Mozilla Sunbird: Manage your Schedule Efficiently

Mozilla Sunbird is a calendar application from Mozilla. It can be used for task management for a team or an individual. The calendars can be published online, and there are remote access usage options available. The application is free, open source and available for all platforms.

Here are a few tips to use the application efficiently :

Adding Saturdays to the Calendar

By default, both the weekend days are turned off from display. Although they are shown in the calendar and can be worked on, they are shown with a grey highlight. To change this, go to Tools > Options > Views and check Saturday. You can also change the duration of the working hours (which is by default from 8 to 5).

Color coding categories

It is possible to add color codes to categories. There are a number of preset categories, and adding a particular color to a category can be of individual significance (like red for an anniversary). Go to Tools > Options > Categories and add a color to the preset categories. There are 70 colors available to choose from. You can also add or delete categories from this view.

Setting tasks to repeat

Right-click on a day, and select new task. Under repeat, set a periodicity. This can be either daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or yearly.

Setting a proxy connection

If your workplace uses a proxy connection for the internet, these settings have to be specified in Firebird, so that Firebird can interface with the internet. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Connection Settings. If your company uses a predefined URL with a proxy configuration, select Automatic proxy configuration URL and enter the URL in the field. To manually enter the proxy details, select Manual proxy configuration and enter the relevant proxies and ports. The application cannot connect to the internet, unless you enter these settings.

Importing calendar from Google Calendar

To import your Google calendar into Sunbird, go to File > Subscribe to Remote Calendar. Select On the Network and click on next. Select the CalDAV format, and enter the URL of your Google Calendar in the Location field.

URL : https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/username@gmail.com/events

Replace the username with your user name. Type in a name for your calendar and click on next. Your Google calendar will now be imported into Firebird.

Using the Taskbar

The taskbar is on the bottom left corner of the Firebird window. This taskbar is used for organising your tasks. As soon as a task is complete, you can check on the task, and a strikethrough will appear. Rightclicking and selecting Progress will allow you to set a percentage of completion. The percentages are preset and cannot be modified.

Changing the date display format

Go to Tools > Options > General. Now change the Date Text Format as per your preferences. There is a long date format and the short date format available. However, the dates are always displayed in the American format — mm/dd/yy. You cannot change this to the dd/mm/yy format used in India.

Adding Indian Holidays

The default calendar has no holidays noted. Adding holidays will create a small text field below the important dates of holidays. Holiday files are available in the .ics format. To import Indian holidays into Sunbird, go to File > Import, then type http://www.mozilla.org/ projects/calendar/caldata/IndiaHolidays.ics in the destination field and click on import. Select the calendar you want to import the calendar file to (home by default). The holidays will be listed on the relevant dates.

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