[Kde-pim] Proposal for a new pim application

Wed Oct 21 22:52:05 BST 2009

I had a look at the kde4 port of basket this evening, and now while trying to 
sleep i suddenly understood what the key point is in the application i 
imagine.

The mail is rather lengthy, so feel free to skip it if you are not interested 
in this project.

I have to say something about my habits in advance:

First:
I'm not really good at organizing my stuff.
I usually make a huge mess, and at some point i just have to clean up this 
mess. And then everything is sorted properly until i make a huge mess again.

So it looks exactly the same in my filesystem. I usually clutter up my 
homefolder, with stuff i don't know where to put, until i start to make new 
folders for the stuff which belongs together, and for the rest i make some 
"temp", "downloads", "howtos" and throw everything in there.

Second:
I'm really bad at remembering stuff. I can forget things within seconds.
And the only thing which helped so far, is writing down as i think of it, 
otherwise it's gone again. And if i have something to do at the moment, i can 
be sure i won't remember in 5 minutes (but maybe in 5hours when it's too late)

Third:
I'm lazy.
If i have to figure out where i want to store some info first, and maybe even 
start a text processor, i will never write anything down.
And maybe i write it down but store it somewhere where i will never find it 
again 

The app which i have in mind should basically help me on these problems.

The key point is, that at the time i want to store the information I don't 
care where it's stored. I just want to store.
Later when i wan't to access the data, then i care about where it is stored, 
but only because i have to know this to access the data.
This is basically the problem of a container (folder/basket/book) based 
structure (filesystem, basket, kjots), and this is also why basket and kjots 
don't really help me as they are.

To overcome this problem, i want to store the data in just ONE container, 
basically a huge growing database, of all notes i ever make. 
I believe it should be possible to still find the correct data trough 
searching (keywords, date, associated notes). 
Anyway i have to know what i am looking for (everything kde related, all 
todo's which are not completed), so it should always be possible to find the 
right keywords.

And this is also where nepomuk comes in action.
I think with nepomuk, which is fed by text parsers and metadata and manual 
tags, it is possible to achieve this, to find the correct data.

Because we integrate with nepomuk, searching for kde related stuff will at the 
same time also show me mails which relate to the same topic, and files on my 
harddisk, and blockpost from akregator, .....
After all, if i'm searching for info this is what i want to have. As much info 
as possible about a certain topic.

Because inserting information needs a minimum of effort, i will also insert 
more data, which will in turn make the database more useful.

Of course i want to be able to create todos from this data, but this is 
actually rather a convenience function. Anyway korganizer is responsible for 
managing my tasks and time (and this app should in no way interfere with 
this).

But if i search for some topic, i also want to see the todos i already have 
for this topic. This is why it is important, that also the korganizer todo's 
show up in this app (through akonadi).

An important point is definitely also the speed of input, sometimes i need to 
write something down within seconds (during a talk or so, like when you make a 
quick note in a real notepad).
Therefore i need a slick interface, which concentrates on input. 
Maybe even trough a krunner command which takes a oneliner note.

Important is that it is later possible to find this line again.

So, after this rather lengthy explanation, i hope i could make myself a bit 
clearer.
Let me make clear, that i'm still interested on working together with the 
basket, or kjots people. We just need to make clear if we share some common 
thoughts or not (still we can share code also otherwise)

So I'll go back to sleep now =)

Cheers,

Chris

On Wednesday 21 October 2009 15:57:12 Christian Mollekopf wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 October 2009 15:39:26 you wrote:
> > On Wednesday 21 October 2009 14:35:25 Christian Mollekopf wrote:
> > > So basically the app i have in mind would be a rewrite of basket, with
> > >  kjots and semnotes merged, and usage of the rest of the pim tools
> > > where needed.
> >
> > Sorry to home in on this and pick on you but I'd beg you to at least take
> > a good, hard look at the Basket sourcecode before committing to
> > rewriting. It's probably only worth a rewrite if there is almost no code
> > worth salvaging at all.
> 
> Agreed, i'm not committed yet to anything. Thanks to sune i found the git
> repository of basket, and will take a closer look.
> 
> Nevertheless i think i does not make sense to have both basket and kjots,
> since they serve a very similar purpose (and with the right interface it
> should be possible to merge those projects, and server both of them).
> So I'm also no committed to work on basket only.
> 
> I think we should see what every project wants to achieve and how we can
>  unify our efforts.
> 
> Cheers
> _______________________________________________
> KDE PIM mailing list kde-pim at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-pim
> KDE PIM home page at http://pim.kde.org/
> 
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