Mozilla Calls on User Community Today for Testing 80
lisah writes "As Mozilla prepares to release updates for its calendar applications Sunbird and Lightning, project developers are calling on the user community to participate in the final stages of testing. The Mozilla Calendar Team has proclaimed today as Test Case Writing Day and users worldwide are encouraged to participate. Mozilla developer Clint Talbert tells NewsForge that today's event is a pre-cursor to the Calendar Test Day Mozilla will hold later this month prior to the final release of version 0.3."
Profit! (Score:4, Interesting)
I like the idea of having the users contribute like this. Something that I really like about Mozilla is the fact that its users are given a big voice. Not all OSS asks for so much input from non-coding users. I always look forward to new releases, too, as the organization seems to wait to release instead of rushing crap.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart! (Score:2)
2. Write Test Cases
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
I finally know what the ??? is!!!
Re:Thank you from the bottom of my heart! (Score:1)
Re:Profit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Profit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
It's not a prize if everyone recieves it regardless of merit.
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Re:Profit! (Score:1)
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Re:Profit! (Score:3, Informative)
QED. Do I get a cookie?
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Probably because he tried to install the retail version over an earlier beta or release candidate. I'd bet good money he completely violated the beta/RC instructions when it came to upgrading, and that (not some nefarious install bug from Redmond) was the cause of his woes.
RTFM. Live it, learn it, love it.
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Re:Profit! (Score:2)
Re-neter all your dates again, I suppose (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Re-neter all your dates again, I suppose (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:5, Informative)
Lightning supports CalDAV [isoc.org] for sharing calendar information. Apple announced yesterday that Leopard iCal Server and the iCal application will both talk CalDAV, they released the server at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/collaboration [macosforge.org]. Bedework [bedework.org] is making a lot of progress as an institutional calendar server.
Oracle has a CalDAV stack. IBM has some stuff in the works as well.
It looks like exchange will have a fight on its hands very soon.
I've been helping on a CalDAV plugin for Outlook called Open Connector [openconnector.org], which allows Outlook to take to CalDAV servers like Apple's and Bedework. We always need help, if you have a lot of experience developing COM apps in C++, come help out.
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:3, Interesting)
Will Open Connector allow for synchronisation as well or will it only provide import/export?
It does allow you to view/modify events on a CalDAV server in Outlook as if it were on an Exchange server.
i.e. can I synchronise my work calender (which uses Outlook/Exchange) to a second server and sync that one with my own PC/phone/PDA/whatever?
That's the plan, though things are buggy still. We haven't completed sharing, though individual calendars work.
The connector is different from import/export filters
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
If Open Connector replaces the local message store and transport layers, will it also make it impossible to use Exchange and CalDAV server alternately? In order to achieve synchronisation between calendars on an exchange server and calendars on a CalDAV server, something has to support both at the same time or at least alternately. (I am not experienced with Lotus, so I don't know how this stuff works there).
Or is the own implementation still supporting Exchange as well
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
If your goal is simply to replicate data from an Exchange server in a CalDAV server, I can't help but think it'd make more sense to simply provide a proxy that talks CalDAV on one end and Exchange on the other end and translates the data direct from the source. Certainly less troublesome than constant two-way syncing, especially if that syncing is done on the client.
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
I agree that your option would be ideal if I could get it set up properly...
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
I do not only wish to replicate one way, I need the two to be sync'ed. So a entry made at a client should appear at the secretary and an appointment made by the secretary should appear on my pda/phone
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:3, Interesting)
I would guess that "CalDAV" is shorthand for "WebDAV serving iCal-format files."
Yes
By the way, iCal isn't an Apple format; although it was invented there, it's been submitted as a standard IIRC.
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing there is something different with caldav vs the old system of just throwing up ical files via webdav.
Yes. The old system wasn't really a standard. Eg. How can the client figure out your free/busy time? Or how should the files be name? etc.
CalDAV specifies storage, and also the reporting of the stored calendar data. So the calendar client can ask 'What events happen between th 10th and 14th?' or a query for appointments in the month of June, etc. without downloading an entire folder of *.ics files.
The situation is much improved.
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, iCal isn't an Apple format; although it was invented there, it's been submitted as a standard IIRC.
I don't think so. iCal, ie. iCalendar is RFC 2445. Microsoft and Lotus employees are listed as principals on that one. That became a standard in '98.
What Apple did, unfortunately, is choose the iCal name for their application. A name most people used to refer to the files conforming to RFC 2445 and others.
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:2)
Two-way sync with a web calendar would be an ideal situation, much like IMAP allows synchronization with webmail and loc
Re:Lots of Calendar news lately (Score:3, Informative)
Just out of interest... (Score:3, Interesting)
Y
Excellent testing model (Score:4, Interesting)
It's their way of saying, our software is probably full of holes but with your help we can make it better.
MS tried that with XP and their error reporting feature. From what I understand, their success was amazing with that tool... however I never felt someone say that they felt appreciated for submiting their error reports.
Gotta love companies who realize that it's the users not the software that make their product great. Give users what they want, make them feel like they are appreciated, and most of all respect them; keys to any truely great software (or any other product for that matter). Now if only we could get the RIAA and the rest of the media companies bent on making fair use mean fairly usable to understand what customers want.
Where do I sign up... (Score:3, Funny)
Funny, zero KDE integration was my favorite thing (Score:1)
Re:Funny, zero KDE integration was my favorite thi (Score:1)
Re:Where do I sign up... (Score:2, Insightful)
My test case... (Score:3, Insightful)
And didn't they ditch iCal support in
Good thing every other mail/calendaring program on the planet now supports the format, correctly usually, and stores things in it. I'm afraid in this case the open source solution is light years behind Apple (no surprise) and even Microsoft (they arent even trying).
Re:My test case... (Score:1)
What they did, was to change the internal storage format from
Before the switch to SQLite Sunbird/Lightning would become awfully slow or even unusable with larger
Re:My test case... (Score:2, Interesting)
True. Go to File > Export... and look! It's trying to save as an
> What they did, was to change the internal storage format from
Performance wasn't the only reason for the switch. In fact, in some particular situations, the SQLite backend is actually slower than 0.2's
Re:Test Case On Windows XP (Score:1)
SHIP IT!
do you really want 'users' writing test cases? (Score:1)
Re:do you really want 'users' writing test cases? (Score:2)
Re:Hey firefox developers (Score:2)
I'm sure you're aware that neither of these issues are anything that the Firefox team can do anything about. You should be addressing your complaints and
Re:Hey firefox developers (Score:2)
I'm sure you're aware that neither of these issues are anything that the Firefox team can do anything about. You should be addressing your complaints and bug reports to the developers of the plugins that implement those functions. That'd be Adobe, right?
Or he could be requesting native pdf support without adobe's plugin. via gs code or similar. I'd like to second that.
Re:Hey firefox developers (Score:2)
Re:Hey firefox developers (Score:2, Funny)
Shockwave Flash 8.0 r22
Adobe Acrobat Plug-In Version 7.00 for Netscape
Works for me, sounds like your chair-to-keyboard interface is broken.
Not so interested (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not so interested (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be so sure. We're a small mostly-Windows shop (Win/Linux/Mac for developers, Windows for the admin/sales/mktg folks) and we have no M$ servers. Linux-based mail/dns/fileserver infrastructure. Everyone uses Tbird/Ffox, no IE. Outlook doesn't really play well into that kind of environment; so we REALLY need shareable calendars. Right now Chandler & Sunbird aren't far enough along for real business use (at least not a couple of months ago); even event notification was unreliable in Sunbird. iCal is OK but Mac-only. Vista for us is a far-off upgrade.
So at least some of us are very interested in recent Chandler and Sunbird progress.
Re:Not so interested (Score:2)
Re:Not so interested (Score:1)
I am skeptical... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I don't want my users doing that for my code.
Besides, whatever happened to "Test First"?
Enjoy, Randy.
Re:I am skeptical... (Score:1)
Re:I am skeptical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Something tells me that users should not be writing test cases.
Yeah, you're right. Those users, they don't know how the application should be used.
Re:I am skeptical... (Score:1)
I think what you are saying is that users should be involved while writing the *Requirements* and *Use Cases*.
--
Sorry I don't have a sig.
Randy.
Not me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not me... (Score:1)
build system (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it have?? (Score:1)
Google Calendar (Score:1)
I think it may have been Google's different interpretation of the iCal spec, like failing to put an end date on the event, but was something that could easily be detected and corrected for on the input side.
It pretty much made me stick with just GooCal.
Re:Google Calendar (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Google Calendar (Score:1)
I have a feeling that, a year from now, we'll be waiting breathlessly as one or both actually begins to approach version 1.0.
Mozilla "non flagship" products need a test plan (Score:1)
Similarly, current Xulrunner 1.9 nightly builds run very slow -- need to revert to the version from Sept. 2005. Xulrunner is relevant because to help with Sunbird you need to know XUL. Learning XUL, you cannot even find a "Hello World" program to get started, instead the tutorials at xulplanet.com try to wow you w