Moving KAddressBook back to kdepim

[Don Sanders]

On Monday 06 May 2002 22:34, Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
> On Monday 06 May 2002 13:00, Don Sanders wrote:
> > This would mean that for end users KMail is dependent on kde-pim
> > again, a situation which has proven confusing in the past,
> > ("Somebody told me I just need kde network/base/libs to get KMail
> > to work but now the addressbook isn't working" ad nauseam).
>
> I like Ingo's suggestion of adding a simple dialog for adding an
> entry to the addressbook without starting the full KAddressBook.
> This would probably fulfill the needs of many KMail users and would
> remove the dependency on KAddressBook from KMail. KMail could still
> include the hooks for KAddressBook, if this is installed.

It's a good suggestion.

> > The basic problem is that KAddressBook and KOrganizer want to
> > share a common dialog, specifically the choose categories dialog,
> > right?
>
> At the moment we only share the categories dialogs, but in the
> future there might be more things to share which are more PIM
> specific and would definitely not fit into kdelibs.

Can you be more specific? More things such as?

> > Would it really be wrong to add such a dialog to kdelibs/kdeui ?
>
> It would probably not be wrong, but having it all in kdepim would
> make development easier, because you only have to care about one
> module and not three. A libkdepim library in kdepim would also be a
> nice playground to develop new stuff, better then kdelibs where you
> have to care about stuff like binary compatibility etc.

I agree that having everything in kde-pim would make things easier for 
kde-pim developers. But you are reintroducing a cost. That is making 
things more confusing for users who want a mail client and don't 
expect the kdenetwork package to depend on the kde-pim package. 
Especially as rpms etc historically haven't being created with such a 
dependency defined.

Ingo's suggestion if implemented makes KMail less dependent on 
KAddressbook. But there is still a dependency, KMail users expect to 
be able to click on the address book icon and have an address book 
appear. If trying to launch the address book causes an obsolete 
broken binary to be launched (because kde-pim isn't installed and an 
old kaddressbook is still in the path) then KMail developers are 
going to start getting bug reports again which is annoying.

Cornelius I trust you and if you want to move KAddressbook back into 
kde-pim then ok. But I want to be sure you are aware of my concerns.

Don.