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List:       kmail-devel
Subject:    Recent Kroupware changes and progress...  (was: Last attempt at reconciliation)
From:       Karl-Heinz Zimmer <khz () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-09-18 5:49:57
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Hi Ingo, hi all!   :-)

On Wednesday 18 September 2002 01:52, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 September 2002 21:35, Zack Rusin wrote:

> > - we have two approaches to integrate KMail with kdepim packages.
> > kgroupware has one and make_it_cool has one. The big problem I
> > have with the kgroupware approach is that it majorly bloats KMail
> > code, making it even harder to understand - for people who want
> > to help us - and for ourselves. And to be completely honest, even
> > on screenshots it looks not too promising. I find Don's and
> > Daniel's approach with Kaplan _way_ superior. I think Kaplan and
> > KMail as KPart is the way to go. Comments?

> As I already wrote in another message I much prefer the Kaplan
> approach over the KOrganizer-in-KMail approach.

As mentioned before (and even tough we are under extreme time-pressure
with the Kroupware project) we actually *do* take your concerns very
seriously:

   Ingo (and others with him) mentioned two main problems they see
   with the design way followed by the Kroupware branch:

1. KMail might get 'bloated' by quite a lot of new code.

   This would not be nice fot the KMail developers and could even
   result in newbies (who were willing to volunteer) to resign
   because understanding KMail code would be more difficult.

2. The 2nd screenshot is lacking conviction!

   Formerly the screenshot showed good KOrganizer kind of 'squeezed'
   into a not too large space.
   This resulted from us having used layout mode 2 (as most users do).


OK, we tried (and are trying) to solve these issues like this:


ad 1: The complete code has been revised and reorganized.

      We now have a separate class KMGroupware holding all things
      that are groupware specific.  Both KMMainWin and KMReaderWin
      make use of this class on various places: all just one-liners
      preceeded by an easy to understand comment line.


ad 2: We would like to solve the 'narrow space' problem like this:

      When the user makes KOrganizer visible, we would switch to
      layout mode 4 to have the whole screenwidth for the KOrganizer,
      afterwards the previous layout mode would be restored again.

      Please have a look at my new screenshot to get an impression
      how things would look then:

      http://lernst.de/kroupware/KMail_showing_calendar_to_check_invitiation.png


BTW I just finished the 1st step of manually (==carefully ;-)) merging
KOrganizer's menu items into KMail's menu.  Most items are operational,
except: File/Print Preview, File/Merge Calendar, File/Archive Old Entries,
Settings/Configure KOrganizer, Settings/Configure Date+Time,
Settings/Edit categories.

To try this you might act like this:

(a) click on one of the new menu entries (e.g. Go/Go to Today)
    and see KOrganizer getting visible,
    work in KOrganizer and
(b) hide KOrganizer using menu View/Hide Organizer.
    (of course hiding/showing KOrganizer /should/ also be able via
     a Toolbar button - this will be implemented later)


To conclude I hope we have been able to proove that we _are_ very
much interested in both your feedback and your support - even if
we sometimes cannot spend as much time in discussing the single
steps as we would do in a situation of less time-pressure.


Cheers,

Karl-Heinz

-- 
Karl-Heinz Zimmer, Senior Software Engineer, Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB
<mailto:khz@klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se>            <mailto:khz@kde.org>
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