Re: [Evolution-hackers] Rethinking account management

[Matthew Barnes <mbarnes redhat com>]

I think I'm done now with the standalone address book backends and am
moving on to calendars, so it seemed like a good stopping point for a
status update.

I pushed snapshot branches named "account-mgmt" to git.gnome.org.  Try
them if you're curious, but they're mainly for backup so I don't lose
three months of work if my hard drive dies or I do something stupid.

http://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution-data-server/log/?h=account-mgmt

http://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/log/?h=account-mgmt

The Evolution side of this is taking awhile because I decided to scrap
all the ESource configuration dialog windows and rewrite them fresh.

The new dialog windows will:

  * Share the same base class and extension framework for
    address books, calendars, task lists and memo lists.

  * Be extensible through GTypeModules instead of EPlugins.

  * NOT use EConfig.  Not using EConfig is a *feature*.  Means
    we're a step closer to killing it.

  * Look nicer.  I've fixed a bunch of alignment issues and am adding
    little polishing touches as I go, such as removing the pointless
    "General" notebook tab from the address book dialog.

I've attached a screen shot of the new address book dialog with the LDAP
type selected, since it's the most complex.  The other types are just a
flat list of options like we have now -- no notebook in the bottom half.


Now I'll let you in on my master plan:

Either in the 3.2 or 3.4 time frame, after the branch is merged and has
some time to settle in and stabilize, I want to move these configuration
dialogs to Evolution-Data-Server and also write some simple command-line
tools to run the dialogs.

Doing his will finally make it possible to configure address books and
calendars for E-D-S independently of Evolution.  With that in place, we
can start adding some nice desktop integration.