• Saturday July 4th 2009
• Do you want fries with that project?

Skip to Content

CalendarHelp

resources:	Home Installation Online Screenshots License
developer:	Build Write Translate Extensions
project:	Members Source Code Bugs Mailing List Join in
projects:	Calendar Help Calendar Folders Clock Picker Clock Tab Daylight

Installation

This page contains download links and installation instructions for Calendar Help.

Calendar Help does not currently support Sunbird 0.3 alpha releases or Lightning. This support is planned for future versions.

Note: If you are performing a shared installation on a multi-user system, first read the section Shared installation.

There are separate installation instructions for each parent application:

Mozilla Application Suite
Thunderbird
Firefox
Sunbird 0.2
Sunbird 0.2+ and 0.3

Downloads

Here are links to the current downloads, dated May 19, 2005.
Do not use these links for Sunbird 0.2+ or Sunbird 0.3.

Note: 0.5.1 is a quick fix for an install bug in Mozilla suite, and one other bug. It is otherwise identical to 0.5.

Calendar Help	January/February 2005 official releases
calendarhelp-0.5.1-en-US.xpi	Installer for US English
Help Viewer
help.jar	download in chrome (see instructions below)
Sunbird Fix
nsExtensionManager.js	download in components (see instructions below)

Here is a link to the download for Sunbird 0.2+ and Sunbird 0.3, dated November 3, 2005:
Do not use this link for the official Sunbird 0.2 release, or for Calendar extensions.

Calendar Help	Sunbird 0.2+/0.3, August 2005 onwards
calendarhelp-0.6.2-en-US.xpi	Installer for US English

For old downloads, look in the calendarhelp directory on your downloads mirror.

Mozilla Application Suite

Install Calendar Help as an extension in the normal way. For example, if you are reading this page in Mozilla, click the link to the XPI file in the table of downloads above.

Do not download the help viewer. A working help viewer is built in to Mozilla.

Restart Mozilla and open Calendar. In Calendar's Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird has no help viewer. To use Calendar Help, you must prepare Thunderbird by installing a help viewer.

Note: A help viewer for Thunderbird is also available from the Help Viewer project. Theoretically, Calendar Help should work with either help viewer. It is not possible to install both help viewers in the same product.

Preparing Thunderbird

To prepare Thunderbird, there are six steps:

1. Ensure that Thunderbird is not running.
2. Go to Thunderbird's chrome directory. (It is where the Thunderbird program is, not in your profile.)
3. Edit the file installed-chrome.txt and:
   1. Search for any lines that end with /help/ and remove them.
   2. Add these lines at the end (by copying and pasting from here):

      skin,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/content/help/
      locale,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/content/help/
      content,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/content/help/
      skin,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/skin/classic/help/
      locale,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/locale/en-US/help/
      

   3. Save and close installed-chrome.txt.

4. Delete the following:

   chrome.rdf (file—see step 6)
   overlayinfo (directory and all its contents—see step 6)
   

5. Download the file help.jar from the table of downloads above. If a file of that name is already there, let the download overwrite it.
6. Restart Thunderbird. It automatically rebuilds chrome.rdf and overlayinfo.

Installing Calendar Help in Thunderbird

Install Calendar Help as an extension in the normal way. For example, from Thunderbird's menu bar choose Tools - Extensions to open the Extensions window. Then drag the link from the table of downloads above, and drop it in the Extensions window.

Restart Thunderbird and open Calendar. In Calendar's Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Firefox

Install Calendar Help as an extension in the normal way. For example, if you are reading this page in Firefox, click the link to the XPI file in the table of downloads above.

Restart Firefox and open Calendar. In Calendar's Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Note: Do not download the help viewer. A working help viewer is built in to Firefox.

Sunbird 0.2

These instructions are for the official Sunbird 0.2 release. You might be able to adapt them for older releases of Sunbird by including extra steps from the Thunderbird section above.

Note: The Sunbird 0.2 Windows EXE download (SunbirdSetup-0.2.exe) is incomplete. To use Calendar Help in Sunbird 0.2 on Windows, install Sunbird from the ZIP download (Sunbird-0.2-win32.zip).

Sunbird's extension manager is broken and its help viewer is broken. To use Calendar Help, you must prepare Sunbird by installing a working extension manager and help viewer.

Note: In test builds of Sunbird 0.2+, the Extension Manager should work normally. You might be able to install Calendar Help by dragging the XPI link from the table of downloads above, and dropping it in the Extensions window. There might be other problems that stop Calendar Help working in these test builds, so Calendar Help is not currently supported in Sunbird 0.2+.

Preparing Sunbird 0.2

To prepare Sunbird, there are six steps:

1. Ensure Sunbird is not running.
2. Go to Sunbird's chrome directory. (It is where the Sunbird program is, not in your profile.)
3. Download the file help.jar from the table of downloads above, overwriting the one supplied with Sunbird.
4. Go to Sunbird's components directory.
5. Download the file nsExtensionManager.js from the table of downloads above, overwriting the one supplied with Sunbird.
6. Restart Sunbird. You should not notice anything different.

Note: The extension manager fix does not provide a user interface.

Installing Calendar Help in Sunbird 0.2

To install Calendar Help, download the XPI file from the table of downloads above and store it on your local machine, remembering where you put it. For example, right-click the link, then from the context menu choose Save Link As... and choose a location.

Start Sunbird using the command line option -install-global-extension followed by the full path and name where you put the XPI file. For example, you might use a command like:

sunbird.exe -install-global-extension C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\calendarhelp-0.1-en-US.xpi

Sunbird installs the extension and exits, without opening its user interface.

Restart Sunbird normally. In the Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Manual installation in Sunbird 0.2

If the installation fails when you use the instructions above, then the extension manager fix might not have worked in your version of Sunbird. You might be able to install Calendar Help manually using the instructions in this section.

1. Delete and reinstall Sunbird to remove any damaged or unwanted files left after the failed installation.
2. Follow the instructions Preparing Sunbird, above. You can stop after step 3.
3. Download the XPI file from the table of downloads above and store it on your local machine, remembering where you put it.
4. Use a zip tool to unzip the XPI file. (You might have to rename it .zip first, depending on the tool.)
5. Ensure that Sunbird has run at least once, but is not running now.
6. Copy the file calendarhelp-en-US.jar from the XPI's chrome directory to Sunbird's chrome directory.
7. In Sunbird's chrome directory, delete the file chrome.rdf and the directory overlayinfo. (The final step rebuilds them.)
8. Edit the file installed-chrome.txt. Add these lines by copying and pasting them from here:

   content,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/calendarhelp-en-US.jar!/content/calendarhelp/
   locale,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/calendarhelp-en-US.jar!/locale/en-US/calendarhelp/
   skin,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/calendarhelp-en-US.jar!/skin/classic/calendarhelp/
   

   Check that these lines are present in the file, adding or correcting them if necessary:

   content,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/content/help/
   locale,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/locale/en-US/help/
   skin,install,url,jar:resource:/chrome/help.jar!/skin/classic/help/
   

   then save and close the file.
9. Restart Sunbird. Sunbird automatically rebuilds the file chrome.rdf and the directory overlayinfo.
10. In the Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Sunbird 0.2+ and Sunbird 0.3

These instructions are for Sunbird 0.2+ nightly builds and Sunbird 0.3.

1. In Sunbird, choose Tools – Extensions... from the menu bar.
2. Find the correct link in the table of downloads above, making sure that the version number is at least 0.6. Drag the link from your browser and drop it in Sunbird's Extensions window.
3. Confirm that you want to install Calendar Help, then wait for the download to complete.
4. Close and restart Sunbird.
5. In the Help menu, click the Context Help item to open the help in a new window.

Shared installation

If you are installing Calendar Help on a multi-user system where more than one user will access the same installed package, perform a global installation (not a profile installation).

For Thunderbird or Firefox, perform a global installation by adapting the installation instructions for Sunbird, above. For Mozilla Suite or Sunbird, follow the normal installation instructions above.

Ensure that you open Calendar Help as the final step in the installation. The first time you open Calendar Help it creates a file, and this completes the installation.

Also check that all the intended users have access to the installed files:

chrome/calendarhelp.jar
chrome/calendarhelpdtd/content/calendarhelpdtd/parent.dtd