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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: KAB issues for bin compatible freeze
From:       Don Sanders <don () sanders ! org>
Date:       2000-06-05 0:20:48
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Hi Mirko,

I worked on address book stuff a bit more this weekend, I'm pretty close to
supporting libkab as a backend except for problems with custom fields. I'm now
quite certain that I need or at least would very much like support for custom
fields. Mirko could you please add a new data member to AddressBook for this,
something like the following would be nice:

QStringList custom; // Custom, possibly application specific fields

I will then store all my custom fields for an application in a single string in
this list. I'll prefix the string used by an application with an obvious
prefix, eg "Kontact:" for custom fields used by the Kontact addressbook I'm
working on.


The other issue is that I don't understand how the addressbook locking works. I
guess I want to open the address book read only and only open it for write
access for the duration of a 'non const' operation like add, change, remove.
How do I do this, or am I not meant to do it this way?


BTW I believe adding a data member to the Addressbook class will not be binary
compatible.

Thanks for any answers,
Don.

On Thu, 01 Jun 2000, Mirko Sucker wrote:
> Don Sanders wrote:
> > 
> > There are several unresolved issues with integrating KAB and KMail, I'm
> > working on solving them.
> > 
> > I can see at least one problem with the current API, it doesn't allow address
> > book entries to contain custom fields. I can work around this limitation if
> > need be, but the work around won't be pretty.
> The current implementation provides four fields that may be used
> arbitrarily and may be named by the user. The number of four has been
> chosen by me and is easy to change (possibly even binary compatible, I
> am unsure about this). 
> 
> If you want to use this fields in a standardized way from your GUI, it
> should be better to add standardized fields, what is prepapared and a
> matter of minutes. If you want to support an unlimited number of user
> defined fields, this would be possible, but most probably need more
> effort. 
> 
> As a proposal, try to implement everything supported by now and lets
> extend the library when binary incompatible changes are allowed again.
> 
> In my opinion, this limitations limit only applications that are
> currentlxy unreleased, like Don´s GUI for the addressbook. Have a look
> at kab, it advances quickly and uses only this library, nothing else. 
> 
> What I will do is
> ° fix all this user interface buglets in the addressbook application
> (there are some...) Functionally, it is merely done. 
> ° have a look at the integration of kab and kmail. 
> Like lots of other apps, kab (the application) is not in a state to fix
> the ABI (estimated 90% done). But the library is. 
> Greetings,
> --Mirko.
> -- 
> Drei Dinge gibt es, denen alle Menschen gern gemütlich zuschauen:
> ° fliessendes Wasser,
> ° knisterndes Feuer und (am allerliebsten)
> ° anderen Menschen beim Arbeiten. (Charlie Brown).

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