[Kde-mobile-users] Re: Experiences

[Bernhard Reiter]

Dear Jens-Peter,

Am Donnerstag, 9. Dezember 2010 10:39:31 schrieb JP Horst:
> as a non-developper from the "real-world" I want to give some initial
> feedback:
>
> I use an N900 and actually bought it just recently, because of KMobile and
> the access it gives to our Kolab server. Thank you for your effort!

thanks for sending us feedback, this is really helpful to us!

> Initially installation somehow went wrong and I had to de- and reinstall.
> There seemed to be some confusion between the "testing" and a non-existent
> "unstable" section for the repository. One problem was also a conflict with
> the package clucene-core (a dependency of the packages katana or rapier).
> The conflict seems to be with the package libclucene0ldbl. Somehow a
> duplication.

Thanks for the hint, I take it you were using the instructions at
http://userbase.kde.org/Kontact_Mobile/Maemo5, we are constantly trying
to improve them. The change of "unstable" to "testing" is something we started
recently and it still might need fixing. We will look into the clucene-core 
issue.

> A little explanation on the website as to what the different symbols mean
> would be nice though. It is not quit clear to me what the blue bar under
> the user ID  stands for.

Can you make a screenshot or point to one? 
I am not entirely sure which bar you are refering to, we have several ones.
In the full screen email like in 
http://userbase.kde.org/File:Kontact-mobile-mail-Screenshot-20100811.png
it is just for layout purposes. We do have a darkblue bar for encrypted emails
and a progress bar in the folder list.

Newer versions also have a "First steps" link on the home screen
which will point you to a few features.

> Suggestion: A separate icon with opened emails for quickly deleting them
> (without pulling out the menu etc.) would be handy.

Try the bulk action mode, you will get into it, when you touch a folder 
another time when it is already selected. Then you can mark several emails 
and then delete or move them all at once.

> The email downloading is not intuitive to me. Mails show up automatically
> (probably due to the email checking interval), but not necessarily right
> away when I select "Synchronize emails in folder" manually (which I would
> prefer). This does not seem to be responsive or delays make this
> counter-intuitive (the connection is through openvpn).

There are a few ways that a folder get "synced":
a) sync during an interval, you can configure this
b) you select a folder when working online which will try to sync it
c) you explictely trigger a sync via the menu
d) there is still a connection to the server on the folder with IMAP idle in 
which case the server might notify your client asynchroniously.

When the backend has the emails, the little sync symbol and the detailed view
in the "accounts" flap will show a done state. To get it displayed the 
frontends need to fully get the date from the backend and this is sometimes 
causing a delay which is too large. So we are still looking into this as 
well. You could try to configure a sorting without gropus.

> Criticism: The power consumption / CPU load of the software is really high.
> With KMail open my N900 hardly last the 8-12h of one workday. When
> travelling (and this would be the main scenario of use) this is really a
> critical aspect.

There is still some room to fine tune the client, especially the syncing.
Newer versions already have improvements. Try disabling the intervall sync
for a start. 

> Upgrading: As far as I now the application (Testing repository) did not
> apply any upgrade within the last maybe two weeks through the standard
> softwaremanager. Is there a separate upgrade approach or were there simply
> no changes lately?

Testing has already gone through a number of internal and external tests,
this is why we only update it every few weeks. If you want to be closer to the 
edge, use "experimental", people do this productively for many months now.

> In general I value this application very much. Other aspects of usablity
> are very nice.

Thanks again for your encouraging feedback!
Are you already using it with your production data? Are you using end-to-end 
email security like OpenPGP or S/MIME?

Best Regards,
Bernhard

-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free Software Company)
Deputy Coordinator Germany: fsfe.org. Board member: www.kolabsys.com.
Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht Osnabrück, HRB 18998
Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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