Disabled Calendar and Tasks Items on View Menu

[zoney70]

My wife and I are recent converts to Lightning. (Like the past week.) We previously used a desktop application that sent us reminders via email. Because my wife managed the household calendar, I exported the event list (omitting holidays) from her old software to an ics file on her (Windows 7) machine. I shared this file with the Windows Homegroup. I "open"ed this file in Lightning in her ThunderBird installation. In mine I set up a networked link instead. Set up holiday schedule links to online providers. It took all of fifteen minutes and we no longer have the emails to deal with. Works a treat! (Getting the URL for the LAN was a bit tricky, but I solved that problem by creating a desktop shortcut and navigating to the file using the shortcut file dialog. The resultant URL was then easy to copy and paste.

I am still learning some aspects of Lightning.

The most confusing aspect so far is that on the TBird menubar, the View menu contains a section with items "Today Pane", "Calendar", and "Tasks". With the email tab selected, the Calendar and Task items are always disabled. Let's assume that tab is the only tab on the tab bar. I was initially confounded that apparently I could not get to a calendar. Then, I discovered the "Events and Tasks" menu had enabled Calendar and Tasks items! Clicking the Calendar item there opens the Calendar tab, and places a check beside the menu item. Meanwhile, back on the email accounts tab, Calendar and Tasks items are still disabled!

Now, as it happens, I have experience developing Windows applications. The way a Windows menu is supposed to work is when the end user clicks on an item displaying a check mark, that is supposed to clear the check mark and reverse whatever action set it. So, I click the checked Calendar item several times. Nothing happens. Check mark stays solid, and the Calendar tab remains. No matter how many time this is clicked, nothing happens. The only thing that removes the Calendar tab is to click the "x" on the tab. Whereupon, the Calendar disappears, along with the check mark on the Events and Tasks menu.

Is there anyone that can explain this bizarre, and if I may say, non-windows behavior? And what in the world are the apparently permanently disabled items on the email tab intended for? I am told Lightning was "integrated" in version 38, and I am on version 45. Is the UI still a work in progress? It certainly seems a bit unfinished at present.