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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: KMail and contacts - RMB behavior
From:       "Michael W. Collette" <metrol () metrol ! net>
Date:       2002-05-30 14:45:39
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On Thursday 30 May 2002 03:38 am, Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
> Well, then just tell the KPilot conduit developers to figure out a clever
> way to resolve the compatibility issue with a new clever addressbook,
> instead of providing a dump application which can be guarantee to work
> without any serious thinking on the developer's side. BTW, I should
> mention, I'm the one who is currently rewriting the addressbook conduit for
> Kpilot (to , and the only obstacle I can currently see is palm's limitation
> to 5 phone and email entries per addressee.

Although I have referred to the Palm several times, I was actually thinking in 
a broader scope.  Getting data out of kaddressbook and into anything else 
gets more complex as the number of fields grow.  The impact is greater than 
simply the KPilot conduits.

> If the Kaddressbook (or rather the KABC::Addressee object) has
> more/additional information, it just won't get synced to the palm, but is
> it not lost. Only the information that the palm can handle is synced, all
> other fields in the Kaddressbook are left untouched. So if Kaddressbook
> uses some additional clever features, that's fine with the pilot, you just
> can't use the features with the pilot, but have to use kaddressbook.

This gets into a somewhat related issue of whether or not kaddressbook 
actually needs all this stuff.  The number of fields in there is huge!  This 
is one of those places where I'm sure Kristian would have something to say on 
this matter, and I'd be agreeing with him.

Sales people, doctors, lawyers, and all other manner of professionals out 
there with extensive contact lists rely on that simplistic little Palm every 
day.  The jury is back, the verdict is given, simpler is the clear winner.

> You could use the same argument with KOrganizer and the palm calendar. The
> palm calendar uses only very few information entries about the date, while
> KOrganizer adds such nifty features like participants. The palm conduit
> just ignores those fields it doesn't know anything about. No problem at
> all.

KOrganizer has a slightly different focus though.  It's evident that when it 
grows up it will have more groupware functionality, as an eventual 
replacement for Outlook.  This is worth a thread of it's own at some later 
time I'm sure.

As a quick side note, I attempted to use KPilot once a while back.  It decided 
to mangle data on my Palm, wiping out everything sitting in my calendar.  
Information did come out of my addressbook, flooding kaddressbook, but 
completely unable to properly note E-Mail addresses, and some other field 
mis-matches.  Maybe just a settings issue, but I couldn't figure it out at 
the time.

My previous posts should indicate that I would love to see this work properly.  
I am more than a little concerned with mucking around with what I consider to 
be a production Palm and my production laptop.  For now, no matter how cool 
the features may be in the KDE apps, JPilot is my PIM software at the 
desktop.  Simple and functional beat the snot outta cleverness every time.

Later on,
-- 
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark 
to read."
 - Groucho Marx
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