Introduction

You can turn your Thunderbird e-mail client into a Personal Information Manager (PIM) by integrating your Google Calendar(s) into Thunderbird.

Procedure

1. Download the Thunderbird Lightning Add-On. This extension allows you to manage your daily schedule (events and tasks) directly within Thunderbird.

   
   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313
   
   

2. Download the Thunderbird Provider for Google Calendar Add-On. This extension allows Sunbird and Lightning to read and write events to a Google Calendar.

   
   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631
   
   

3. Install the Thunderbird Add-ons:

   
   Thunderbird -> Tools -> Add-ons -> Install
   
   

4. Restart Thunderbird.
5. In Thunderbird's lower-left corner, new icons let you toggle among 'Mail, 'Calendar', and 'Tasks'.
6. Toggle to the calender by clicking the 'Calendar' icon.
7. Find your Google Calendar Private Address in iCal format. Follow these instructions:

   
   https://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:GDATA_Provider#Accessing_your_Calendar
   
   

   The Google Calendar Private Address in iCal (.ics) format will be a URL of this form. This is the UB CSE Google Calendar:

   https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/ub.cse.cal%40gmail.com/private-bacdd318134d56ae248f7969c54f2bc7/basic.ics

8. Add Google Calendar(s) to Thunderbird client.
   1. In Thunderbird, find the Calendar area in the left-hand sidebar.
   2. Right-click below the 'Calendar' heading.
   3. Select New Calendar... -> On the Network -> Format: 'Google Calendar', Location = [Your Google Calendar Private Address in iCal format] -> Next
   4. Customize the calendar. Set Name: CSE Google Calendar, Color:red -> Next
   5. Finish

Problems

1. The RHEL yum-managed thunderbird distro is not compatible with the two plugins (because of differing, incompatible version numbering schemes). So to participate, you cannot use your local thunderbird installation in /usr/bin/thunderbird. You'll need to use our shared thunderbird installation in /util/thunderbird/thunderbird.

References

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_information_management
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar