Re: vcard-integration for gnome

["Eli M. Dow" <dowem clarkson edu>]

Isn't this in the works for the release of Evolution 2. If I'm not
mistaken the former "wombat" will be split out into a sort of contacts
database.

I am anxiously awaiting it as well, because I am working on some
interesting projects that will make good use such an infrastructure ;) 
 

On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 12:54, Darko Obradovic wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> First: I'm not sure if I'm addressing the correct list, but this  
> message certainly aims towards desktop development and I found no  
> better alternative.
> 
> Using gnome2 since its beginning, I very much like the direction it's  
> heading towards, and noticed one bigger issue: PIM. gnome-pim obviously  
> didn't get the port to gnome2, and by now evolution took that over in a  
> way, but mostly for calendar-stuff only imho.
> 
> So, here's my idea: some form contact management would be a solid base  
> for the desktop in general. We'd need a central and standardized  
> location to store contacts, an application or ways (more to this later  
> on) to manage them, and mechanisms which provide the functionality to  
> other gnome-applications.
> 
> I did quite some research, but I certainly missed a lot, and thus seek  
> for input and an evaluation or opinions from more experienced people.  
> Now, step by step:
> 
> 1. USEFULNESS
> 
> Having a central way to handle contacts would be a good thing from a  
> user's point of view, as he doesn't have to think separately for every  
> application. Applications which could make use of this are mail-clients  
> (balsa, maybe evo), instant-messengers (gossip), video-conferencing  
> (gnomemeeting), connective apps (a cellphone-manager, gnome-pilot) and  
> maybe even more, like seahorse.
> 
> 2. ARCHITECTURE
> 
> That's the point where I'm quite lost for now. What makes most sense? A  
> separate library, some bonobo-components, gnome-vfs, a combination of  
> some of these? This is certainly a decisive point where design flaws  
> will have a heavy impact, so some people smarter than me are needed. ;)
> 
> 3. ADDRESSBOOK-MANAGEMENT
> 
> First and easiest thing to develop is a simple gui which lets you view,  
> edit, delete and add contacts. Yet I'm not sure if this should go into  
> a separate application based on a library (see ARCHITECTURE), or if it  
> would be the basic software for all this.
> 
> 4. FORMAT
> 
> I came to the conclusion that vCard might be the best choice. It's  
> quite widespread, was used by gnome-pim, is used by evolution, is  
> suitable for interchange (cellphones, pdas) and there already is  
> "libversit" in gnome-cvs. It should be fairly straightforward to create  
> a "~/.vcards"-folder (might be in some .gnome*-dir as well) and save  
> individual files there.
> 
> 
> My personal motivation on this:
> I'm experimentally about to start writing a GTK2-frontend for gammu  
> cellphone-manager, which could need such an infrastructure, and for  
> ages I'm looking to get some solid addressbook-handling for balsa.
> 
> Ok, so I'd be very happy to get some constructive comments, especially  
> regarding the feasibilty and sense of all this. I have some more  
> concrete ideas, but I'm trying to keep this short for the beginning.
> 
> Thanks for reading,
> 
> Darko Obradovic
-- 
Eli M. Dow   
Graduate Student HCI Group @ Clarkson University
Clarkson University Open Source Institute [COSI]
http://cosi.clarkson.edu
IBM Poughkeepsie: Intern / All around savage