Lightning and Sunbird 0.5 released

The newest versions of Lightning and Sunbird, released simultaneously by Mozilla yesterday, include 38 new calendars as well as support for Google Calendar, a viable print function, enhanced support for Outlook displays and numerous other upgrades.

Lightning is an extension that integrates with Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client, most useful for those who send and receive meeting invitations by e-mail and who prefer to customize the application via add-ons. The 0.5 release offers tighter integration with Thunderbird for certain key functions — printing, undo/redo, copy/paste.

Sunbird is a stand-alone application for those who don’t use Thunderbird and don’t need or want to customize a calendar.

The new versions, finally out some two months after the originally scheduled release dates, are already generating positive buzz in the blogsphere. “I was really beginning to wonder if we were going to ever see another Sunbird/Lightning release,” said Rob Williams on the Techgage blog, “but here it is, and it looks sharp.”

“First 30 second impressions are slightly nicer UI and it’s a little bit faster,” said Brian Ghidinelli on Orange is My Favorite Color. “Uninstalling 0.3 and installing 0.5 preserved all of my data with no issues. Nice work Mozilla!”

The new releases claim enhanced performance, reliability and usability. The working hours feature has returned to both, and there is now automatic migration of data in Sunbird 0.2, iCal.app, and Evolution. And for the first time, Mac users will find a Universal binary. Complete details can be found, as usual, in the release notes for Lightning and Sunbird.

Both applications are available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. Download Lightning or Sunbird from the Mozilla Foundation servers.

Shirl Kennedy is the senior editor of theDocuTickerandResourceShelfWeblogs as well as the “Internet Waves” columnist forInformation Today. She has been writing about technology since 1992.