Re: [Evolution] Problem viewing calendars on multiple machines

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Wed, 2009-03-11 at 09:25 +0000, Chris G wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:11:45AM +0000, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > > Ummmm... no offense, but just looking at your instructions for changing 
> > > machines makes me think that the design of evolution is a bit insane.  I 
> > > really don't feel like what I want to do should be that difficult.  I figured 
> > > since evolution is the default calendar for most linux systems, it wouldn't 
> > > be... well such a pain to work with on multiple machines.
> >
> > The issue really is that Evo is a client program, it was never designed
> > to offer the data that it uses to other programs, it was designed to be
> > a consumer of data from elsewhere.
> The whole "synchronization" process is a can of worms in my opinion,

I agree.

> the idea that you need a 'server' and separate clients makes it all so
> unnecessarily complicated for the situation that 99% of users want -
> synchronization of desktop and PDA (or laptop in the OP's case).
>
> It's also made complicated by the need to convert to and from various
> formats of calendar/contact file with the inevitable issue of things
> which are available in on format and not in other formats.

That's why SyncML was invented.

> I've been struggling with this for a while, I have a Nokia E71 which I
> woudl like to synchronize with a simple desktop calendar/tasks program
> and (independently maybe) with a desktop address book.  As far as I
> can tell there is *nothing* out there that fulfils this requirement.
>
> There are several huge (mostly positively baroque) groupware suites
> that will synchronize with my phone but they're all trying to be more
> Outlook than Outlook, far too complex and large for my humble needs.

Agreed. I have the same needs and don't want to fight these things
either. That's why I use my.funambol.com for my phone. ScheduleWorld is
another option.

> It is possible to synchronize my E71 with Evolution, using the
> Evolution syncMl add-on plus a syncMl server but it's messy and either
> needs a server 'out there' or you install Funambol which again is
> *huge* (164Mb for a syncMl server, what it's all for?)

Or use one that's already set up. See above.

> I'm about to investigate what I can due using WebDav, it seems to me
> that's the right approach, share a single chunk of data between all
> applications rather than trying to 'synchronize' different lumps of data.

A distinction without a difference. Unless you expect all your devices
to be permanently online and use some kind of locking protocol, you
still get to synchronize and resolve clashes.

poc