The Rumbling Edge

Last week, I promised a survey on Thunderbird 2 after my college one, so here it is:

Thunderbird 2 survey version 1, done up end-Oct 07.

It comprises 10 questions, some optional, and should take no more than 10 minutes of your time.

Please note that the survey is not commissioned by Mozilla nor anybody else; this is just something I am doing in my own free time. All comments are welcome, and if I have enough time / feedback, I might do up an improved version. Thank you!

Discussions can be found on Mozilla Labs forum or MozillaZine forums as well. Other bloggers' responses are here as well.

Edit: Here are some initial results out of 150 complete responses: (75 within ~2.5 hrs, and a consistent rate till 150 within 5 hrs!)

1. 57% power users, with 33% average users.
2. Respondents were generally quite satisfied with almost every aspect listed, though more were satisfied to the fullest due to adherence to open standards and its stability.
3. More than half went to MozillaZine for Thunderbird support. The next closest, at 16%, were Mozilla newsgroups.
4. 71% keep track of Thunderbird development through Planet Mozilla blogs. Forums came in at 34%, Bugzilla at 21%. The Rumbling Edge was mentioned too. :) Only 7 out of 150 did not answer this optional question.
5. Top ranked improvements to current functionalities was "Improved global search across all types of accounts" at an average rating of 1.9 out of 8. Improved spam filtering came in a close second at 2.3.
6. Top ranked enhancements to Thunderbird (be it as an extension or otherwise) were "Default calendaring support" at an average rating of 2.0 out of 14, followed by synchronization of data with mobile devices at 3.1 and search bar improvements at 3.3 out of 14. The ones after that are find-as-you-type at 5.2, and collapsing of quotes at 6.6.
7. 20 respondents use the Mac version.
8. Generally, Keychain support to store passwords was ranked comparatively more important than ability to search mail in Spotlight, whilst mail alerts came in after that, and "Others" brought up the rear. (25 respondents though vs 20 Mac version users.)
9. To increase the number of Thunderbird users, 51% opted for more features, while the runners-up include better support, improved marketing and involvement of the community at a statistical tie of ~44% +/- 1%.
10. Other features suggested include encryption of data, Jabber protocol support, better address book features, roaming profile, more colours for organization of data throughout the app, better IMAP support, improved filtering and better documentation on issues like how to create extensions for Thunderbird.

Thanks to everyone who have responded so far!

Edit 2: I'm currently looking around for some decent hosting. Any suggestions? Any offers to help unlock future responses beyond the 250 free ones? (I could take some out of my own pockets as well, but have limited financial capabilities; donations can be made though)

Edit 3: The responses are about to shoot over the 250 limit, and now have 236 responses in 14 hours. I am grateful to m. aram**, who has donated to offset the subscription, and I hope others would do the same. I will up to the next level (to 1,000), forking out some from my own pocket, in the next half a day or so. Thank you!

Edit 4: Within ~20 hours from the start, the limit has been reached; paid subscription has to be made to create reports on more responses. A report has been compiled and available for view for the first 249 responses.

Edit 5: More responses have been unlocked already, up till a limit of a thousand.

Final edit here: Offers of hosting have come in, the responses have been racing up (as of now ~290 complete ones), and I'll continue on the survey progress in a new post in a few days time. Meanwhile, I will still track comments at the two forums linked above. Thanks to all who have helped in one way or another!

Current Sunbird (0.7) | Next planned Sunbird (0.8) | Previous releases

Common:

• Fixed: 396938 - Tracking bug for L10n issues regarding Sunbird/Lightning 0.7 release
• Fixed: 399865 - prepare files to push on aus2.mozilla.org for sunbird 0.5 -> 0.7 update
• Fixed: 400168 - Exclude mn locale for 0.7 release and remove from shipped-locales
• Fixed: 400670 - Output format dialog opens as dot

Common (Providers):

• Fixed: 393853 - Upload nightly builds for the Provider for Google Calendar extension
• Fixed: 400871 - General listener is called even when not defined

No significant outstanding bugs.

Sunbird & Lightning 0.7 final has been released. This will be the last post for the 0.7 nightlies category.

Lightning .xpi: - Please download 0.7 final builds instead.

Official Windows .xpi,WCAP

Official Linux .xpi,WCAP

Official Mac .xpi,WCAP

Sunbird builds: - Please download 0.7 final builds instead.

Official Windows, Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Sunbird (0.5) | Next planned Sunbird (0.7) | Previous releases

Calendars:

• Fixed (again): 357687 - Jewish Calendar, in Hebrew and English (conribution for Lightning)
• Fixed: 397353 - Hungarian Public Holidays in ICS format
• Fixed: 398845 - Update Canada holidays
• Fixed: 400037 - Hong Kong public holidays in ics file

Common:

• Fixed: 385155 - Reminder /alarm dialog doesn't show times in configured timezone
• Fixed: 399616 - Event on daylight saving time start or end day showing incorrect hour in day and week view [summer time]
• Fixed: 399780 - [Proto] setting for reminders for tasks not taken into account if no day has been selected
• Fixed: 400370 - [TodayPane] weektitle of miniday is not always correctly calculated

Sunbird-only:

• Fixed: 400407 - Conflicting entries in removed-files.in break update process

No outstanding bugs marked critical or blocker.

For outstanding bugs with severity level major and below, please see this list of bugs with 0.7+ flags. (Currently 3 at time of writing)

0.7 RC 3 builds have been released for testing on 24 Oct 07. (Lightning / Sunbird).

Lightning .xpi:

Official Windows .xpi, WCAP

Official Linux .xpi, WCAP

Official Mac .xpi, WCAP

Sunbird builds:

Official Windows, Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.13) | Next planned Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.14) | Previous releases

No checkins during this period.

No outstanding bugs.

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.6) | Next planned Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.8) | Previous releases

Build configuration:

• Fixed: 399207 - Add Hebrew to Thunderbird 2.0.0.8 for Windows and Linux

Outstanding bugs: (6)

• Since 20 Jun 06: 342154 - No more confirmation dialog of attachment correctly saved if attachment file type listed as "save to disk" and "save without asking" option is checked
• Since 20 Nov 06: 361279 - standalone mesage window: Unable to Retrieve Message when 'Retrieve Headers Only' applied
• Since 21 Nov 06: 361417 - Crtl-Shift-A is no longer selecting the entire thread
• Since 07 Jan 07: 366255 - Exception thrown in nsIEditor.inlineSpellChecker when opening/closing the compose window
• Since 29 Jan 07: 368617 - Account setting "OK" button not saving data.
• Since 24 Apr 07: 378635 - Tracking Bug: Bugs to Fix in TB2.0.0.x before offering a major update

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

I am having a really busy time at school now, being in the midst of starting to consolidate / analyze the results of the survey for my college project (212 complete responses within a week; 38 more before we hit the limit!) and stalling on creating a Thunderbird-themed one due to lack of time (will appreciate help).

I noticed that Gmail just activated their IMAP support, and here are their instructions for getting it to work on Thunderbird 2 (saw it on Slashdot). As it is currently being rolled out to all accounts, I guess some of us will have to wait till it has been completed.

Edit: The survey for my college project has been closed. Thank you all who have responded!

Some 48 hours ago, I started a survey on intellectual property, P2P and piracy (forgot to add: there's some focus on Singapore!), for my university project. Though some questions admittedly could have been better phrased / organized / improved options, about 150 of you have responded.

Here are some preliminary results based on 150 complete responses (all percentages are approximated):

Questions 1 - 7:

• 56% of respondents were 19-25 years old, with 27% aged 26-35.
• 51% were students, while 25% were IT professionals.
• The respondents mostly downloaded free (as in any type of "free", be it legal or otherwise) software (82% of all respondents), music (70%), movies (49%) and literary works (45%).
• 48% thought that patents encouraged innovations, most understood plagiarism (79%), and 81% regarded plagiarism as serious, so most (94%) would quote a paragraph and give credits, or rewrite in their own words.

Currently, the survey is still on, so please head on to the survey page (3 pages with 26 questions in total) hosted at SurveyGizmo if you haven't done so. There is still enough quota for about a hundred more responses for a free account. Personally, I find SurveyGizmo a pretty good deal considering its feature set as compared to other online survey sites.

Thanks to all in advance.

Edit: The survey has been closed. Thank you all who have responded!

Excerpt of results:

1. What is your age?
   • 19 - 25 years -> 53%
   • 26 - 35 years -> 30%
   • 36 - 45 years -> 6%
   • 13 - 18 years -> 5%
   • More than 45 years old -> 5%
2. What is your occupation?
   • Student -> 49%
   • IT Professional -> 28%
   • Others -> 14%
   • Engineer -> 5%
   • Unemployed -> 4%
3. What do you download off the internet for free? Check all that applies.
   • Software -> 84%
   • Music -> 70%
   • Movies -> 49%
   • Literary Works (e-books, journals, etc) -> 44%
   • Anime -> 19%
   • Others -> 13%
4. A patent is a monopoly right given by the Government to the owner of an invention to enable him to prevent others from using, copying or making his invention without his consent. Do you think patents encourage innovations? 1 being extremely disagree and 5 being extremely agree.
   • 4 -> 39%
   • 3 -> 24%
   • 2 -> 20%
   • 1 -> 12%
   • 5 -> 6%
5. How much do you understand about plagiarism? 1 being none at all and 5 being fully understand.
   • 5 -> 42%
   • 4 -> 41%
   • 3 -> 14%
   • 2 -> 2%
   • 1 -> 1%
6. Plagiarism is the using of others' work passing off as your own without acknowledging. How serious does plagiarism mean to you? 1 being not serious at all and 5 being extremely serious about it.
   • 4 -> 51%
   • 5 -> 32%
   • 3 -> 12%
   • 2 -> 4%
   • 1 -> 1%
7. How do you make use of online sources for your field of work?
   • Quote a paragraph and give credits to it -> 53%
   • Understand the essence of the paragraph and write it in your own words -> 42%
   • Modify a quote marginally and claim it as yours -> 5%
   • Copy and paste an entire paragraph into your assignment without referencing -> 1%
8. What do you think are the factors that make people want to plagiarise? Check all that applies.
   • Lazy to write in your own words -> 78%
   • Last minute work -> 63%
   • Want a higher score -> 46%
   • Poor command of language -> 44%
   • Lack of confidence in writing -> 43%
   • Others -> 19%

Thunderbird 1.5.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until October 18, 2007. There will most likely only be one more release from Gecko 1.8.0.x branch, which is version 1.5.0.14.

Lightning support will most likely to be dropped for Thunderbird 1.5 after Lightning 0.7 is released. The Calendar developers are awaiting feedback over this.

Current Sunbird (0.5) | Next planned Sunbird (0.7) | Previous releases

Common:

• Fixed: 398046 - Commit trunk localization of calendar to MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH and SUNBIRD_0_7_BRANCH
• Fixed: 399433 - [Proto] Automatic scrolling feature doesn't work when searching for the next free meeting slot

No outstanding bugs marked critical or blocker.

For outstanding bugs with severity level major and below, please see this list of bugs with 0.7+ flags. (Currently 2 at time of writing)

0.7 RC 2 builds have been released for testing on 17 Oct 07. (Lightning / Sunbird). Volunteer testers can gather on Thursday, October 18, for testing of the final 0.7 release in #calendar-qa on IRC (the server is irc.mozilla.org).

Lightning .xpi:

Official Windows .xpi, WCAP

Official Linux .xpi, WCAP

Official Mac .xpi, WCAP

Sunbird builds:

Official Windows, Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

I've been busy on a college project involving intellectual property, peer-to-peer technologies and piracy. I would appreciate it if readers could spend around 10 minutes completing this 26 question survey. (and observe how long it would take to collate the maximum of 250 responses for this free survey tool, SurveyGizmo.)

Link to the survey (will open in a new window)

Note: There is a bit of a Singaporean focus here for this group project though.

Thanks to all who participate(d)!

Edit 1: Some 24 hours later, more than a hundred have responded...

Edit 2: See the progress here, along with some preliminary results.

Edit 3: The survey has been closed. Thank you all who have responded!

Current Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.13) | Next planned Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.14) | Previous releases

No checkins during this period.

No outstanding bugs.

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.6) | Next planned Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.8) | Previous releases

No checkins during this period.

Thunderbird 2.0.0.8 will be released after Firefox 2.0.0.8 ships. See Mozilla Weekly Updates (2007-10-15).

Outstanding bugs: (6)

• Since 20 Jun 06: 342154 - No more confirmation dialog of attachment correctly saved if attachment file type listed as "save to disk" and "save without asking" option is checked
• Since 20 Nov 06: 361279 - standalone mesage window: Unable to Retrieve Message when 'Retrieve Headers Only' applied
• Since 21 Nov 06: 361417 - Crtl-Shift-A is no longer selecting the entire thread
• Since 07 Jan 07: 366255 - Exception thrown in nsIEditor.inlineSpellChecker when opening/closing the compose window
• Since 29 Jan 07: 368617 - Account setting "OK" button not saving data.
• Since 24 Apr 07: 378635 - Tracking Bug: Bugs to Fix in TB2.0.0.x before offering a major update

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Sunbird (0.5) | Next planned Sunbird (0.7) | Previous releases

Common:

• Fixed: 375390 - New Event Boxes appear too large in month/multiweek view
• Fixed: 395071 - Create release notes for Lightning/Sunbird 0.7
• Fixed: 397642 - stale agenda update
• Fixed: 398278 - superfluous freebusy debug messages in JavaScript Console
• Fixed: 398303 - Attendees preview is broken in new event summary dialog

No outstanding bugs marked critical or blocker.

For outstanding bugs with severity level major and below, please see this list of bugs with 0.7+ flags. (Currently 3 at time of writing)

0.7 RC 1 builds have been released for testing. (Lightning / Sunbird), RC 2 will code freeze Friday 12 Oct 07 at 23:59:59 UTC. Volunteer testers can gather on Tuesday, October 16, for smoke testing of the final 0.7 release in #calendar and #calendar-qa on IRC (the server is irc.mozilla.org).

David Ascher met up with Calendar developers and a log of their meeting can be found here, which presents some insight into the immediate and future plans of Thunderbird and Sunbird / Lightning.

Lightning .xpi:

Official Windows .xpi, WCAP

Official Linux .xpi, WCAP

Official Mac .xpi, WCAP

Sunbird builds:

Official Windows, Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.13) | Next planned Thunderbird 1.5 (1.5.0.14) | Previous releases

No checkins during this period.

No outstanding bugs.

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Current Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.6) | Next planned Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.8) | Previous releases

Crash:

• Fixed: 374240 - Thunderbird crash on exit

Attachment-related:

• Fixed: 396377 - vCard sometimes cause heuristic scanners to generate a false positive

Networking:

• Fixed: 391556 - problems handling namespace that starts with hierarchy delimiter

BeOS-specific:

• Fixed: 397116 - Branch build fails due to missing BeOS libs

OpenBSD-specific:

• Fixed: 236599 - openbsd configuration fixes for alpha, amd64, arm, i386, macppc and sparc64

Outstanding bugs: (6)

• Since 20 Jun 06: 342154 - No more confirmation dialog of attachment correctly saved if attachment file type listed as "save to disk" and "save without asking" option is checked
• Since 20 Nov 06: 361279 - standalone mesage window: Unable to Retrieve Message when 'Retrieve Headers Only' applied
• Since 21 Nov 06: 361417 - Crtl-Shift-A is no longer selecting the entire thread
• Since 07 Jan 07: 366255 - Exception thrown in nsIEditor.inlineSpellChecker when opening/closing the compose window
• Since 29 Jan 07: 368617 - Account setting "OK" button not saving data.
• Since 24 Apr 07: 378635 - Tracking Bug: Bugs to Fix in TB2.0.0.x before offering a major update

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

The Rumbling Edge is getting past three years old, and >625k visits, and its layout then was quickly hacked up and ported over from The Burning Edge back then (Thanks Jesse).

I am looking to revamp the site and would like to have some ideas on what to add / delete / reorganise in order to continue to fulfill its mission on reporting on weekly Thunderbird news. Some ideas I have in mind are:

• Removal of adverts: Ads are a big pain in the eyes of the most of the readers, and I am supportive of removing most of them. Due to an improving financial situation on my side I am able to compromise by having just one ad banner (the one that is currently at the top of each individual blog post), removing the side ad blocks and the ones below the first blog posts. I am sure this will be very much welcomed over the existing situation.
• Improve the readability of the posts: I feel this is necessary, and would invite any help that anyone can offer to refine my style-site.css , changing the fonts and font sizes etc.
• Sort out the sidebar: Some links may no longer be relevant, while some links that should be present are not in. Please offer your suggestions.
• Add automated updates: Some RSS sections to latest mozilla news would be suitable as well.
• Any other ideas.

The final design should be similar to the existing layout and colour scheme and continue to be HTML 4 Transitional compliant within the existing Movabletype 3 infrastructure. I will post with credits to all who have significantly helped out after the redesign has occurred.

I would not be able to do this alone. Thus, I welcome anybody who has experience in CSS / web design / any other relevant skills and who can help redesign the site. I welcome all suggestions to make this become a better portal for weekly Thunderbird build news, in preparation for the upcoming MailCo taking over Thunderbird development.

Please feel free to post your comments below or email me (see the sidebar) for anything regarding The Rumbling Edge.

Edit: Removed lots of ads. Hopefully this makes the entire interface cleaner for a start.

Edit 2: Some CSS changes, default font increased, please let me know if it's too big. Reduced the default number of entries from 7 to 5. Bits of layout changes. Side and top links tidied. Firefox 2 image at sidebar removed.

Edit 3: Some links removed or incorporated into posts to prevent me from rebuilding site templates every time a new version is released. Reverted old search function (yes the old template sucks but taking Google search away feels better) Removed more redundant HTML code. Moved categorical archives section up the sidebar. Renamed some old categories. Ensured all posts are now compliant (previous problems mostly involved the & instead of & symbol) Pulled donation button from sidebar.

Edit 4: Removed some links in individual template, reorganized the Archives by Category in the sidebar, may create new categories to accommodate future product updates.

Edit 5: Many thanks to a reader who wished to remain anonymous. I have implemented some of his recommendations. The order of the links on the left have been suggested by him.

Edit 6: Tweaked the size of the search box on the sidebar. Decided against setting a colour for the titles of each post, it makes the whole site too "colourful". Changed some minor issues with the sidebar.

Edit 7: Changed email address to one that I check more often. Now requires a reCAPTCHA to be solved. Added a "filed under" category name for each post.

Edit for a finalized look: Increased number of posts on front page to 10. Removed obsolete links in sidebar and repaired other ones. Restored search results template to default one for MT 3.3. Added Google Analytics.

One of the Thunderbird lead developers, Scott MacGregor, will leave Mozilla Corporation on Friday 12 October 2007, but will continue on as a volunteer with his "role as a module owner for the Thunderbird project."

The Rumbling Edge would like to thank him for all the help that he has given since its establishment more than three years ago, as well as to the Thunderbird project, and wish him success in his future endeavors.

Please leave your comments over on his blog.

Edit: David Bienvenu, the other full-time developer, leaves as well.

More by:

1. Slashdot
2. PC Pro.
3. Mitchell Baker part one, part two
4. David Ascher - Open letter to the Thunderbird community
5. Jonathan Pritchard
6. Tristan Nitot
7. Robert Accettura
8. CNET News.com
9. CyberNet
10. Wired blog network
11. Ars Technica
12. Technology Guardian
13. Betanews
14. ComputerWorld

Common:

• Fixed: 377416 - Default Snooze Length not used
• Fixed: 396668 - events overlap
• Fixed: 397460 - [Today Pane] MiniDay does not change date on crossing midnight boundary
• Fixed: 397742 - clashing calendarManagerObserver definition for calendar.prototypes.wcap

Lightning-only:

• Fixed: 389240 - Lightning 0.5 not showing events
• Fixed: 396686 - "This message contains an event that this version of Lightning cannot process"

No outstanding bugs marked critical or blocker.

For outstanding bugs with severity level major and below, please see this list of bugs with 0.7+ flags. (Currently 5 at time of writing)

0.7 RC 1 builds have been released for testing. (Lightning / Sunbird)

Lightning vanilla .xpi:

Official Windows .xpi

Official Linux .xpi

Official Mac .xpi (suddenly noticed that this link wasn't properly described; was known as .xpt file which didn't make any sense)

Sunbird builds:

Official Windows, Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

No checkins during this period.

No outstanding bugs.

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Security issue:

• Fixed: 307788 - if Kerberos tickets don't exist when launching T-Bird, get Krb Ticket Manager to prompt for them

Crash:

• Fixed: 382480 - TB Crash [@ nsBidiPresUtils::ProcessText]

Miscellaneous fixes:

• Fixed: 133016 - Freetext url recognition stops at ")" and "'" (apostrophe)
• Fixed: 393196 - apply_rfc2047_encoding() erroneously inserts whitespace for addr-spec-only addresses

BeOS-specific:

• Fixed: 394946 - BeOS Thunderbird builds fail in migration code

Outstanding bugs: (6)

• Since 20 Jun 06: 342154 - No more confirmation dialog of attachment correctly saved if attachment file type listed as "save to disk" and "save without asking" option is checked
• Since 20 Nov 06: 361279 - standalone mesage window: Unable to Retrieve Message when 'Retrieve Headers Only' applied
• Since 21 Nov 06: 361417 - Crtl-Shift-A is no longer selecting the entire thread
• Since 07 Jan 07: 366255 - Exception thrown in nsIEditor.inlineSpellChecker when opening/closing the compose window
• Since 29 Jan 07: 368617 - Account setting "OK" button not saving data.
• Since 24 Apr 07: 378635 - Tracking Bug: Bugs to Fix in TB2.0.0.x before offering a major update

Official Windows, Official Windows installer (discussion)

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)