293563 - Firefox Lightning

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Calendar :: Lightning Only, enhancement)

Description

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Install Lightning into Firefox, go to
chrome://lightning/content/lightning-standalone.xul .

As long as you don't modify any native components or interfaces, you can just
re-make and then hit the Reload All Chrome button from the extension developers'
extension.

Some visual bits could be better, but it's certainly usable for testing and
developing.  The visual bits won't be hard to fix, either.

Comment 1

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Attachment: standalone-lightning.patch

standalone/firefox lightning patch

Comment 2

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

Comment on attachment 183123 [details] [diff] [review]
standalone-lightning.patch

I'd almost like to factor the overlays better so that messenger-sidebar-overlay
just overlays "empty" contact points into the tbird UI, and then we can have
real overlays that bring in the meat of the sidebar pane, calendar view, etc. 
But this sure is a good start.

Comment 3

[John Gaunt (redfive)]

Isn't this checked in now? I swear I just used this.

Comment 4

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

This is checked in; we still need to add a few more hooks, though.  In
particular for the other views, but also for prefs and a few other things.

Comment 5

[Matthew (lilmatt) Willis]

dmose,
Should this be assigned to jminta now?

Comment 6

[Hans metselaar]

tried to instal Lightning 0.3.
when installing on firefox 1.5.0.8 got the message lighting not compatible with firefox.
upgraded instantly to firefox 2.0
tried to install and again got the same message.  

Comment 7

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> tried to instal Lightning 0.3. when installing on firefox 1.5.0.8 got
> the message lighting not compatible with firefox.

Lightning is a Thunderbird only extension and can't be installed in Firefox. For install instructions see [http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/releases/lightning0.3.html#downloadandinstall]

Comment 8

[fcolina]

The way to get around the firefox incompatibility is to use a browser _other_
than firefox to download the lightning-0.3.win32.xpi file.  Then, from within
thunderbird (ver 1.5-2.0), use the tools-->extensions command to install lightning.
Pretty obvious if you don't happen to be using firefox, but otherwise
a catch-22 since firefox will prevent you from getting the extension
in the first place

"tried to instal Lightning 0.3.
when installing on firefox 1.5.0.8 got the message lighting not compatible with
firefox."

Comment 9

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

IMO this bug should be WONTFIX.

We have more than enough work on our hands with Lightning in Thunderbird and Sunbird and I see nobody with enough time and energy, who would be interested in keeping Lightning in Firefox afloat.

I know that we talked about a possible browser integration story, but it didn't materialize. Dan, what do you think?

Comment 10

[fcolina]

To download Lightning, you can't be using Firefox as it will think you're trying to modify it and you'll get the:
"...when installing on firefox 1.5.0.8 got the message lighting not compatible with firefox..."
I had to use IE to get the Lightning file on my computer and then used the Tools-->Extensions command within Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 to add the Lightning functionality to Thunderbird.

Comment 11

[Michiel van Leeuwen (email: mvl+moz@)]

Yes, I agree that this is wontfix. I don't think that anybody is going to maintain this.

[e-mail]: your comment doesn't belong in this bug. And I can download lightning just fine using firefox, by using the context menu.

Comment 12

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

WONTFIX means "if the fix was free and available, we wouldn't take it, because fixing the bug would give us behaviour that we do not want".  Assigned-to-nobody with severity enh and TM future is what you mean here, if I understand the reasoning in the preceding comments.  Reopening optimistically for that reason.

Comment 13

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> WONTFIX means "if the fix was free and available, we wouldn't take it, because
> fixing the bug would give us behaviour that we do not want".

No, WONTFIX means exactly that: 
"We will not fix this bug and will not take patches that are offered to us."

> Assigned-to-nobody with severity enh and TM future is what you mean here

We will not give people false hopes for this bug.

> Reopening optimistically for that reason.

Resolving again.

Comment 14

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

(In reply to comment #13)
> (In reply to comment #12)
> > WONTFIX means "if the fix was free and available, we wouldn't take it, because
> > fixing the bug would give us behaviour that we do not want".
> 
> No, WONTFIX means exactly that: 
> "We will not fix this bug and will not take patches that are offered to us."

Yes, indeed, that's almost exactly the same thing I wrote above.  Would we not let someone maintain Lightning on Firefox in the mozilla/calendar tree?  I thought that it was something to which the calendar team had decided not to devote energy, rather than something that they would actively reject and force a fork over (f.e.).

> > Assigned-to-nobody with severity enh and TM future is what you mean here
> 
> We will not give people false hopes for this bug.

False hopes meaning that you would accept someone's work to make it work, or false hopes that someone is working on it?  The latter is indicated by nobody/future, IMO.

I'm not going to re-open it again, though; if your intent is really to signal that Lightning will explicitly reject anyone's work to make it function in Firefox, no matter the quality or painlessness of such patches, I'm not going to keep arguing about it.

Comment 15

[Matthew (lilmatt) Willis]

jminta has already started some work for Ln-in-Fx.  We won't fork over it, and we won't reject it if he (or others) come up with code to make it work.  In addition, with extensions such as Operator [1], consuming hCalendar data and doing something useful with it, without requiring Sunbird, is looking more like something we will want to support.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4106/

Reopening.

Comment 16

[Michiel van Leeuwen (email: mvl+moz@)]

I'm not so sure that we will support a patch. It's not just the patch. Not at all.
First of all, it will increase the famous testing matrix. We have one (or actually three, if you count the os-es) more configurations to support.
Furthermore, it makes installing lightning in thunderbird (the main application) harder. At the moment, if you just click the link in firefox, you will get an error message. The user knows that something went wrong, and can go to actually read the installation instructions. But if lightning can be installed in firefox, you will get a success message, while in fact, there was no success. Lightning was installed in the wrong place. So the user has no idea what went wrong.

And hCalendar and Operator is not related to this. We need to make sunbird and lightning-in-thunderbird have a way to add items from external applications.

Comment 17

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

(In reply to comment #14)
>> No, WONTFIX means exactly that: 
>> "We will not fix this bug and will not take patches that are offered to us."
> 
> Yes, indeed, that's almost exactly the same thing I wrote above.

Yes, almost. ;-)

> Would we not let someone maintain Lightning on Firefox in the 
> mozilla/calendar tree? I thought that it was something to which the 
> calendar team had decided not to devote energy, rather than something 
> that they would actively reject and force a fork over (f.e.).

Now we're talking of two different things here. Providing a patch for Firefox Lightning and maintaining Firefox Lightning are two totally different things.

The first one is pretty easy, the second one is much harder in the long run. 
In addition there are the reservations that mvl voiced (bigger testing matrix, 
higher likelihood of user confusion).

To this I would add the fact that a lot of the current feature work that is 
going on especially from the Sun side is going towards a tighter Thunderbird 
integration which will make Firefox Lightning much harder to maintain, 
especially since I see no willingness from Sun to support Firefox in their 
patches. Them supporting Sunbird is as far as we can probably go without 
risking a Sun fork IMO, which is far more dreadful than someone forking because 
of Firefox integration.
 
>> We will not give people false hopes for this bug.
> 
> False hopes meaning that you would accept someone's work to make it work

Yes, although I'm speaking only for myself here (with the obvious backing of 
mvl).

But since we should avoid this RESOLVE-REOPEN ping-pong, it would probably be 
best to discuss this on our weekly Wednesday meeting http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Status. It would be great if you could make it.

Comment 18

[Michiel van Leeuwen (email: mvl+moz@)]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Yes, although I'm speaking only for myself here (with the obvious backing of 
> mvl).

I'm not saying we should wontfix this bug. I'm saying that we won't take a patch if there is nobody to support it in the long run. And if there is somebody, we need to find a way to resolve the issues I mentioned.
There is a lot more to this bug then just a patch.

Comment 19

[Joey Minta]

(In reply to comment #17)
> The first one is pretty easy, the second one is much harder in the long run. 
Then that's a condition required for the patch to be accepted.  Just because it's "hard" to persuade the team to land a patch doesn't make a bug WONTFIX.

> In addition there are the reservations that mvl voiced (bigger testing matrix, 
> higher likelihood of user confusion).
When I envisioned Firefox-Lightning, I imagined it would remain a prototype for quite awhile.  This means that releases simply wouldn't care about it.  Note also that the original patches I had for this actually embedded all of Lightning in firefox, so as long as the overlays worked, there was no additional testing needed.*

> 
> To this I would add the fact that a lot of the current feature work that is 
> going on especially from the Sun side is going towards a tighter Thunderbird 
> integration which will make Firefox Lightning much harder to maintain, 
See above.  This is wrong for 2 reasons. (a) Since the entire lightning xpi can be embedded, there's nothing additional to maintain.* (b) Any additional work needed to ensure continued functionality is something the maintainer would need to sign up for.  An additional hurdle, but not a WONTFIX.

> 
> But since we should avoid this RESOLVE-REOPEN ping-pong, it would probably be 
> best to discuss this on our weekly Wednesday meeting
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Status. It would be great if you could make
> it.
> 
See also http://groups-beta.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.calendar/browse_thread/thread/797290dc591045a/bf69d2d51ec34663?lnk=gst&q=browser+prototype&rnum=1#bf69d2d51ec34663

*Note that additional discussions I had with folks this summer indicate that this may not be the best way to go about making Firefox-Lightning.  The way that will all play out remains to be seen.

Comment 20

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Nothing has happened here for two years and we are moving more and more towards a tighter integration with Thunderbird.

-> WONTFIX