[Kde-pim] KDE Addressbook on an Appliance

Fri May 7 20:03:15 BST 2010

Hello,

Am Donnerstag 06 Mai 2010 schrieb 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. :-)

I did and it worked, but still it wasn't that intuitive.

> 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.

Yes:

Bug 236757 -  please try to autodetect format of file based address book
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236757

> > > > 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.

Yes:

Bug 236756 -  start import wizard on first run
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=236756

Ciao
-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA  B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7
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