[Evolution-hackers] evolution accounts/sources

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo ximian com>]

Hi

To sum up first, the situation:
* we need a GUI for users to configure access to Groupwise servers, via
the calendar backend. The first and easy way is to create a config
control for it, but then, since we are writing more backends (bugzilla,
for instance), having config controls for all of them seems to be not an
option. Also, if someone is using Groupwise, she will not only use
calendar, but also mail (via POP, IMAP, or the SOAP interface), so
having a separate configuration for calendar and mail for the same
server seems also not an option (users would have to configure twice the
same server).

* we are going also to have an opengroupware backend, and (in the
future) other plugins that work in some way via accounts. But there are
also others, like the weather, birthday backends that have nothing
related to accounts, but to sources.

* there is an extensible account management stuff in camel, which is
used, for instance, in the connector.

So, I think we need some sort of plugin system that lets us manage all
this, or at least the accounts part, since having config controls for
everything seems a bit too much overhead, IMO.

So, what about getting the camel's account idea and use something
similar for all kinds of backends? We could have them done as
BonoboControl's even, so that the evolution settings dialog just has to
load the controls.

There could be a control for all mail stuff, so that we can just reuse
the current camel implementation, replacing the current 'Mail accounts'
config control with that, and then have other components implement their
AccountConfigControl. Then, the shell would just implement an 'Accounts'
tab which would manage all accounts configured of any type, loading the
AccountConfigControl for adding/updating the accounts.

We could also have some way to tell the accounts when the connection is
being opened, for instance, so that they can create the ESources needed
to access the folders on the configured server, or sync them in case
there was some removal/renaming.

It is not clear to me how to integrate source-only backends (weather,
birthdays) on this schema though.

So, what do people think? Would this be doable for 2.0? It would mean
replacing the current mail accounts config control with an
AccountConfigControl for pop, imap, etc, and adding
AccountConfigControl's for groupwise, bugzilla, opengroupware, ldap
sources, etc.

cheers