Comments on: Akonadi Meeting, Day 1: Discussions & API Review

By: Kevin Krammer

Kevin Krammer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:42:10 +0000

I think that’s what Tom was getting at: introducing “high-level” user interfaces to replace/supplement the current “low-level” ones.

By: Paul Eggleton

Paul Eggleton — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:05:01 +0000

SyncML is all well and good, and many new phones support it I’ve no doubt, but unless I’m mistaken any solution based solely upon it will limit you to only those devices that do support the SyncML protocol.

I know OpenSync hasn’t delivered on its promises, but I think the promise is still there and I hope we can manage to get a stable release out soon. FYI the API is semi-frozen now so there should be no major changes until after the stable release.

By: David

David — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:04:26 +0000

When I wrote “mess” I mean the interface for a normal user. Maybe mess is a hard word but what I mean is that there are so many connectors that a user does not know what to do and cannot understand the difference between them. And I am pretty sure that normal users don’t even care.
For example are all calendar sources synchronized with each other no matter what it is?
Maybe it would be a good idea to put better understandable information in the box where a user selects them. For example “traditional calendar source” and “vcard file” isn’t that the same?

By: toma

toma — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:47:30 +0000

I think you got the idea prefectly ;-) I suck at explaining…

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:11:32 +0000

Just a note regarding the wizards: How about you spare me selecting anything (as in the provider) but just let me enter my email address and password and then derive the provider from the email address. Combine that with a method to select the most secure settings automagically via the “Test server capabilities” thingy and it should be the easiest and most userriendly way ever seen.

Then provide an easy way to get new providers via GHNS so it can be updated outside of KDE releases and also provide a list of known ones with every KDE release so it doesn’t depend on GHNS but GHNS can be used to correct the list between releases.

IMHO the best thing since sliced bread ;D

By: Sascha Peilicke

Sascha Peilicke — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:19:21 +0000

@VladimirPrus:
As toma already pointed out, OpenSync has it’s problems. I did the GSoC about SyncML and I started of with their actual SyncML implementation called ‘libsyncml’, which is the foundation for OpenSync’s SML plugin. The same criticism can be applied here, lot’s of BIC changes an ugly API that is not stable and tends to crash often. So, from my POV this won’t have a bright future. Instead we’re aiming for a solution that is more tightly weaved into KDE PIM stuff. Currently this is done by using another SyncML implementation directly in an Akoandi agent. As a bonus, you can fetch client software for nearly every platform (including Windows Mobile) from Funambol: https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/#

By: snirp

snirp — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:17:18 +0000

” Ok, I’ll wait for more posts. The primary concern I have about SyncML is that I don’t think Windows Mobile supports that at all. ”

Fortunately, Microsoft now is in a position where it would have to comply with standards. Windows Mobile needs all the help it can get.

By: snirp

snirp — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:13:49 +0000

Being a stupid user here: SymcML would be the client used for (two way) synchronisation with the most common phones, right?
With or without a GUI, I would thus be able to sync my Symbian / Maemo device with my Kontact agenda.
This is much anticipated!

By: toma

toma — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:23:52 +0000

I must object, Akonadi is far from a mess. Quite the opposite. From the messy implementation we are moving to a robust, powerful framework.

The migration of the old stuff to akonadi happens in the beta releases and trunk. So if you are running those, you can get what you describe. If you only run official released versions, the data should not be migrated and you should not end up with that mess.

The synchronisation problems are not caused by us. They are caused by having no framework available to sync properly. We have tried opensync by making kitchensync and that failed due to continues API breakage from them. Not our fault. And especially not Akonadi’s fault. Akonadi is key to the solution here, not the cause of troubles.

By: David

David — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:04:35 +0000

I must say that I am a bit disappointed about akonadi stuff as well. It seemed to be very promising but it is a mess. Configuring kmail, korganizer and kaddressbok is totally confusing. I have no idea how many times I had to remove everything and start over. There are files for address book and calendar, then the akonadi connectors and I have no idea what is saved where in my system. In kaddressbook and korganizer i see the akonadi stuff again but I am not allowed to edit and selecting entries in the tree doesn’t change much.
Simple synchronization with online calendars or a phone is not working at all. Phone synchronization is maybe worse than 5 years ago cause back then I was able to do it at least on the command line.
I think it would really help to simplify settings and display of resources. Cause I think many people just don’t know how to use it.
I really would like to help but unfortunately I am not very good with C++.