Calendar vent...

[MozillaMonkey]

Sorry folks I have to vent because this is driving me crazy!
I must have made at least four posts about this already in different forums.

I am using Portable Sunbird now as it was recommended.

My old Sunbird gave up the ghost when I switched to Win10 because
I couldn't make Repeat appts. for some reason.
It worked fine with WinXP for more than a decade.

When I switched to Portable Sunbird I noticed all of my events were three hours
later.
As advised I went into settings and noticed that the time zone was PST.
I am in the east EST.

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. No matter what I did I could not
fix the problem. Setting the time zone to EST didn't help.
Setting it to PST didn't help.
I couldn't get my existing events to show properly.

I thought I finally tricked it recently. Appointments were showing the right time.
And my time zone was EST as it should be.

Today I noticed once again that an appt. reminder went off three hours late!
Like it was doing before.

I checked the time zone and it had SPONTANEOUSLY changed back to PST !!!!

WTF !!!! #)$&@(%^@)$

[MozillaMonkey]

An alarm just went off again now, three hours late.
What's the use of having alarms if they can't warn you in advance of events/appts.?

The event shows the right time on the calendar.
If I open the event it shows the right time.
BUT... the calendar is set of PST (Los Angeles).

I've done this many times already.
If I change the time to EST (New York),
all of the calendar events will change to three hours earlier !!! (which I don't want)

[v_v]

MozillaMonkey,

I guess that I am not understanding the situation. In other threads you have acknowledged that you were/are working with a calendar program, Sunbird, that is out of date and no longer being developed or maintained. Several of us have provided alternative suggestions, most of which do have options to import data from other calendars. Have you followed up on any of these suggestions? For instance, since it has been said that the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo option is essentially the same as Sunbird, have you tried importing your data into this option? If so, does the same timing situation occur?

If it does then you might wish to try some of the other options that I listed in my post at " http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 7&start=15 ", since they would have different overall programming frameworks.

v_v

[MozillaMonkey]

MozillaMonkey,

I guess that I am not understanding the situation. In other threads you have acknowledged that you were/are working with a calendar program, Sunbird, that is out of date and no longer being developed or maintained.

Thanks for helping out v_v.
Yes I WAS using the old Sunbird version. But not anymore.

Several of us have provided alternative suggestions, most of which do have options to import data from other calendars. Have you followed up on any of these suggestions? For instance, since it has been said that the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo option is essentially the same as Sunbird, have you tried importing your data into this option? If so, does the same timing situation occur?

Yes I have tried different options that were mentioned.
I tried the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo with no success.
Events were imported with the PST incorrect times and I saw nothing to set the correct time zone.

I am currently using another suggestion: Portable Sunbird.
I have the problems I just outlined in this post.

[v_v]

Based on what I have seen Portable Sunbird is still Sunbird and that program "is out of date and no longer being developed or maintained."

Okay, sticking with the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo for the moment, if your imported data contained the PST incorrect times, can you change the event times so that they work correctly or does the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo work exactly like Sunbird in reproducing your timing errors? If it does then that would support the thought and probable fact that Sunbird and the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo are built using the same coding architecture.

For the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo in my Preferences for Calendar I have chosen the "America/Chicago" option for the Central Time. So in your SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo what is your setting?

I have created a test event for 3:30 today, with a reminder set for 5 minutes prior. To the right of the start and end time settings in the event screen, it is showing me "America/Chicago" on both the lines for start and end. Both of these are hot-linked and seem to be changeable. So it appears that even though my overall Preferences - Calendar is set for Central Time it seems that I can set either the start or end times for whichever time zone I wish. Does this sort of thing show up for you and if so have you tried making the change according to your wishes?

I have also opened a future event for editing and I am given the same option for changing the start and ending time zone settings. Is this what you get when you try to change time zone settings for an event and if so does making the change in this location make any difference?

Also it seems that in my Preferences - Calendar - Reminders - Reminder Defaults, I have the "Default reminder setting for events" set to "ON". What is your setting?

If none of the above thoughts lead to anything that works then it would seem that a different architecture should be tried. But I would test the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo several times with different events first, also possibly creating new events for testing. As for programs with a different architecture, I would try Efficient PIM at " http://www.efficientpim.com/freeedition.htm " and EssentialPIM at " https://www.essentialpim.com/get-epim " (main page) [choose the free edition] or direct download link " https://www.essentialpim.com/download/EssentialPIM.exe ". Both of these programs allow you to import ".csv" data.

[[ - Okay, new data using the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo, the test event that I set for 3:30 pm (America/Chicago) worked as it should have, with a reminder set 5 minutes before. So then I made another test event for 4:00 pm -- however for this event, while I set it for 4:00 pm, I then changed the timezone for the event to America/Los Angeles. When I made this change of the time zone the time for the event itself automatically changed to 2:00 pm (apparently because it would be 2:00 pm in Los Angeles when it is 4:00 pm here in Texas; I set the reminder to be 15 minutes before the event. So sure enough at 3:45 pm CT the reminder sounded and later at 4:00 pm the event itself popped-up. So when I open this second test event from the calendar in the edit mode, it still has a 2:00 pm (America/Los Angeles) indication for the start time, but the reminder occurred for me at 3:45 pm CT as it was intended to. All of this was done with my overall Preferences for Calendar set at "America/Chicago" option for the Central Time. Maybe this will provide some assistance or at least further insight. If not then I would move on and try the other programs as suggested above. - ]]

v_v

[MozillaMonkey]

Based on what I have seen Portable Sunbird is still Sunbird and that program "is out of date and no longer being developed or maintained."

Okay, sticking with the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo for the moment, if your imported data contained the PST incorrect times, can you change the event times so that they work correctly or does the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo work exactly like Sunbird in reproducing your timing errors? If it does then that would support the thought and probable fact that Sunbird and the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo are built using the same coding architecture.

For the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo in my Preferences for Calendar I have chosen the "America/Chicago" option for the Central Time. So in your SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo what is your setting?
v_v

This is just a partial answer, as this is very complicated with all the different possible permutations.
I am sticking with Seamonkey now as you suggest.

Changing the times for an imported PST is futile.
There are hundreds of appts. It would take forever.
Of course they could be changed but that's ridiculous.

I want to import a saved file and have the appt. times show correctly.

1. I just created a New calendar.
2. I changed the time zone to PST.
3. I imported a calendar that had its time zone set to PST.
4. The events were showing the wrong times! 3 hours later.

[MozillaMonkey]

Sorry but this seems hopeless.

My Cal settings were for Los Angeles (PST)
I am living in EST New York time.
I just typed in an 8 pm appt.
It changed it immediately to 11 pm ! showing New York time

Then I changed the Cal time to New York time.
My test appt. changed to 5 pm!!!!
I hover over the appt. displaying 5 pm in the big Cal.
and it shows the appt. set for 8 pm!

ARGHHHHHH
Hopeless

[MozillaMonkey]

I just added an appt. set for 9 pm.
It had the zone set for L.A. PST so i changed it to New York (next to the appt. right side)
As soon as I clicked Save and Close it showed the appt. in the big Cal for
6 pm !!!!!

As I said, it's hopeless!

[v_v]

I am shooting in the dark here but it seems that the big calendar is going to display the time that it will be in the time zone set in your Preferences - Calendar, regardless of what time zone that your actual event is scheduled for. I just set an 9:00 pm event using the America/Los Angeles time zone for the event. On my calendar (with a America/Chicago setting) it showed up as 11:00 pm, both on the calendar itself and also when I hover over the event on the calendar. However regardless of the discrepancy between the calendar time zone and the event time zone, my reminder alerted me based on the time zone of the calendar.

Given your results and my own I don't know if either Sunbird or the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo are going to work the way that you want them to, and I am empty of any more SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo suggestions. It actually could be something simple that neither one of us know anything about---or not! It could also be just the way it was coded as you suggested early on in your postings. But rather than waste any more time with either Sunbird or the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo, perhaps you might try Efficient and/or Essential to see if they will import your ".csv" data differently, in a manner that might be more satisfactory for you. It would not hurt to try; the programs can be installed and/or uninstalled rather quickly.


[ Edit 1 - After rummaging through the following ancient threads, I have one more wild and unlikely suggestion. Try exporting and importing your calendar(s) using the ".ics" format instead of the ".csv" format. It should not make any difference but one never knows!]

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=599637
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=904015
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=1996751
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 6&t=650896
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=481979


[ Edit 2 - Or you could just begin the slow, tedious, and "forever" process of changing the "hundreds" of the events! --- I actually did something like that for my calendars once, but I did not have "hundreds"; I gradually did one month of changes at a time.]

[MozillaMonkey]

I am shooting in the dark here ....

Given your results and my own I don't know if either Sunbird or the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo are going to work the way that you want them to, and I am empty of any more SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo suggestions. It actually could be something simple that neither one of us know anything about---or not! It could also be just the way it was coded as you suggested early on in your postings. But rather than waste any more time with either Sunbird or the SeaMonkey/Lightning/Lightbird combo, perhaps you might try Efficient and/or Essential to see if they will import your ".csv" data differently, in a manner that might be more satisfactory for you. It would not hurt to try; the programs can be installed and/or uninstalled rather quickly.


[ Edit 1 - After rummaging through the following ancient threads, I have one more wild and unlikely suggestion. Try exporting and importing your calendar(s) using the ".ics" format instead of the ".csv" format. It should not make any difference but one never knows!]

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=599637
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=904015
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=1996751
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 6&t=650896
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=481979


[ Edit 2 - Or you could just begin the slow, tedious, and "forever" process of changing the "hundreds" of the events! --- I actually did something like that for my calendars once, but I did not have "hundreds"; I gradually did one month of changes at a time.]

Thanks again for taking the time to try to help!
It's instructive that you also had the same problem as me (showing different times in the actual event and on the big calendar).
I really think it is a programming bug, an oversight when they did the coding.

The thing is, is that I was using Sunbird for years on a WinXP machine with my time zone set for LA (PST) and I didn't know it. I am in EST.
Despite that mistake on my part I never had any problems with the program!
All the events/appts. displayed properly and all the alarms went off correctly.

All my problems started when I migrated to Win10.

I think I tried one or two of the alternative apps you mentioned. I may try one if I haven't already.
The ones I tried didn't have the right look for me.

As far as exporting/importing as .ics is concerned... that's what I have been doing most of the time.
I also tried .csv.

I guess I may have to bite the bullet with this one.

[v_v]

Yes, Windows 10 is not too forgiving with old programs. Most of my Windows XP programs will not even install on Windows 10. It was a shock and a huge pain.

The two things that I can say about Efficient, Essential, and VueMinderLite is that they all will work on Windows 10 and they are being updated and maintained.

Good luck!

[MozillaMonkey]

I'm back again.....

Can someone please tell me how to set the Default Timezone that shows when you are entering a
new appt.?
(This is for Sunbird Portable)

Right now it's set to New York, DESPITE the fact that the timezone for the calendar is set for Los Angeles.

Thanks! I hope I made myself clear.

[DN123ABC]

https://office.live.com/start/Calendar.aspx

[MozillaMonkey]

https://office.live.com/start/Calendar.aspx

Thanks, but there's just one small problem with your suggestion.

I don't want Microsoft or any other corporation to know the private details
of everything I'm doing each day of my life.

I need a good offline calendar, not one in the clouds.

[WaltS48]

The calendar in Thunderbird can be a good offline calendar, and with version 91, you don't even need to set up an email account, just cancel account creation, enable the calendar, close it with the Calendar tab selected.

The next time and every time after, just cancel account creation and the Calendar tab will have focus.

The default Home calendar is offline, other calendars can be added using the "Create New Calendar" dialog and selecting the "On My Computer" option.

I believe Sunbird can create both on the computer and on the network calendars.

The standalone calendar on my Fedora system can connect to network calendars, but the default calendar is on the computer.