[kde-linux] KAddressBook & Google Contacts

[Duncan]

Vojtěch Zeisek posted on Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:12:28 +0200 as excerpted:

> I use Kontact as my PIM suite on openSUSE 11.2, KDE 4.3.5. It is really
> great PIM suite, I like it very much. But I'm facing problems when
> trying to add my Google Contacts as resource using Akonadi to
> KAddressBook. Google Calendars as well as IMAP work great in KOrganizer
> and KMail, respectively. I have package akonadi-googledata, which should
> provide synchronization features for contacts, calendars and Google. I
> just added akonadi_googledata_resource to contact Akonadi resource for
> KAddressBook.

> When I view contact added in Google, I hardly see more
> than name (sometimes with wrong position of first and last name) and
> e-mail or phone. Another entries (address, IM, ....) are missing. I'm
> facing similar problem when adding new contact to KAddressBook Google
> Contacts Akonadi resource - only few entries from whole contact are
> really send to Google.

> Synchronization of contacts with Google works
> fine in Evolution as well as in Thunderbird/Sunbird. But KDE PIM is much
> more better... :-(

> Does anyone have same problem? What am I doing wrong?

With the caveat that I don't use google for much beyond search (well, they 
own youtube, and contribute quite a lot to mozilla and thru GSoC, etc, but 
I'm talking the google net domain address), so don't know that much about 
the particulars of your case...

It may be that you're simply using too old a version.  4.3.5 is after all 
over six months old, now, with 4.4.5 out and a second major update, 4.5.0, 
due next month, and kde4 continues to evolve at an incredibly rapid rate, 
particularly with the major 4.x series updates every six months, so you're 
a full major update and five monthly maintenance releases outdated, almost 
two major updates!

That's in general.  Specific to kdepim, 4.3 was still using mostly legacy 
3.x functionality, simply carried forward to 4.x and maintained.  The new 
kdepim akonadi functionality only really started to be used, with 
kaddressbook (which I use so know first hand) and IIRC kopete (which I 
don't, so only based on what I've read), with 4.4, and kmail isn't yet 
converted, with it scheduled to miss 4.5.0, but be in 4.5.1 in the 
September timeframe.

So for something like the google akonadi resource you mention, I'm 
honestly surprised it works at all in 4.3, and not surprised at all that 
it's somewhat broken.  I expect if you upgraded to the current 4.4.5, 
you'd find the situation rather better, tho as I said, kmail won't be 
fully akonadi integrated until 4.5.1, and there will likely be various 
improvements and functionality tweaks thru the 4.5.x series.

I'd expect full kdepim stability again probably sometime in the 4.6 
series, a bug-fix release or two after the 4.6.0 feature release.  Given 
the six-month 4.x feature release cycle and the monthly 4.x.y bug-fix 
release cycle, with 4.5.0 due next month and 4.6.0 due in Feburary, I'd 
expect/predict good kdepim stability around 4.6.2, so next April or so.

But certainly the current 4.4.5 release can be expected to work far better 
with akonadi resources, including the google conversion resource you 
mention, than the over six months outdated 4.3.5 you're currently using.  
As I said, given the newness of the technology and the rate of change, I'm 
frankly surprised that it works to the degree you say it does, with a 
version that old.  Do try something current and I expect it'll be much 
improved, but I don't expect full kdepim/akonadi stability until around 
4.6.2, April or so next year (with the distributions likely somewhat 
behind that, so likely not until the fall 2011 releases if not spring 
2012, if you don't update to current kde but depend on what's shipped by 
your distribution, as they're generally a couple months outdated when they 
ship, so 8 months or more outdated by the time they ship another 
release).  

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman