Thunderbird Calendar in Gnome 3
I love Gnome 3, but I hate the Evolution Mail Client it ships with. Thunderbird (+Lightning Extension) is superior to it in any way. In fact, Evolution is pretty much the Outlook Express of the Linux World.
However, Gnome 3 has this really nice calendar view when you click on the Clock in the Top Bar, but it pulls it’s calendar data from Evolution and there’s no easy option to get the data from Thunderbird, which I personally prefer. There’s an addon for Thunderbird called “evolution-mirror” which is supposed to sync the data, but it doesn’t seem to work with Evolution 3 anymore.
Another way to accomplish the sync is this:
First we publish the Thunderbird Calendar to a local file.
As you can see I put my Calendars into a hidden directory here, but you can really put them anywhere. After this is done, it’s time to launch Evolution. Add a new local calendar and select the file you just exported your calendar into.
Note the “On file change” option here, so it automatically refreshes when the calendar updates.
The downside of this method is that every time you update your calendar in Thunderbird you need to publish it again. However, Evolution picks up the updated calendar automatically, so that part works on it’s own. And there we go, having all our calendar date in the Gnome Top Bar.
Edit: In the comments there’s a method to “auto publish” calendars using an extension.
April 20th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
thanks for this info.
this helps for publishing calendars automatically: http://www.sunbird-kalender.de/extension/autoexport/en/index.html
April 20th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
That’s great. It actually works perfect now. Thanks!
May 17th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
[...] info dari http://dmtg.me.uk/2011/04/17/thunderbird-calendar-in-gnome-3/ untuk menghubungkan antara Thunderbird dengan Gnome3. Syaratnya Thunderbird sudah dipasangi [...]
May 29th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Thanks- although it’s annoying that I have to do this, it’s very helpful, and not at all as hard as I was expecting it to be. I just hope there are some extensions later on that tailor to using Thunderbird as the default Mail and Calendar application and integrating those features directly.
June 24th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Hi,
so there is an plugin for Thunderbird which actually “mirrors” the calendar to evolution-data-server. It might be interesting for you
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/evolution-mirror/
Best regards,
Michael
June 24th, 2011 at 8:46 am
Actually, no: ‘There’s an addon for Thunderbird called “evolution-mirror” which is supposed to sync the data, but it doesn’t seem to work with Evolution 3 anymore.’
August 10th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Thanks,
I was searching on Google how to integrate Thunderbird+Lighting on Gnome 3 and I found your site. It’s working fine here
!
Info about my system: Ubuntu 11.04 x86_64 with Gnome 3. Thunderbird 3.1.11 with Lighting 1.0b2 extension.
September 23rd, 2011 at 5:13 pm
‘“evolution-mirror” which is supposed to sync the data, but it doesn’t seem to work with Evolution 3 anymore’
It works for me. Fedora 15 i686, Evolution 3.0.3, Thunderbird 6.0.2, Lightning 1.0b5, Evolution Mirror 0.2.3
October 1st, 2011 at 3:30 am
Cheers for this. Running with Fedora 15, Gnome 3, Thunderbird 7.0 & Lightning 1.0b7.
Did not use AutoExport_0.5.0.xpi
Solution:
* Switch to Calendar mode in Thunderbird
– Menu: Events and Tasks > Calendar
– Can’t see the calendar list?
– In TB window grab the divider on the far left if you have hidden like me
* Export your calendar to /home/lardy/.calendar/home.ics
* Copy home.ics to another location, just in case
* In Thunderbird, Create a new calendar and select ‘On the Network’
* Set Location to: /home/lardy/.calendar/home.ics
* Now you can delete your original calendar from Thunderbird
* Leaving you using home.ics
* Changes made to your calendar in Thunderbird will instantly show in Gnome 3
October 1st, 2011 at 4:13 am
Sorry, typo:
* Set Location to: file:///home/lardy/.calendar/home.ics
November 11th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
CSS…
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November 14th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
evolution-mirror (version 0.2.3) works fine also here (Debian testing, evolution 3.0.3-2, thunderbird
Patrick, you should update the guide.
Thanks!
November 30th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Evolution-Mirror seams to have a problem with Evolution on Ubuntu .. It works OK on Fedora 15 & LMDE running in VB but not on anything with an Ubuntu base for some reason.
December 11th, 2011 at 11:45 am
Lardy’s solution together with the original post is beautiful! Works without any extensions and supports different calendars! Thank you so much, guys!
PS: If you want that “Open Calendar” actually starts Thunderbird instead of evolution execute this in a terminal:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.office.calendar exec thunderbird
December 29th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Thank you. It works very good except one thing: in gnome 3 calendar any event has +1 hour… How to fix it?
January 18th, 2012 at 2:20 am
candy…
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February 4th, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Hi all, to launch thunderbird from the panel made dconf-editor and in the path org / gnome / desktop / application / office / calendar and org / gnome / desktop / application / office / task (optional) replaced “evolution” with “thunderbird”
Thanks for tutorial.
February 11th, 2012 at 10:15 am
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