Comment 40 for bug 595551

I also started looking at the code a couple of weeks ago. (After writing that long bit of ventilation, I figure I should try to step up and help in some material way.)

What I understood from that is that CalDAV calendar support in Lightning basically works by preparing an HTTP URI for a request, and submitting that to the remote server via the underlying HTTP transfer infrastructure built into the mozilla libraries. So, it inherits the same functionality and the same foibles that one has to endure for HTTP requests with Basic Authentication in Firefox. The password dialog box that pops up is provided by deep library support; Lightning proper has nothing to do with it.

Does the HTTP library provide a hook which would allow Lightning to wedge itself in between the HTTP authentication protocol handling and the default password lookup/dialog? If Lightning could do its own lookup (e.g. provide its own dialog), or if it could at least customize the parameters (e.g. realm) handed to the password-manager module, the desired functionality should be possible in principle. If not, I get the feeling someone would need to add such a hook to mozilla, and that would probably involve a lot more work and face a lot more resistance from upstream.

That's as far as I got on my own; if someone with deeper knowledge of how all this works could point me in the right direction, I'd be happy to take another deep breath and dive in again.