Mozilla Lightning: A Thunder-and-Lightning Duo Sounds Like Competition for Outlook Much to be Said for Thunder and Lightning Combo Adam Stone
There is much to be said for Mozilla Thunderbird. Unlike most other email clients, which tie themselves to specific platforms, Thunderbird offers a powerful cross-platform alternative.
Still, it has its shortcomings, especially when it comes to its lack of support for calendar functions, agendas, and to-do lists. For some time now Mozilla developers have been promising a new tool, one that would more tightly bind calendar operations into Thunderbird.
The developers came through with that promise on March 14 with the release of the first testing version of Lightning, version 0.1, a calendaring software extension that integrates calendar functionality into Thunderbird.
While Mozilla calendaring projects Sunbird and Lightning do share certain core calendar components and protocols, Lightning is designed to integrate directly into Thunderbird in order to make user interaction model as seamless as possible. In the most direct sense this means it is possible to view events and schedules without having to first open a new window.
Visually, the Lightning extension brings with it a new interface. A simple download adds a tabbed calendar interface to the usual display, from which users can jump directly to calendar views.
An obvious first question in this case has to be: Do Mozilla developers intend for Lightning to compete with Outlook?
In the release notes they are coy on the subject. "The primary goal of Lightning is to provide a pleasant and productive user experience," they say. "If the result of the Lightning project is an acceleration of users' migration from Outlook to Thunderbird, though, very few tears will be shed."
Certainly, Outlook is far from perfect. Over the years users have complained that it runs too slow, they have griped about its confusing calendar-naming scheme, and they've cautioned against the program's practice of keeping data in one massive database. Still, complaints have been relatively few, considering the widespread adoption of Outlook.
Lightning, on the other hand, hits the ground with all the wide range of flaws one might expect in an early iteration.
The release notes are a litany of woes. There's no undo function for calendar operations. Alarms for recurring events are unreliable. Lightning is supposed to offer CalDAV support for shared calendars stored on a server, but developers note that CalDAV still is "extremely basic, has issues, and is difficult to set up."
Gotta give 'em points for candor.
Accepting such caveats as there may be, one turns to the program itself, which for a first try performs with competence. In addition to tighter integration with Thunderbird, for example, the new calendaring function makes it possible to invite others when scheduling events.
Still, the nature of an early-generation release is that it will generate more complaints — or call them fond hopes — than it will compliments. Some want it to be easier to differentiate holidays from other types of events. Some prefer a 12-hour clock rather than the military style. Still others want synchronization with PDA smart phones.
Even when it is fully charged and loaded, Lightning probably isn't going to take down Outlook. They're simply fighting in completely different weight classes.
At best, Lightning will evolve into an ever more feature-rich, ever easier-to-use alternative for those who just can't stand to be under Outlook's massive shadow.
Ironically, though, the entire Lightning project may well be viewed as an outgrowth of what Outlook already hath wrought. Perhaps the whole idea of integrating email and calendar functions is really an Outlook view of the world.
"The Lightning project is cool, but it doesn't make perfect sense to me that my calendar app also [has to] be my email client," notes one user on an online message board. "Why must these two utilities be together? Simply because Outlook works that way? Yegh!"
Pros: Close integration of calendaring into Mozilla Thunderbird, quick and easy setup and access to appointments and to-do tasks
Cons: This one's just a trial run, with lots of kinks to be fixed — and important features to be added; integration with Thunderbird still a work in progress; manual installation process through Thunderbird can be tricky for first-timers
