Using Google Calendar, Thunderbird and Lighting to full effect

[utkjamie]

Remember The Milk (http://rememberthemilk.com) is a very powerful and useful task list manager that can be integrated in Google Calendar.

Some of the great features include:

- SMS reminders of due tasks
- Tagging of tasks for easy retrieval
- Adding tasks via email (even better if you use this with http://jott.com)
- Custom task folders
- Custom task searches (e.g. show all tasks that require less than 20 minutes to complete, show all tasks due this week, etc)

[mmoalem]

i use plaxo (plaxo.com) to master sync all my pims and web based accounts

[dmfield]

I have to say i'm shocked.. some very positive reponse

to TheCat.. What screen shots would you like? its just thunderbird, google and a simple smartphone package..

With reference to the other two issues

contacts and todo

I will look into this.. I agree, we would be getting closer to the holy grail

Thanks for the positive responses.

[ghostis]

Now all we need is for Google to accept the fact that people want a to-do list included with their email (gMail) and their calendar (gCal). It's so painfully easy to implement, but also such a painfully needed feature that the Google suite lacks.

Based on this, we'd then need to find a way to add/update the to-do list offline, and then your Thunderbird solution would be near perfect.

You can implement a todo list manually with tags and filters:

Email with the to address bill+action@gmail.com automatically tags the email with the "Action" tag. To mark a task finished, tag the email "finished". If Thunderbird can handle tagging (have not checked recently), then this technique can be used offline as well.

or you can install the GTDInbox Firefox extension, which automates the above concept.

-Adam

[mcdee]

Has anyone managed to get this working successfully with gutsy? I had this working fine under feisty but with gutsy the panel after I set the URL the 'next' button doesn't do anything so I can't do anything but cancel...

[Blixter]

Hi!

I had the same problem and found out that if you install the lightning from synaptic package manager everyting seems to work fine.

-Blixter

[StooJ]

If Thunderbird can handle tagging (have not checked recently)

The most recent version does, yep.

Interesting thread. I'm looking for something similar, but my phone is palm OS based, not Windows Mobile.

Sooner or later I'll have to upgrade it, and it's good to know I don't need to dread it so much if there is a linux-syncing route.

[mikemn84]

I've been able to set up lightning with reading and writing to my google calendar. I was also able to subscribe to a public calendar without an issue using the iCal feed. What I can't get to work is to subscribe calendars that are shared with my google calendar. These are listed under "Other Calendars" but they aren't fully public. In calendar settings, it says "Anyone can: see nothing" and "You can: see all event details".

When I go to settings, I do have the choice to use the XML, ICAL, and HTML feeds provided, but when I've tried putting them in as a new calendar in Lightning, none of the events come up.

So I can't subscribe to them the same way I subscribed to my calendar with google provider because I don't have the username/pw for them, but it seems I also can't subscribe via iCal because it isn't fully public. Is there a way to view these shared calendars with Lightning?

[venik212]

I tried to implement this under Kubuntu, but the Thunderbird version that is in the repository is 1.5, and this calendar sharing trick requires Thunderbird 2. Is there a simple way to upgrade? I downloaded TB2, but have no instructions for its installation.

[CaseyR]

So I can't subscribe to them the same way I subscribed to my calendar with google provider because I don't have the username/pw for them, but it seems I also can't subscribe via iCal because it isn't fully public. Is there a way to view these shared calendars with Lightning?

i think i have the same issue as you, but im not quite sure what the cause is. my original calendar is writable from sunbird but the following calendars i have created in google are read-only. the link provided by google xml for the first calendar contains "my username%40gmail.com" whereas the others contain "some numbers and letters %40group.calendar.google.com"

has this issue been resolved? any help would be appreciated. if needed i can re-explain my situation.


EDIT: problem solved. i was entering the wrong login when prompted.