320975 - Default location of My Calendar file is too obscure

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Calendar :: Sunbird Only, enhancement)

Description

[Bob Vickers]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050920 Firefox/1.0.7 SUSE/1.0.7-0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20050707 Mozilla Sunbird/0.2

In my opinion Sunbird chooses a very unfriendly location for My Calendar file. On my system the file is (I think) to be found at
  ~/.mozilla/sunbird/zkyjqagt.default/Calendar/CalendarDataFile.ics

This is file is important, so I need to be able to find it. For example, I might want
(1) to share it with other users of the same computer (assuming Bug 310079 is fixed)
(2) Back it up (extremely important!)
(3) Copy it to a PDA or some other computer
(4) Try out a rival application which also uses the ICAL format

I also sometimes have to delete the .mozilla tree to solve some problem and I don't want to accidentally delete my calendar.

The calendar file doesn't belong to Mozilla, it belongs to me. I think the default location should be something like ~/MyCalendar.ics, though you should be free to change it. When you start Sunbird for the first time it should hunt around and if it finds a pre-existing calendar ask whether you want to use it. That way you don't end up with lots of different calendar files just because you have experimented with different calendar programs.

All this probably applies to Windows too, but I haven't tried Sunbird there.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Sunbird
2. find . -iname '*.ics'


Actual Results:  
Calendar file is buried in a filing cabinet behind a door marked 'Beware of the Tiger!'  

Expected Results:  
Put the file somewhere I could find it.

Comment 1

[Robin Edrenius]

The calendars isn't stored like that in Sunbird 0.3a1 and later versions, marking as invalid.

Comment 2

[Bob Vickers]

(In reply to comment #1)
> The calendars isn't stored like that in Sunbird 0.3a1 and later versions,
> marking as invalid.
> 

I just tried Sunbird 0.3a1 and I can't find the calendar file at all, so my suggestion is even more relevant. There are no new .ics files anywhere in my home directory.

Note that I'm not asking for a guru to tell me how the calendar is stored, I'm 
suggesting that the program be changed so that it is completely obvious to any user where their calendar is kept.

Comment 3

[Thorsten 'nightrat' Fritz]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > The calendars isn't stored like that in Sunbird 0.3a1 and later versions,
> > marking as invalid.
> > 
> 
> I just tried Sunbird 0.3a1 and I can't find the calendar file at all, so my
> suggestion is even more relevant. There are no new .ics files anywhere in my
> home directory.
This is right. There is no .ics file any more. 0.3a1 stores the calendar in a SQLite database. The file is called storage.sdb in your profile. That's where the calendar data should be. Different profiles, different storage.sdb. I can't think of a better place to store the calendar data.

Comment 4

[Bob Vickers]

(In reply to comment #3)
> I can't
> think of a better place to store the calendar data.
> 

Well, I have suggested a different place, and also some arguments as to why I think it is better. I don't care what happens to the data while Sunbird is running, but when Sunbird finishes I want my calendar to be in an obvious place in a portable format.

If you go to http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ you see the statement:

 Welcome to the Calendar Project. We are striving to build a cross-platform
 fully standards based calendar client based on the open iCal standard. 

I feel you are moving further away from this laudable aim.

Comment 5

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I want my calendar to be in an obvious place in a portable format.

Tip: Just create a new calendar and specify the *.ics file location instead of using the default one. In Sunbird 0.2 there is a big box labeled 'Local File Location' with a big 'Browse...' button in the new calendar dialog. In Sunbird 0.3 alpha 1 you will have to specify the file url manually. You can put the file to every location you want.

Comment 6

[Bob Vickers]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > I want my calendar to be in an obvious place in a portable format.
> 
> Tip: Just create a new calendar and specify the *.ics file location instead of
> using the default one. In Sunbird 0.2 there is a big box labeled 'Local File
> Location' with a big 'Browse...' button in the new calendar dialog. In Sunbird
> 0.3 alpha 1 you will have to specify the file url manually. You can put the
> file to every location you want.
> 
That's a good tip. If you do this in Sunbird 0.2 and then delete My Calendar it works very nicely. However, my view is that this nice behaviour should be the default; the user should be gently led along this sensible path and not need to look around for tips.

In Sunbird 0.3a1 I can't persuade it to open the calendar file at all, but I suspect this is a bug rather than a design fault (see bug 306692 which prevents you opening local calendars).

Comment 7

[Joey Minta]

Stefan's suggestion is a relevant one.  Also, bug 315307 can help with this in some respects.  Nonetheless, the mozilla profile directory is where all mozilla applications store their data.  For your cases 3 and 4, the Export feature would probably work.  For case 2, users wanting to back up mozilla program data have always been told to copy their profile folder.  Case 1 is where Stefan's suggestion comes in most handy.

Marking as WONTFIX.