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GUI Mozilla Software The Internet

Call For A New Default Theme For Mozilla Sunbird 56

Posted by timothy from the snide-remark-about-rendering dept.
synopsis5 writes "The developers of Mozilla Sunbird, the standalone version of Mozilla Calendar, are looking for a new default theme and are asking the community to build a new one. Interested theme creators should read the guidelines posted in the MozillaZine Themes forum, which feature complete details. Submitted work must be licensed under the standard MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license and a rough showcase needs to be produced by Tuesday 13th July for the theme to be considered. A few showcases have already been brought forth and are discussed. Take a look!"
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Call For A New Default Theme For Mozilla Sunbird More

Call For A New Default Theme For Mozilla Sunbird

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  • This will sound bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by obeythefist ( 719316 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @03:31AM (#9504551) Journal
    But why aren't a lot of these open source projects labelled a little more clearly? Thankfully the topic actually mentions that Sunbird is a Calendar. Although you ask a guy on the street what "Firefox" is and they'll think it's a TV show. You ask them what Internet Explorer is and they'll tell you it's a web browser.

    Wouldn't it help if it was called the "Sunbird Calendar" and "Firefox browser"?
    • Couldn't agree more. I think "Mozilla" is a well known name now... why not Mozilla Browser: The Firefox, Mozilla Calendar: The Sunbird, Mozilla Mail: The Thunderbird, etc?

      • I believe after the 1.0 release, Firebird will be known as Mozilla Browser.

        Same for Thunderbird --> Mozilla Mail.

        • Re:This will sound bad (Score:4, Informative)

          by synopsis5 ( 515684 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @04:14AM (#9504736)
          Your information is outdated. Firefox and Thunderbird won't go through another name change again. Three name changes for Firefox (mozilla/browser -> Phoenix -> Firebird -> Firefox) and one name change for Thunderbird (Minotaur -> Thunderbird) are clearly enough. You can't build up a successful brand, which is recognized by people if you keep on changing the name every few months.
          • Why wouldn't someone end up suing over "Thunderbird," thus causing them to change that? For example, Ford Motor's with their line of Thunderbird cars, or maybe someone else? Seems like Thunderbird is just as bad as Firebird.
            • Uhhh, because one is a car and one is an email client.

              If, on the other hand, Ford had a computer software called Thunderbird, whether or not it was an email client, then they could claim trademark infringement.

              Don't forget that Firebird is also a car (although not a current model), and you don't see GM suing over that name as used in software. If Ford tried to build a car called Firebird, GM lawyers would be on the like flies on dogshit, but software is too far removed of a product/industry for them to h
    • Yeah, because names like "Outlook Express", "Microsoft Excel" and "Safari" are sooo much more clear.

      No need to bag on open source software in particular, because unhelpful naming exists throughout the software industry. And that's why we have tooltips.

      • Outlook Express

        outlook n

        2. expectations for the future, especially for the way a particular situation will develop

        Hm. That sounds exactly what Outlook is supposed to do. It's groupware (not just a MUA). Outlook Express, being the stripped down version of Outlook, provides a quicker/express way of accessing the same types of information Outlook would normally give.

        Microsoft Excel

        excel v

        1. vti to do very well, or do better than all others or than a given standard

        Microsoft Excel's first purpose, as a

      • Doesn't matter. At this point, MS offerings are downright ubiquitous, so if they were called MS Assholebomb and Mailshitter, people would still be using them because that's what they were shown. The honus is on other vendors (like Mozilla) to create cool and compelling branding so that prospective users might understand the value the vendor's product brings them. A high percentage of users are resistant to learning new technology.
    • But why aren't a lot of these open source projects labelled a little more clearly?

      No different than many proprietary apps, really.

      Let's see...from Microsoft, we have Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Outlook, and Visual Studio, just to name a few. Windows, Frontpage, and Exchange might also fall into this category. I'm sure you can find tons more examples from other products too...both Windows software and Mac software.
    • When they release 1.0 versions they will all be prefixed by "Mozilla". Does that help? They are all in beta release even though they all work perfectly well, the suite hasn't been fully cross-integrated as a 'suite'.

      So it will be:

      Mozilla Browser
      Mozilla Mail
      Mozilla Calendar
      Mozilla News
      Mozilla Chat
      etc.

      • Re:This will sound bad (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So it will be:

        Mozilla Browser...

        BZZZT, wrong. You're several years out of date, mate. If they're going to drop the Firefox name and call it "Mozilla Browser", why are they SPENDING MONEY building up the Firefox brand identity? Why have they registered Firefox as a trademark if it's only a working title?
    • The could have named them "Mozilla Browser", "Mozilla Mail" and "Mozilla Calendar", and then NO ONE WOULD HAVE BEEN CONFUSED!
    • "You ask them what Internet Explorer is and they'll tell you it's a web browser."

      Heh, no, they won't... The vast majority of people don't realize 'Internet Explorer' is a seperate application, or an application and all, and just see it as a thing that displays webpages... In the same sense, they don't realize Explorer is a full application and just see it as a window that displays the contents of a folder/drive.
      • You're damn right. Try explaining to a newbie the difference between ISP, web browser and web site when they complain their Internet doesn't work.

        Techie: Try going to the web page 'www.blah.com'.
        Newbie: How do I do that?
        Technie: Run Internet Explorer and type 'www.blah.com' into the address line.
        Newbie: But I don't use Internet Explorer, I use Earthlink.

        and so on and so on....
      • '"You ask them what Internet Explorer is and they'll tell you it's a web browser."

        Heh, no, they won't... The vast majority of people don't realize 'Internet Explorer' is a seperate application...'

        Funny... Most people I talk to think it's 'the internet'. I ask, 'Are you connected to the internet?' and they say, 'Yes! I'm looking at the internet right now, but it isn't showing me any pictures!'

    • Re:This will sound bad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @10:38AM (#9518766) Homepage
      It may be off-topic and it's most likely to be offensive to some, but, personally, I think the whole 'Mozilla' project could benefit from a rebranding. I'm not saying ditch the 'Mozilla' brand, since it's well recognized and has a good connection with techies, but give the average business user some dinosaur icon labelled 'Mozilla' on their desktop, and they don't take it seriously enough.

      Techies seem to dig the dinosaur and the penguin as a sort of an inside joke, but if you want to reach a larger audience, you have to drop the silly logos and fun code-names. Each application name, as the OP commented, should be easily identifiable in terms of what it does.

      I'm not trying to troll or be offensive; I've just had a hard time convincing people that this "dinosaur program" or something called 'Mozilla Firefox' are "real web-browsers". Whenever I install Mozilla or Firefox on a non-techie's machine, I usually have to tell them that "It's Netscape- they just changed their name" before they'll actually run it. Firefox is too good a browser to be held back by a name.

      In my opinion, that was the whole virtue of Netscape. You could take the Mozilla suite, change the graphics and give it a name that people know and trust, and know-nothings suddenly feel entirely comfortable trying it out.

      • I've just had a hard time convincing people that this "dinosaur program" or something called 'Mozilla Firefox' are "real web-browsers".
        really? i've never had any problems telling people that "dreamweaver" is a "real web developing application". i'm sure with a few minutes we could come up with a bunch more successful, real-world products with "silly" names.
  • It would be nice if the themes end up listed here: http://update.mozilla.org/ I think that sunbird needs more "media" attention, I know a lot of people that use m$ orifice just because it has a half decent calender. Firefox is awesome Thunderbird is awesome Sunbird, I'm waiting patiently ;)

    • Re:Sunbird (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bahamat ( 187909 )
      Sunbird would get more attention if

      1. the deveopers gave it more attention
      2. it didn't suck

      The last time I tried sunbird as a standalone app it couldn't even perform basic tasks like adding an event. The last time I installed it as part of Firefox or Thunderbird it wrecked the app so bad I had to delete it, my prefs, and reinstall.

      Just for the sake of giving it another shot I just installed Sunbird into Thunderbird. It looks nice, but nothing happens when I try to create a calendar.

      For Mac OS X there'
      • >Sunbird would get more attention if
        >
        >1. the deveopers gave it more attention

        You can't force people to develop a program. Currently Sunbird/Calendar are lacking active developers, but we're gaining momentum at the moment. We're up to five part-time developers from just two a few months ago.

        One part of this quest for a new theme is to gain more user and (hopefully) developer attention.

        >2. it didn't suck

        Well, if it sucks then help to make it no suck. Find and report bugs, help triage bugs or s
  • This looks like a great project! Firefox and Thunderbird are just about the best browser and e-mail clients extant, respectively. With Sunbird, I'll finally be able to dispense with Evolution completely!

    Why is it that this project receives so little attention? It seems like a no-brainer -- a cross-platform calendaring app that integrates with the best web browser and e-mail client in the world! Who could fail to get excited about that?

    • Re:Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 )
      ``a cross-platform calendaring app that integrates with the best web browser and e-mail client in the world! Who could fail to get excited about that?''

      People who already have a web browser, email client, and calender app that work for them?

  • A Hidden Treasure? (Score:3, Informative)

    by erinacht ( 592019 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @04:55AM (#9504928) Homepage
    This is news to me! I use my palm desktop software for contact management and I'm quite happy with it/reluctant to change, but I like the fact that my happy pair of Firebird and Thunderbird could be complimented by Sunbird (probably to be changed to Fitbird or such...)
    I'll download it tonight and give it a whirl, I seem to remember a palm sync thing with old netscape so I'm presuming this is still possible...
    It does look a bit ugly right enough, a new theme based on firefox/thunderbird would be welcome.

  • Charamel ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by theefer ( 467185 ) * on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @05:12AM (#9505005) Homepage
    In my opinion, the greatest, cutest Firefox/Thunderbird theme is Charamel [members.shaw.ca]. It'd be great if they would make a Sunbird theme as well.

  • All well and good... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @05:40AM (#9505100) Journal
    But will it talk to Exchange? [microsoft.com]
  • Is there any hope for SunBird to either import iCal calendars or to subscribe to them?

    • Re:iCal (Score:3, Informative)

      by synopsis5 ( 515684 )
      iCal is the native calendar format that Sunbird uses. See this faq entry [mozilla.org]. Try it out. You can easily import iCal calendars and subscribe to them. Some calendars to which you can subscribe to are available on this page [mozilla.org].

      For the more technical guys:
      Sunbird uses libical [mozilla.org] as its calendar engine. This library is available under the MPL or the LGPL.

  • Not that bad... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mikelang ( 674146 )
    The "marketing name" should be easy to remember and have unique association with the project.
    "Sunbird" is just one rare word.
    Everybody talks about "Sunbird calendar app" anyway, so why to increase the length of name?

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