Fwd: knotes: what to backup and how to restore?

[Eike Lantzsch]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: knotes: what to backup and how to restore?
Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2020, 09:42:59 -03
From: Eike Lantzsch <zp6cge at gmx.net>
To: debian-kde at lists.debian.org

Hi y'all,
the question has been asked a zillion times before and still it is an
enigma.
Warning: this is a long post. It is not intended as a rant.
I just beg for the information.

What do I need to backup and restore or to export and import knotes /
kontact / akonadi to be able to carry my popup notes in Kontact from one
installation to the next?
For email there is the possibility to archive and restore the folders
but what is there for popup notes?

Problem:
After upgrading my Buster installation to Bullseye (unstable) I was
surprised to find my popup notes in Kontact had twins. Not exact twins
because changes in one set appeared also in Notes while the changes were
not replicated in the other set of popup notes.
So I decided to delete the twins which stayed the same while keeping
those which I had made changes in.
BIG MISTAKE
All of my popup notes and also the reflected notes in "Notes" of Kontact
disappeared. Not immediately but after some hours - just so - no
intervention required.

OK, I had a backup - so I thought.
I have a copy of /home/user/.local
I couldn't find any of the original, current popup notes. I found three
old notes of 2016 ...
I have a copy of /home/user/.local/akonadi
I copied that over to my Bullseye /home/user/.local/akonadi
effect: Akonadi was not able to start anymore: no notes, no popup notes
and no mail at all.
I eventually solved that by reconfiguring the Kontact package.
But still no popup notes.

OK, I have an image of my old Buster installation.
I reinstalled the image.
My popup notes are still there.
I exported the notes to .txt; .html and to a "book"-file.
At least I got my information back. Although not as popup notes.

Reinstalled my image of the new Bullseye installation.
Wanted to import my popup notes - knotes has no import feature.
Kmail has but there were only the three old notes from 2016.

Looked around for file content "knotes at kde4".
Looked around for some specific text that ought to be in a recent popup
note.
Looked for answers on the web using my favorite search machine.
Found only old or half-backed answers and lots questions by confused and
frustrated users - of which I am one now.

Looked for other popup notes solutions.
Found
Joplin, Notejot, noblenote, rhinote, rednotebook, nixnote2
I'm still evaluating ... but the popup note fauna does not look
promising - crashes, disappearences, complicated handling, suboptimal
presentation, no integration into the desktop, nogos ...

I got a whishlist for knotes but will not share via this post.
That may be for another thread on kde.org mailing list.

Note on the "book" file: -> there is no program, which might be able to
open that file except kate or any other editor to show that it is a
programmatic file - XML, HTML any?

So, if anyone can help with a hint or of success experiences please be
so kind as to share.

Thank you for your time and interest.
Eike

--
Eike Lantzsch ZP6CGE




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