00:42:00.005+01:00

vcs Support 0.7 beta 1 has been released and is available from here. this is a beta release. If you wish to use the current stable release, see vcs Support 0.6.3 at addons.mozilla.org.

There are a number of significant changes in this version, and it should be noted that it is still very much a beta release (and subject to lots of bugs and the possibility of eating your information), so do not use it with critical information.

Firstly, this beta is only compatible with version 1.0pre of Sunbird and Lightning, and version 3.0a1 abd up of Thunderbird. These are the latest development builds of these products and contain significant changes themselves over their current stable versions. I hope to have the final version of 0.7 compatible with versions 0.9 of Sunbird and Lightning, and version 2 of Thunderbird.

It is now possible to subscribe to a vcs calendar through the subscribe option in the file menu. The process is the same as subscribing to an ics calendar, except for choosing vcs instead of ics. To subscribe to a local vcs calendar, you need to choose Network Calendar and the local address of the file (with a file:/// prefix).

It also is now possible to import a file using a command line argument (-import). This is not limited to .vcs files, and should work for all Sunbird and Lightning compatible file types. This is reported as an enhancement in bugzilla at bug 261460. This function has only been tested on local files, so I don't know how well it will work with remote calendars. One major issue with the command line importer is that it will only import into the default calendar (for now).

I am extremely interested in getting feedback on these new features, especially regarding what bugs might exist. Either fill out the support form or email vcssupport1@gmail.com giving as much detail about the problem as possible.

vcs Support 0.6.3

2009-05-18T15:17:00.004+01:00

vcs Support 0.6.3 has been released and is available from here.

The following localisations have been added:

lt-LT - Lithuanian (thanks to ezg from Babelzilla)
sr-RS - Serbian (thanks to DakSrbija from Babelzilla)

Export and import of categories has also been improved now meaning the use of non-roman characters in category names is no longer imported or exported incorrectly. All QUOTED-PRINTABLE fields are now also specified as using UTF-8 character set when UTF-8 is chosen in the options screen.

As always, if you have any issues with version 0.6.3, please have a look at the FAQ, or fill out the support form, giving as much detail about the problem as possible, and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

vcs Support 0.6.2

2008-12-15T00:47:00.004Z

vcs Support 0.6.2 has been released and is available from here.

Some issues with importing and exporting recurring monthly and yearly events have been addressed in this release - namely that the extension was not exporting events according to vCalendar specifications, and was expecting imported files to be using the same wrong specs as the exported ones.

An issue where tasks with alarms was causing exporting to fail with an "Error getting calendar" error message has also been fixed.

Finally, I've had a good look at the code for the options window. It should now show the correct settings (whereas, in recent releases, it has been showing up with no options at all selected on first use). I still can't get the date fields to auto-populate, but they an be manually filled in anyway.

As always, if you have any issues with version 0.6.2, please have a look at the FAQ, or fill out the support form, giving as much detail about the problem as possible, and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

vcs Support 0.6.1

2008-12-01T13:12:00.002Z

vcs Support 0.6.1 has been release and is available from here.

There was a change in the was that Sunbird and Lightning exported categories. They now have support for the import and export of multiple categories (but the UI only lets you set a single category for an event or task). This change meant that categories were not being exported at all in vcs Support 0.6 when used with Sunbird or Lightning 0.9. Now all categories of an event or task are exported.

If you have any issues with version 0.6.1, please have a look at the FAQ, or fill out the support form, giving as much detail about the problem as possible, and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

2008-10-02T23:42:00.010+01:00

Click on the Questions to display the answers

"Requires Additional Items" appears when I install vcs Support. What do I do?

If you have installed Sunbird or Lightning 0.9, ensure that you have vcs Support 0.6.3 installed and not a previous version
If you have Sunbird or Lightning 0.8, ensure that you have vcs Support 0.5.6 or 0.6.3 installed
If you have Sunbird or Lightning 0.7, ensure that you have vcs Support 0.5.5 or earlier installed

I keep getting "No Items Exported", even though there clearly were items to be exported.

There are a couple of reasons why you might get this error.

You are exporting in a specific time frame, and there are no events occurring within the time frame - Make sure A single event with recurrence rules is chosen in the Options dialog on export.
You are exporting only events or only tasks, and there are none in the calendar. Make sure that both Export Events and Export Tasks are ticked in the Options dialog on export
A combination of 1 and 2
A bug in vcs Support where the preferences are messed up. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Config editor and type vcs into the filter box of the window that pops up. Check that extensions.vcssupport.export_events and extensions.vcssupport.export_tasks are both true (or at least, the same as they are in the Export Options dialog). Sometimes they get confused, and I can't find a good reason for it.

I keep getting "An error occurred while importing the vCal file. The file may not be a valid vCal file." when trying to import a vcs file into Palm Desktop. What's going on?

Palm Desktop will fail to import vcs files which contain tasks. When exporting from Sunbird/Lightning, make sure that Export Events is ticked and Export Tasks is not.

Can vcs Support import files by double clicking on them from my Desktop?

Unfortunately, this is not possible at the moment. This is also an issue for Lightning and .ics files.

Does vcs Support work with Trunk versions of Sunbird and Lightning?

Trunk versions of Lightning and Sunbird are not supported (although if you know how to bump install.rdf versions, it should work fine).

Can I drag and drop vcs attachments in Thunderbird if I install vcs Support

It is not supported by vcs support, however, due to a bug in Lightning, it does work to a degree, with the following problems:

Only the first event in the attachment is imported
Recurrences are not imported
Alarms are not imported

If you have an issue not covered by this FAQ, please fill out the support form, giving as much detail about the problem as possible, and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

vcs Support 0.6

2008-09-23T22:45:00.003+01:00

vcs Support 0.6 has been release and is available from here.

This version is the same as vcs Support 0.6b3, except for the addition of localisations. It is available in the following languages:

bg-BG - Bulgarian (thanks to Ivaylo from Babelzilla)
da-DK - Danish (thanks to AlleyKat from Babelzilla)
de-DE - German (thanks to Team erweiterungen.de from Babelzilla)
en-US - English
fi_FI - Finnish (thanks to MiK546 from Babelzilla)
fr-FR - French (thanks to myahoo from Babelzilla)
ga-IE - Irish
it-IT - Italian (thanks to Danilo Fortunato from Babelzilla)
ja-JP - Japanese (thanks to mar from Babelzilla)
ko-KR - Korean (thanks to wtspout from Babelzilla)
nl-NL - Dutch (thanks to markh from Babelzilla)
pl-PL - Polish (thanks to Waclaw Jacek from Babelzilla)
pt-BR - Portuguese - Brazil (thanks to Alberto Eidh from Babelzilla)
pt-PT - Portuguese - Europe (thanks to lloco from Babelzilla)
sv-SE - Swedish (thanks to skorpan from Babelzilla)
zh-CN - Chinese (thanks to fiag from Babelzilla)

Unfortunately, I've had to remove:

sk-SK - Slovak
he-IL - Hebrew
af-ZA - Afrikaans

because they were not ready for release. Hopefully they can be translated soon so that I can add them back in.

vcs Support 0.6b3

2008-09-19T02:20:00.003+01:00

This version fixes problems with importing alarms which were importing with incorrect times.

It can be downloaded from here.

If you do find any bugs or issues, please use the support form or email vcssupport1@gmail.com.

vcs Support 0.6b2

2008-09-17T20:07:00.004+01:00

This version bumps compatibility up to version 0.9 for Sunbird and Lightning to stop the "Requires Additional Items" error from occurring when installing to a system with one of the 0.9 release candidates on Sunbird or Lightning.

The LOCATION field is now also encoded as QUOTED-PRINTABLE. As with version 0.6b1, it is only available in en-us.

This version can be downloaded from here.

If you do find any bugs or issues, please use the support form or email vcssupport1@gmail.com.

vcs Support 0.6b1

2008-08-17T01:01:00.003+01:00

This version works for versions 0.8 and 0.9pre up to 20080810 at least (and should have no problems up to version 0.9 when it is released) of Sunbird and Lightning. It is only available in en-us at the moment, due to new strings which have yet to be translated to other languages (and is the reason why this is a beta release rather than a final release). If anyone wants to help to translate it to other languages, go to http://www.babelzilla.org.

There have been a number of changes in this version.

Firstly, the "vcs support options" entry has removed from file menu of sunbird the options are now displayed on every export and have been tweaked so that should behave a little better than they used.

Secondly, we can export as QUOTED-PRINTABLE properly for all characters (not just a select few any more) including ideographic ones. We can also import QUOTED-PRINTABLE characters properly as well. Note that to export ASCII based characters, ANSI may be selected as the encoding option in the export options, but to correctly export ideographic languages such as Japanese, you have to select UTF-8. Another issue is that many programs and phones do not recognise UTF-8 encoded characters and you get gibberish when you import to them.

Thirdly, we now export the file as an ANSI encoded file (UTF-8 now means that unicode characters are exported as their QUOTED-PRINTABLE equivalents), which should be compatible with almost all programs. In the past, a UTF-8 encoded file would not work with Palm Desktop among others.

Finally, I've slightly changed the export file makeup to include a carriage return as well as a line feed at the end of lines. This appeared to be causing problems with certain mobile devices (the LG Dash in particular) and hopefully this change will solve the problem.

Once translation work has been done, the extension will be submitted to AMO to be updated there. In the meantime, it can be downloaded from here.

If you do find any bugs or issues, please use the support form or email vcssupport1@gmail.com.

vcs Support 0.5.6.1

2008-05-17T20:55:00.002+01:00

This version is for versions 0.8 and 0.9pre of Sunbird and Lightning. It is only verified to work up to the nightly build of 20080516. It may well work on newer builds, but no guarantees.

Also, due to UI changes in the options dialog, it's only available in en-us (English) locale. Other languages are available in the 0.5.6 release available from addons.mozilla.org.

Version 0.5.6.1 is available to download here.

There have been a couple of improvements in the export and import of item DESCRIPTION properties to make them more compatible with the QUOTED-PRINTABLE encoding. The ability to strip extra spaces from dates (also present in Sunbird and Lightning - bug 421875), which caused import to fail has also been added.

Finally, the ability to export just events or tasks has been added. Palm Desktop, in particular, does not know how to deal with tasks and fails to import files where they are present. This should sort out that problem.

vcs Support 0.5.6

2008-04-05T01:47:00.004+01:00

This version of supports the newly released Sunbird and Lightning 0.8 only. For a version compatible with versions 0.7, you'll need version 0.5.5 of this extension, available here

In this version, support has been added for the Slovak locale (sk-SK) thanks to Martin Struhar from Babelzilla.

I've also fixed an export problem where recurring events which had neither a set number of occurrences nor an end date for the recurrences (eg. weekly forever) would cause the export to fail and produce an incomplete file.

Version 0.5.6 is available from addons.mozilla.org as usual (still in the sandbox) and also from here. I'm nominating this version for public listing on AMO.

vcs Support 0.5.5 and 0.5.5.1

2008-01-21T12:44:00.003Z

Edit 05/04/08: Version 0.5.6 is now available

This version fixes bugs in the import of .vcs files. Specifically, in the description property of events and tasks, new lines were not being properly handled, meaning that parts of the description were being ignored or displayed incorrectly.

I've also added support for pt-BR (Portuguese - Brazil) locale.

Finally, I've added support for Spicebird. Note that Spicebird 0.4 is based around Lightning 0.7 (as far as I can tell), so only version 0.5.5 is compatible with it. Also, I haven't bothered placing a menu item for the extension options, so to access them, you have to go to Tools | Addons and Options in the .vcs Support entry.

Version 0.5.5 (compatible with Sunbird and Lightning 0.7) is available, as usual from AMO at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721. I've also put a copy here, which doesn't require registration, but I'd prefer if you could download from AMO if possible.

Version 0.5.5.1 (compatible with nightly versions of Sunbird and Lightning built after around 01/01/08) is available from here.

(Edit 18/02/08: Version 0.5.5.2 for Sunbird and Lightning nightly builds is now available here. It fixes vcs Support for current nightly builds.)

Support Form

2008-01-20T23:30:00.004Z

Please include as many details of any issue you may have as possible. Mouse over the fields for versions to find out how to get version numbers. I will attempt to respond to all queries as soon as possible, but there may be delays on occasion.

vcs Support 0.5.4 and 0.5.4.1

2007-12-20T01:34:00.001Z

Edit 05/04/08: Version 0.5.6 is now available

Recent changes in the way Sunbird and Lightning handle timezones have meant that I've had to create two new versions of vcs Support. Version 0.5.4 is compatible with Sunbird and Lightning up to version 0.7 and version 0.5.4.1 is compatible with nightly builds 0.8pre from around 04/12/07 onwards.

This version introduces the option to export with either ANSI or UTF-8 encoding. There's no UI for it, instead you need to toggle the value of extensions.vcssupport.export_as_ANSI in the config editor to change. The default is UTF-8 encoding. To access the config editor, go to Tools | Options | Advanced | Config Editor and type "vcs" into the filter box.

Version 0.5.4 is available, as usual from AMO at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721. I've also put a copy here, which doesn't require registration, but I'd prefer if you could download from AMO if possible. This version will not auto update.

Version 0.5.4.1 is available from here. The good news is that it should now auto update as well. The bad news is that it's only compatible with version 0.8pre.

(Edit 17/01/08 - version 0.5.4.2 for Sunbird/Lightning 0.8pre after around 01/01/08 is now available from here. This fixes import which broke in recent nightlies. (It's only a one line change so it didn't merit a post of it's own))

vcs Support 0.5.3

2007-11-24T01:56:00.000Z

I've had to release vcs Support version 0.5.3 to correct a bug where alarms were always imported as "0 days after the event starts". It's still not perfect, but it's better than it was. The problem is actually a problem with Sunbird and Lightning, which don't process alarms with absolute times properly, so an ugly hack was needed. Anyway, it's available from AMO as usual at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721

It's still in the sandbox, by the way, so you'll need to register with AMO to get it.

vcs Support 0.5.2

2007-11-13T01:56:00.000Z

I've had to release vcs Support version 0.5.2 to correct a couple of bugs regarding recurring events with a specific recurrence end date in both import and export. It's available from AMO as usual at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721

vcs Support 0.5.1

2007-11-04T00:55:00.000Z

I'm back from holidays and have released vcs Support 0.5.1. There are only minor enhancements and bugfixes this time. Nothing earth-shattering.

Enhancements:

- Now export as UTF-8, allowing ideographic characters to be exported properly (previously they exported as ANSI)
- Added it-IT, zh-CN, fi-FI, ja-JP locales
- Made compatible with latest Sunbird builds

Bugfixes:

- Now export all event times and alarm times in UTC timezone and let the calender program take care of how they are displayed (except for all day events, whose proper behaviour is not clear in the vCalendar spec)
- Fixed misspellings in ga-IE locale
- Moved options menu item to the bottom of the menu in Lightning

vcs Support 0.5

2007-09-29T01:54:00.000+01:00

vcs Support 0.5 has been released. I've nominated it for public listing on AMO, so we'll see how that goes. There have been a few notable enhancements since the last version, as detailed below.

Edit: It was turned down for public nomination on the basis that there was only one review. Oh well

It is available, as usual from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page.

Enhancements:

-Incorporated extension into Lightning and Sunbird's calendar import and export dialogs.
- Removed the use of temporary files on calendar import.
- Added a new menu item below "Export Calendar..." for "vcs Support Options". This was necessary since the options dialog could not be incorporated into the existing export dialog.
- Added locales for fr-FR, nl-NL, de-DE, ko-KR, af-ZN, pt-PT and he-IL (thanks to all the translators at Babelzilla for this)

Bugfixes:

- All day events should, hopefully behave a bit better now.

I'm off on holidays for the next month, so there'll be no real support available until November.

vcs Support 0.4.1

2007-09-04T01:53:00.000+01:00

Due to a minor cock up, I've released version 0.4.1 of .vcs Support so that it now works in Sunbird and in all included locales, where it did not before.

It is available, as usual from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page

vcs Support 0.4

2007-09-02T01:53:00.000+01:00

vcs Support 0.4 is here already, full of new bits and pieces, including the ability to import vCalendar files (woo hoo!) and due to this, a name change. I've also added the ability to export recurring events as separate events for each occurrence, and the ability to export a date range for this function.

It is available, as usual from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page. However, we're getting closer to nominating for public listing.

vcs Export 0.3.1

2007-08-25T01:51:00.000+01:00

vcsexport 0.3.1 has been released, which fixes a bug where events with recurrences were not exported correctly. I really should have tested more thoroughly before releasing 0.3, because it was a stupid mistake (not changing back something I altered for a test) Anyway..

It is available, as usual from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page.

vcs Export 0.3

2007-08-22T01:50:00.000+01:00

vcsexport 0.3 has been released, adding support for recurring events and a number of other enhancements and bugfixes.

It is available, as usual from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page.vcs

vcs Export 0.2.1

2007-08-03T01:52:00.000+01:00

Following on from the recent release of vcs export 0.2, I'm pleased to release version 0.2.1, which fixes a bug where alarm times were incorrectly generated.

It is available from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4721 as usual. You will need to register and activate the AMO sandbox to see this page.

vcs Export 0.2

2007-07-20T01:49:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to announce the release of .vcs Export 0.2, an extension for Mozilla Sunbird and Thunderbird/Lightning. The extension adds the ability to export calendars in the vCalendar format, which can be read by many mobile devices and other calendar programs which may not be able to read iCalendar files.

The extension still has several shortcomings, so for now, it remains in the addons.mozilla.org sandbox, for which you need to be registered to access. Note that you may have to access your account settings and select "Show Sandbox" before you can see it (I'm not sure if this is still the case) The extension may be obtained here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/sunbird/addon/4721
If you do download it and try it, please leave a review or some feedback.

This version of the extension still only exports the first instance of a recurring event. However, a bug which led to all day events being exported incorrectly has been addressed. Locales for ga-IE(Irish) and it-IT(Italian) have also been added.

Version of vcs Support	Version of Thunderbird/Sunbird	Version of Lightning