Transcript HTML Learning Series

Thunderbird
October 18, 2006
Jon Atherton, Dan Bartholomew
CIT/IS
Agenda
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Background
Migration Tools
Migration Experience
Training Survey
Roadmap
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Background
Ownership of e-mail: CIT: S&O: Messaging
Client Support (backline): CIT: IS: P&D
E-mail back-office meetings
ITMC Committee
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E-mail back-office members include:
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Jim Howell, S&O
Jon Atherton, I&D
Dan Bartholomew, I&D
Lee Brink, I&D
Tom Parker, IdM
Jeff Truelsen, ATSUS
JP Brannan, ATSUS
Others
The objectives of the group included:
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Discuss current issues with E-Mail service.
Plan for upgrades to servers and Software
Plan changes to Clients (including WebMail)
New features like Alternate E-mail Identity (COEA)
(Other stuff)
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E-Mail working group was created in April; the members
include:
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Rob Bandler, Univ. Registrar
Thomas Crook, Human Ecology
Debra Howell, Facilities
Don Sevey, Campus Life
Steve Staiger, ILR
CIT: Jon Atherton, Dan Bartholomew, Leslie Intemann, Diane Sempler,
Jeff Truelsen
The objectives of the group included:
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Discuss current issues with Eudora.
Is Thunderbird the right E-Mail client? Discuss CIT’s discovery and
evaluation process.
If Thunderbird is the right client, discuss next steps and develop a
migration plan.
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Migration Tools
• EudoraRescue – Maintains Status, Label and Priority. Preprocessor for Thunderbird’s import facility. [Win]
• EmailChemy – Single step import tool but does not appear to
maintain Status, Label or Priority information. [Mac/Win]
• Transend – Similar features/limitations to EmailChemy [Win]
• Eudora Mailbox Cleaner – Single step import tool. Maintains
Status and Labels. Puts output mailboxes in fixed location.
[Mac]
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Migration Efforts
• College of Human Ecology
• Facilities
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Facilities
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Migration of users One on One
Made training sessions available
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Show & tell format
Offered before the migration and some follow-up after migration
Included instructions on Searching LDAP
Address book manipulation
Cleaning up old mail was optional
80% of usage was POP
Eudora Rescue was used
They use Roaming Profiles
Extra configuration for all users:
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Automatic compression
Set master passwords
Forward messages inline
Reply at top of E-mail
Configured to send HTML
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Steps used for migration
1. Initial E-mail or Phone call to the person
2. Scheduled a time to perform the move
3. Pushed TB via active directory using the MSI installer
4. Created Account settings (did not import accounts from Eudora)
5. Ran Eudora Rescue
6. Imported Eudora mail into Local Mailboxes (Tools->Import)
7. Set preferred settings (over and above our defaults)
8. Verified the installation / migration
9. Left old Eudora folders intact for a while in case they were needed
10. Deleted Eudora folders (Inactive TSM copy remained for up to 6 months)
11. Merge Migrated mail into account mailboxes from Local.
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Issues
1. They had difficulties with the LDAP searching (may be result of Eudora
and Thunderbird sending slightly different search requests)
2. They leave the attachment as part of the mail file rather than splitting it off.
Indicated some problems with using Detach attachment.
(Need to do further testing to see if we can reproduce this).
3. They had problems with Deleting items from the Junk mailbox blocking
deleting from other mailboxes until Thunderbird is restarted.
(Need to do further testing to see if we can reproduce this)
4. Not sure if Thunderbird is more or less problematic since there are always
more problems when you first start using a new application. Time will tell.
5. Lots of Nit Picking by the users. Again, may be the result of having to
change from Eudora rather than defects in Thunderbird itself.
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Recommended Practices
• Pre-migration
• Migration Steps
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Pre-Migration
Before you start the migration process you may wish to meet with your staff and review some of
the difference between Eudora and Thunderbird. A few of the differences are listed below
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Thunderbird is NOT Eudora. Although both applications process mail, they
behave similar to each other and their feature sets are different.
Thunderbird uses accounts whereas Eudora uses Personalities.
Thunderbird keeps the attachment as part of the mail file. Deleting the mail
file deletes the attachment. You need to “detach” the attachment before
deleting the mail file if you wish to keep it.
Because of number 3, when you view an attachment, you are looking at a
temporary copy. Changes made to it are NOT re-written to the mail file and
are stored in a temporary file. If you need to change an attachment, either
use “Save As” to save a copy or detach the attachment and make changes.
Directory searches are performed a little differently so results may not match
100%.
Other differences
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Migration Steps
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Schedule a time that is convenient to perform the migration. Depending on the size of the users mailboxes,
it could take an hour or more.
Install Thunderbird from Bear Access or the MSI.
Cleanup existing mailboxes and compress them.
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Run a full virus scan on the Eudora mailbox folder including the attachment folder. This is critical since
the import process may fail if Symantec quarantines either the mailbox or the attachment during the
migration process.
If the user wishes to retain Flags, Labels and status information, you will need to use one of the migration
utilities to pre-process the mailboxes.
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Mailboxes & folders with non-standard characters in Windows will not import and should be renamed first
Thunderbird and none of the migration tools will import filters
Verify disk space needs and availability to duplicate the user’s mailboxes.
Launch Thunderbird and select Don’t import anything. You can then use either Tools->Account settings
to manually create accounts or use Tools->Import to import the settings from Eudora then tweak them as
necessary.
Import Address book using Tools->Import
Import Eudora Mailboxes (Tools->Import)
Verify the mailboxes and address book migrated successfully.
If you are sure everything migrated properly you may wish to move the imported mail to the local folders.
You may wish to archive a copy of the user’s Qualcomm\Eudora folder in case you need to refer to it.
Make changes to preferences such as whether to have access to IMAP mail while offline, where to place
replies
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Training Survey results
• 65 responses received from members of Net-AdminL, CCDs, and ITMC—this data represents a low
return rate
• Top e-mail clients currently in use: Eudora, WebMail,
Thunderbird, and Outlook
• 40% of respondents have officially started migrating
users to Thunderbird; 43% have not; 17% do not plan
to migrate
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More Training Survey results
• Responses to our questions about specific training (user
migration, user how-to, IT migration, and IT how-to) were
similar across the board. Approximately 50% gave a positive
response, 25% were neutral, and 25% were not interested.
• Of the people who were interested, 66% prefer web-based
materials; 33% prefer classroom-based materials.
• When to hold Thunderbird training: 33% prefer between now
and the end of 2006, whereas 44% prefer between January and
March 2007.
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Roadmap
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Summer, 2006: Begin support for Thunderbird
Summer/Fall ’06: End user training available
Summer, 2007: Move Eudora to Updates & Extras
Summer, 2009: End support for Eudora
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Qualcomm Announcement
• Qualcomm has announced the end of Eudora as a
commercial product
– Open source built on Mozilla/Thunderbird
– Preserve Eudora user experience
– Maintain compatability
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Penelope roadmap
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Release 0.1
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Release 0.5
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Importers for your mail store and contacts
Remapping of accelerator keys
Basic settings and personalities
Filter importing
Major UI Elements
Unique Eudora message handling operations
Release 1.0
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Stationery
Import for all Settings
Minor UI elements
Source: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope
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Questions?
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3
Party Extensions
• Extensions are written by third-parties, which means anyone from Google
to some guy living in his mom's basement. Naturally the quality of
extensions varies greatly. Your best bet is to read the user comments before
installing an extension.
• Each time a new version of Thunderbird is released, each extension's
author needs to update their extension. As you might expect, some authors
are better at this than others. Until the extension has been updated, it is
disabled.
• For the above reasons, we have chosen to not support extensions at this
time. Discussions about potential future support of extensions are ongoing.
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/email/thunderbird/extensions.html
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Extension Skill Requirements
You will almost certainly need to use the following technologies, although it is not necessary to be an expert in them. You
may be able to pick up much of what you need just by examining the source code for other extensions.
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XUL (XML User-Interface Language). Used to define the onscreen layout of the UI and to attach scripts and style to the
interface.
JavaScript. The primary scripting language in Mozilla and the language in which most extensions are written.
DOM (Document Object Model). Used to manipulate XUL in real-time as well as any HTML documents loaded.
XPCOM/XPConnect. Mozilla packages together useful functions into XPCOM (Cross-Platform Component Object Model)
components, which may then be accessed from external code, including JavaScript via XPConnect. This allows the extension
developers access to the preferences database, the file system, and many other pieces of Mozilla technology (Extensions can
be written in JavaScript, C++, or even Python with PyXPCOM).
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Used to style the interface and to attach XBL bindings to XUL documents.
More advanced extensions may require the following technologies.
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XBL (XML Binding Language). Used to extend XUL, allowing the creation of new types of widgets and associated
behaviors.
RDF (Resource Description Framework). Used as a data-storage format in some parts of Mozilla and in some extensions.
Source: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dev_:_Extensions
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