Re: [Evolution] How to keep multiple Evolution desktops in sync

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam opengroupware us>]

On Mon, 2009-12-14 at 10:36 +0000, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > 1.you have to make symbolic link to ~/.evolution in UbuntuOne folder
> > which is synchronised, and it will appear in your other PCs. Bad news is
> > that currently synchronising of symbolic links is disabled, until they
> > get rid of some problems.
> > 2. Second option is to move ~/.evolution into UbuntuOne folder, and then
> > make ln -s ~/UbuntuOne ~/.evolution in order to keep evolution working.
> > hese are only my theoretical considerations, as i had no time to test
> > this solution. Hope this will help somebody.
> Be careful.  The information in .evolution can only be guaranteed to be
> consistent if all Evo processes are shutdown (i.e. by doing "evolution
> --force-shtudown").  Also, configuration information is kept in gconf,
> so that won't be synchronised.

I'd image doing something like this would create a mess in a pretty big
hurry with most applications.  I've been down the road with users on
concerning various data stores on  multiple occasions;  filesystem
syncronization rarely if ever works.  You need something smarter and
aware of meta-data and how the application operates.

> Yes, copying .evolution is one way to go, but it is not an "official"
> thing, is unsupported, and is not a full solution.
> The only real way to keep multiple copies of Evo in sync is to not store
> anything locally - i.e. use IMAP, LDAP and CalDAV.  It used to be that
> "road warriors" (horrible term :-( ) couldn't use on-line solutions, but
> the ubiquity of things like 3G makes it much less of an issue these
> days.

Don't agree completely.  Offline access is absolutely mandatory,  3G is
not ubiquitous by any stretch of the imagination.  And even places where
it is "available" you may move from coverage cell to coverage cell so
quickly [in a train or car] that connection is effectively useless.  Not
to mention places like on a plane where use of wireless is prohibited.

IMAP works just find in offline mode, just set it to keep a local copy
of folders you want to use offline.

Evolution supports both GroupDAV (Contacts) and CalDAV (calendering) and
can be set to keep a local copy of the address book or calendar.

IMO, this is a solved problem.  The current solutions work quite well.

Just use a groupware server.