360799 - Email an alarm message

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Alarms, enhancement)

Description

[Brian King [:kinger]]

I would like Lightning to have email alerts. I have not checked out Calendar or Sunbird in a very long time, but I do recall that one if not both of them had this feature.

Comment 2

[Grant Basharm]

The lack of email alarms is a blocker for a significant subset of my folks.  With printing and meeting-invites coming in 0.5, this would move TB with lightning into contention as a real all-platform solution.  

Comment 4

[R. Wizard]

I'd really like to get this done, and I am willing to code it myself. Is there a reason for greying out the reminder options in Lightning right now? Is there a specific way you would like this done?
This is somewhat related to another enhancement requested from 2002, where people wanted to customize the email alarm message (back when it was still working, in the project called Calendar).
If anyone can give me some pointers on where this would fit best, I'd be grateful. I'd like to get it to work for Lightning.

Comment 5

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

The dependancy on bug 353492 is quite strict, since we currently only support one alarm.  It would not make sense to implement this for the current alarm system. I have a lot of code for that bug written already though. The alarm interface itself is written, I just need to adopt the alarm backend to support the interface.

With this code ready, we will need to add UI to set up the alarm type in addition to the time, and also allow adding more than one alarm.

With that also done, the alarm system can be adopted to allow email reminders.

As you see, there is still a lot of work to be done, until we can support emailing the alarm message.

If you are nevertheless interested in helping out with the project in general, I'd suggest you join #calendar on irc.mozilla.org so someone can get you started with the needed essentials. The more developers we have, the earlier we can get this feature running.

Comment 7

[kujub]

Is there any chance for this to get fixed in 1.0 / Thunderbird 3 ?

Comment 8

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

It may be quite easy to add an alarm monitor that sends emails when the dependant bug is fixed, so given that someone steps up for this (are you interested, Kurt? :-) this is surely wanted for 1.0, but I wouldn't consider it blocking.

Comment 9

[kujub]

(In reply to comment #8)
I only stumbled over this because I was looking for some way to track alerts from one calendar while using two machines alternately. (Workaround for bug 329570 and bug 356002 which make sharing calendar files with alarms enabled completly impossible IMHO. Meanwhile I use separate local calendars and send invitations to my self using an alias mail address to keep them synchronized.)
Maybe I'll find some time later to look into hacking mozilla but I can't promise.

Comment 10

[David]

I would like to add my interest for someone working on this bug.  I would also like to mention one complication to doing this correctly.  Most web-based calendar server applications have there own system for email reminders.  For example, all events in a google calendar have the option to send email reminders.  When lightning is used as a client for a web-based calendar, it should work with the calendar servers own system, only dropping back to some sort of local email reminder system when the web calendar has no such ability.

Comment 12

[Nosmo King]

I really need:

1. Email reminder, triggered by the alarm
2. Running a script / program when the alarm is triggered.

In fact, if 2) is implemented one can work-around problem 1)

Comment 13

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> 2. Running a script / program when the alarm is triggered.

This will not be implemented in Sunbird/Lightning, see decision in Bug 337906.

Comment 14

[jsherk]

If you read these other enhancements, you will see that although they are not duplicates, they are very similar:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180890
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=282565

The implementation of them all would probably fall within the same code.

Also, if you read this old enhancement:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=337906
somebody actually came up with the code changes necessary back in 2006 to implement 'running a script on an alarm'. At the time, it was not going to be implemented into Lightning, but with these other similar requests maybe it's time to open it back up and have another look.

So everybody go vote for these other enhancements, and also, let's try to get all the votes considered together to get the feature implemented.

Thanks

Comment 15

[Nosmo King]

I have read the comments on all the other enhancements, and they all are indeed the same: allow the user to specify a script to run when an alarm is triggered. I do NOT see anywhere that a decision has been made not to include this. Both KMail and Evolution has this functionality, why not Thunderbird?

And as far as the code is concerned: it is really nothing more than dropping into a shell and try to execute the user specified script. In Python this would be a simple 
         os.system(user_script_name)

One line of code. (Checking the return code and displaying an error message adds another 2, maybe 3 lines)

As far as the security aspect is concerned: yes, I agree, it could be dangerous. But life is dangerous, and users need to be aware of the risks. The only way to be 100% safe is not to use the computer at all.

Comment 16

[anirvana]

Fallen,I want to work on this bug(as a part of gsoc project).Can you share the work you have already done with me?

Comment 17

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

I haven't done any work specifically on this bug, just on the already fixed bug about multi-alarm support, which gave us some of the UI infrastructure for EMAIL alarms.

As discussed, we'll be heading for the simple solution (pref to support email alarms for caldav servers that support server side sending) for your GSoC Project, which will be done in a different bug.

Comment 18

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

Any news of that GSoc?

Otherwise, I am in contact with a group of students who are interested in implementing this as part of a student project.

Comment 19

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

Unfortunately this bug didn't get any love from that SoC project. I'm glad to hear new students are stepping up though!

If they are having trouble getting around in the calendar code, feel free to ping me on IRC or email.

Its been mentioned above, but to summarize, I think this is just a matter of creating a new calAlarmMonitor.js that handles EMAIL type alarms and allowing the UI to set EMAIL alarms.

Note that sending Emails will only work if Thunderbird is running. The user should be informed about this in the UI. Also note that certain provider extensions allow server side email reminders (Provider for Google Calendar), so for these types of calendars no extra alarms should be sent, nor should the UI show two email entries. I haven't noticed any, but I could imagine there are also CalDAV servers out there that support server side email reminders.

Comment 20

[Nosmo King]

Check: Bug 337906 - Execute a script on an alarm [extension fodder] 

Should this be one job?

Comment 21

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

Given that EMAIL alarms can be made part of core and script alarms should rather be an extension, I think you should do it in two different parts. It should be the same work though.

If its easier for you, you can make it all part of an extension first, as long as you make sure to separate the handling for email and script alarms into different files.

Comment 22

[Francewhoa (Francois Carpentier)]

Any volunteer to fix this bug or implement a new solution with an extension? 

We would be happy to contribute testing, quality assurance, documentation, and agile project management services if needed

Comment 23

[Francewhoa (Francois Carpentier)]

Attachment: Screenshot of expected feature

Screenshot of expected feature

This screenshot was taken with Thunderbird 15.0.1 with Lightning 1.7. That feature was available with those versions.

Screenshot by Pete7874 on June 23rd, 2011

Source http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=2565155

Comment 24

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

(In reply to Francois Carpentier from comment #23)

Email reminder feature is not contained in Lightning. Your screenshot shows the additional reminder types that were added by the Provider for Google Calendar extension. The email reminder is managed and send by Google Calendar server and not by Thunderbird/Lightning.

Comment 25

[Francewhoa (Francois Carpentier)]

Stefan, Thanks :) Good catch. 

This is a old screenshot I found on the web. It does look similar to Lightning. But now I understand those additional reminder types were added by the Provider for Google Calendar extension.

I would prefer using that feature using Thunderbird with Lightning (Icedove / Iceowl). Because Thunderbird and Lightning are owned by a community, and Google Calendar is owned by a corporation.

I'll try to get a more recent screenshot to illustrate the expected result with Lightning / Iceowl

Comment 26

[Francewhoa (Francois Carpentier)]

Attachment: Mockup expected feature. Revision 2.

This is a revised mockup to illustrate the suggested expected feature using Thunderbird with Lightning

Suggested workflow
1. In Lightning, user create a New Event
2. Next to "Reminder" section. User expand the dropdown menu. Select "Custom..." option.
3. User click on "Add" button. Under "Choose a Reminder Action" menu. User expend the dropdown menu.
4. User select "Send an E-Mail" option. 

Note that in above suggested workflow steps 1 to 3 are already existing. Step 4 is the suggested new feature.

The Lightning "Choose a Reminder Action" menu is already exiting. But currently contains only one option. Which reads "Show an Alert". This is a popup alert. 

Mockup made with 
• Icedove 31.7.0-1
• Iceowl 31.7.0-1
• Debian Wheezy 7.8

For those not familiar with IceDove with Iceowl
• IceDove is the same as Thunderbird. IceDove is the name use for the Debian Linux distribution. 
• Iceowl is the same as Lightning. IceDove is the name use for the Debian Linux distribution.

Comment 27

[Jérémy Munsch]

I just want to add some info on the need of this feature.

I recently made a PR in owncloud calendar plugin to integrate webhook Reminder.

While i understand there is no webhook ALARM in CALDAV RFC, there is a need of other methods to this.
As i understand this a a great limitation as lot of services would provide these features, Thunderbird does not have the obligation to fullfill them. Therefore adding an option to the dropdown and sending the alarm to the WS would be safe and easy to implement

I don't have the knowledge right now to make the modifications in lightning or mozilla calendar.

Any opinion on this ?

Comment 29

[Luca]

Hello there,
18 years have passed since this FR was opened. I wonder if someone will ever look into it.
Many online calendar system have the ability to send an email for alerting the user of an upcoming event. It's the most widely method used today.
I think adding support for email alert is an important addition to Mozilla Calendar. It can be limited to remote calendar, if they support it, of course.