[Evolution-hackers] Bug 200821: We need a Notes component. - first implementation

[Nathan Owens <pianocomp81 yahoo com>]

This feature request has been open since October, 2000. Back in December, 2003,
I sent a few e-mails to this list to try to figure out the best way to create
the component. Until recently, I haven't had the time to work on it. Now that
I've had time, I've tried to make sure I use the suggestions from those
e-mails, though a lot has changed since then.

I've created a sourceforge project at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/evolution-memos (I'm calling it Memos, not
Notes, since I use a PalmOS PDA and that's what it calls it). There are patches
on there for the gnome-2-8-branch of CVS, evolution 2.3.3.1/eds 1.3.3.1, and
also CVS from earlier this week. The CVS repository for the project contains
the source tree for both evolution and the evolution-data-server from a few
days ago (I'll keep updating it as well). See the bug page
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=200821) for some other info (patches
are there, as well).

Screenshots are located at:
http://evolution-memos.sourceforge.net/pics/Screenshot-Evolution%20-%20Memos.png
  (grouping by categories)

http://evolution-memos.sourceforge.net/pics/Screenshot-Journal%20entry%20-%20Random%20entry%20of%20text.png
  (editing/creating a new memo)

Here's how I designed it:
- based on the Tasks component (originally cut-and-paste, but now quite
  different) - this means it's in the libevolution-calendar.so library.
- uses VJOURNAL (suggested in a December 2003 e-mail)
- works similarly to the Memos program on a PalmOS PDA.
- Memo content is stored in the Description field of an e-cal object
- Summary is generated from Memo content, since we don't want the summary to
  differ with the first part of the memo content.
- gnome-pilot conduit works - it uses the description/memo content for the
  'struct memo->text' entity from pilot-link that's used to sync with Memos
- the gnome-pilot conduit uses the old MemoDB, instead of the newer
  MemosDB-PMe.pdb - this limits the text given to the PDA (or retrieved from
it)
  to 4KB.
  - The conduit CAN work with the new Memos database file (I've done it on
    mine), but not everyone has the new DB. Until a way is found to detect
which
    database to use, I'd like to stick to using the old DB.
  - Memos in Evolution are NOT limited to the 4KB, though. This would just be
    stupid.


I think that's all I have about the component. I'd like to get comments on the
layout, code, design, etc. I'd like to see this component eventually get into
the Evolution source tree so that people can start using it. It's been
requested a whole lot, and every few months, we'll see another post about "it's
not here yet?!" on the bug page (as well as duplicate bugs). People want it,
and after having used it for a little over a week myself, I'd say it's a
greatly-needed component.

Hope you guys like the initial component.

Thanks,
Nathan Owens


		
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