[Kde-pim] KDE Addressbook on an Appliance

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Thursday 06 May 2010, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Wednesday 05 May 2010 20:30:07 Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > I think the problem we are having is that you are stating a problem
> > without first stating the situation or the use case. You seem to be
> > talking about a user who does already have an address book in
> > electronic form. Otherwise there wouldn't be an alternative to
> > entering each record by hand.
> 
> True.  There are two cases, then.  One where no addressbook exists -
> but then users would expect to simply add addresses as they needed
> to, so I didn't consider this as a problem.
> 
> The other case, the one I addressed, is that the user has had an
> addressbook, either in a previous install or on another computer,
> and wants to use that existing addressbook.
> 
> > But if one does already have data then the first thing I would look
> > for is a way to import this data. And indeed there is an entry
> > Import in the File menu. Of course, I'm not Joe User so I'm not
> > the kind of person we are talking about.
> 
> That was the first thing I looked at.  What I saw was
> 
> Import vCard
> Import CSV file
> Import LDIF file
> Import from LDAP server
> Import GMX file.
> 
> None of these seemed to me to fit the bill.  The only possible one
> was the first one - but logic said that that would import a single
> address card - and what I had was a file with 100 or so addresses.

Yeah, I also noticed this. I would have tried it anyway. :-)

Of course, it would be even better if KAddressBook tried to figure out 
the format of the file automatically instead of asking the user to make 
a choice between four different file formats. For many users this will 
be as understandable as Chinese.


> > > If you do it the way I did, you have two addressbooks, and then
> > > have to go through the process of marking one of them as
> > > default.  Anyone who tries to remove the std.vcf after simply
> > > copying across the entries is likely to find that he can't,
> > > because it could well be being seen as the default.  Of course
> > > it's all editable, but it's a hassle that should be avoided.
> > 
> > The problem here is that your way of doing it is extremely
> > complicated. It's not the recommended way of getting your old data
> > into KAddressBook. The recommended way is to use the import
> > functionality provided by the application.
> 
> See above.
> 
> > > IMO what would really help is if the first run could register
> > > whether it found any records to migrate.  If it didn't, it
> > > should re-run at the next boot - and each time until it actually
> > > finds records.  That would allow for users to panic and close
> > > the addressbook because it's empty, realise that the old one has
> > > to be made available, fix that, and still have an automatic
> > > migration.
> > 
> > Maybe. OTOH, for automatic migration to work the user will have to
> > copy the old address book to a specific location. That's
> > error-prone and IMO too complicated. Instead, if auto-migration
> > didn't find an old address book, then the first-run assistant
> > should offer importing an old address book (giving the user a hint
> > where he has to look for the old address book).
> 
> Copying a single file to a directory known to have been its address
> in earlier releases is a natural enough thing to do, for anyone that
> has used file managers.  Yes, the first-run pausing and allowing you
> to point to a location would help a lot.  Particularly if it happily
> waits for a usb drive to be added.
> 
> > > Of course it's easy to tell others what to do :-)  I would have
> > > thought that just setting a flag might accomplish this, but if
> > > it's not so easy, I apologise.  I'm simply reflecting the
> > > problems that some users have reported.
> > 
> > Understood. What do you think about the proposal outlined by me?
> 
> I'm not happy about the Import situation - either the descriptions
> are not good, or there isn't one for the job in hand.

I'm pretty sure it's just the descriptions that are not good.


> OTOH, your
> suggestion of pausing the first-run assistant to allow for a
> location to be defined sounds a good one to me - although I'm not
> sure that it could hint at the location, as it would have found the
> addressbook automatically if it was in the expected place.

Well, I meant it could hint at the (most likely) location on the old 
computer. If the old address book is already on the new system then you 
are right. In this case it should migrate the address book 
automatically.


Regards,
Ingo
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