On Wed, 2010-11-10 at 16:20 -0500, Matthew Barnes wrote: > On Thu, 2010-11-11 at 09:16 +1300, Andrew McMillan wrote: > > Does this mean (for example) that we will be able to have a caldav > > server, with credentials, and then just associate (and maybe > > auto-discover) all of the user's addressbooks, calendars, todo-lists and > > journals which the user has on that server? > > I honestly don't know if that's possible with a CalDAV server (I'm just > not familiar enough with CalDAV), but if we're talking about a groupware > service... Yes, it is. Apple iCal (for example) will discover and show all of a user's calendar collections. The contacts app on an iPhone (with iOS 4.1) will discover and show all of a user's addressbooks if that DAV server also does CardDAV. Calendar collections may very well also store VTODO and VJOURNAL data (DAViCal does, for example, as well as supporting CardDAV in very recent versions). So Evolution, with SMTP, IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV servers really is a complete groupware service. Newer extensions to CalDAV/CardDAV also add support for service discovery through SRV lookups for _caldav, _caldavs, _carddav, _carddavs services and URL locating through requests against /.well-known/carddav or /.well-known/caldav URLs after the server discovery. > Currently each of our groupware backends has to invent this kind of > account management for itself. All I'm proposing is a general framework > that backends can utilize to make it easier and more consistent. > > Auto-discovery is also up to each backend to implement, and rightfully > so. But the framework certainly allows for discovered data sources to > be associated with the account. > > I hope I answered your question. Like I said, handling of groupware > accounts is still kinda hand wavy at this point. I think so. Evolution was early to the party when CalDAV came out as a specification, but the support in there has not evolved very well to follow the current possibilities. That said, the biggest complaint I hear about Evolution's CalDAV support is it's lack of a useful 'offline' mode. I'm currently in the process of developing caldav/carddav setup and synchronisation process (for another purpose) but once that's working it might be worth looking at that with a view to seeing if we can improve the structure of CalDAV setup within Evolution. I know Milan has done some good work on CalDAV (and I'm very grateful for it) but I think the area needs some significant refactoring in the configuration and discovery parts. My biggest annoyance in there is that I go into a calendar and add a CalDAV server, and a collection, and then I go into tasks and add *the same* server, and *the same* collection, and then I go into Notes and add *the same server* and *the same collection* and then I go into the addressbook and add *the same server*, and (phew!) a different collection. There seems a little redundancy in that process, not least because for a given server I can discover all of a user's calendars and addressbooks, and whether they support calendar, tasks and/or notes by making two PROPFIND requests. Or maybe three requests, for a more recent server that allows discovery of the principal URL. Cheers, Andrew. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://andrew.mcmillan.net.nz/ Porirua, New Zealand Twitter: _karora Phone: +64(272)DEBIAN The real problem with hunting elephants is carrying the decoys. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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