Thunderbird, Lightning and Google Calendar with SMS reminders
Friday, October 24, 2008 by NasirThunderbird, Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar is a great way to manage your GMail and Google Calendar. But there is one thing that is missing for me, my favorite feature in Google Calendar, SMS notifications. The Provider for Google Calendar add-on, unfortunately don’t support that.
While lacking any desire to write a new add-on just for that, I really want SMS reminders instead of the supported pop-up reminders. Is there a way to change/replace that easily? The answer is “Yes, of course”.
Reading the Google Calendar Data API, which is necessarily to understand how this is to be done is enough. The steps are actually very easy. Download Provider for Google Calendar. Unzip it, yes it is just a zip file. Replace the word “alert” to “sms” twice in a Javascript file named “calGoogleUtils.js” at line number 508 and 861. Compress it. Install this custom add-on in Thunderbird and you are ready to go.
You can also download the one I’m using right here.
The versions which a I use now are:
Thunderbird version 2.0.0.17 (20080914)
Lightning version 0.9
Provider for Google Calendar version 0.5.1
Monday, November 3, 2008 - 13:43:31
heya,
just wanted to check how your current thunderbird is configured? does installing the google calendar provider your using allow you to add SMS reminders via thunderbird itself? or did i get your post all wrong? lol
Monday, November 3, 2008 - 16:08:23
Hey Mohit,
Yes, it is exactly as you said. Provider for Google Calendar adds only pop-up notification. If you use mine/or make the changes yourself, it will add only SMS notification/reminder.
Greets, Nasir
Monday, November 3, 2008 - 23:56:39
Thanks a lot mate. Works like a charm!
Thursday, November 6, 2008 - 08:40:57
You sir are a golden god! Awesome!
Sunday, November 30, 2008 - 15:07:28
Nasir you are a magnificent genius!!
Many many thanks for coming up with this solution and taking the time to post it online. You have now made a positive contribution on my life. I envy you :)
Best,
Alper
Friday, December 12, 2008 - 01:03:57
In your instructions, when you say “compress it” do you mean the javascript file?
Monday, December 15, 2008 - 11:08:40
Lurker8,
No, just zip compression!
Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 04:09:14
Thank you very much, it works perfectly!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - 05:02:04
That’s awesome, thanks for posting it.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 06:46:21
Thank you so much, this is seriously the best solution. Shame more people don’t know about it.
Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 19:26:33
Just did it here and worked!!! Tks for that!!!
Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 16:43:20
So, I am on a windows platform and I am trying to do this. But I am unable to extract the xpi file for starters so if you know how to do that on windows, I would really appreciate it.
Second, if I already have the addon installed where would I need to go to find the files so that I can already edit them? Is that even possible?
Let me know if you get a moment. Thanks!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 09:52:27
Scott,
The easiest method would be to rename the file from xpi to zip. When you are done with the changes, just rename it back from zip to xpi.
For your second question unfortunately I don’t know.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - 11:32:15
Answering Scott D 2nd question:
yes, it is possible to find the file
in C:Documents and Settings<your profile name>Application DataThunderbirdProfiles<your thunderbird profile>extensions<google provider extensions ID>jscalGoogleUtils.js
Sunday, September 13, 2009 - 11:18:48
Hi!
It works fine when I add new event but alert isn’t set when event was edited.
Any suggestions?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - 13:46:11
Hi,
Thanx mate, just what I was looking for :-)
Cheers,
Aleks
Friday, December 18, 2009 - 05:50:12
In thunderbird i was in my inbox and pressed g by accident. this then gropued the messages into different time periods. what button must i press to get it back or which menues do i go to?