[Kde-pim] Addressbook questions

[Andreas Gungl]

Following the newer OpenSUSE releases I switched fromKDE 3.5.x to KDE 4, in 
that process my ressources were partially migrated to Akonadi.

On a first glance things went smooth, but when I found the time needed to have 
a deeper look, I'm a bit confused about the address book part. Let me address 
the issues here, perhaps you can give me some advice how to solve them.

First of all, I'm running KAddressbook 4.4.5 (on OpenSUSE 11.3 with normal set 
of repositories).
I found a default address book which originally corresponded to my stc.vcf 
file. I'm not sure if that relation is still maintained. The access date of the 
file changes as I use KMail or KAddressbook, but some information seems to be 
not in that file. If I check the address book properties in KAddressbook, no 
file name is set for this Akonadi Resource.

In the directory where std.vcf is (~/.kde4/share/apps/kabc) are some more files 
which represented different address books. Those were not visible in 
KAddressbook by default. So I decided to add them manually, as I need those 
addresses from time to time.
When I choose Add Addressbook, I'm abit confused about the choises. VCard File 
is probably the simplest way, so I tried that. It seems to work fine. The next 
file I tried a differnet way. I selected KDE Address Book (traditional) which 
has some nice options. However, after checking the properties of the 
successfully added address book, it vanished both on clicking OK or Cancel in 
that property dialog. Well, I tried again without opening the property dialog. 
I decided to close the application and to restart it, I wanted to see if the 
resource were still there. Oh my, KAddressbook didn't start anymore. It 
obviously was confused by that resource.

I started to feel a bit like a beta tester, and I stepped back from the idea 
to try the Personal Contacts import option with another file. Really, I don't 
want to mess up the address data... Okay, I decided to give akonadiconsole a 
try (thanks to the devels for that nice tool). I managed to open the property 
dialog for the broken resource there, and after having changed nothing but 
clicking okay, the status changed to ready. Hey, as supposed, KAddressbook was 
able to start again. Puh...

Now back to my default address book. I changed both address and e-mail of a 
contact. In KAddressbook I can see now in the overview (main vwindow, right 
column):
	Email (containing the new e-mail address)
	emails (outdated e-mail address)
	prefered address [Bevorzugte Addresse in German] (old address)
Opening the details of the contact I can see only the correct data as changed 
before.
Browsing the raw payload of that contact in akonadiconsole, I can see:
	ADR;TYPE=... (here goes the new data as entered by me)
	EMAIL;TYPE=PREF:... (here goes the new data as entered by me)
	LABEL;TYPE=... (this is the old data, still displayed but not editable)
	X-KADDRESSBOOK-emails:... (this is the old data, still displayed but not 
editable)
So I wonder how to handle that displayed data which is wrong and different from 
what's entered in the details. Further, how can I configure to update the file 
(or better: keep it in sync). I sometimes need to transfer the data to other 
systems, so it's handy to have the files araound.

From the users POV, I simply expect the applications to work. That was the 
case until KDE 3.5, the new implementation is kind of beta software. There is 
almost no guidance for the user (see the various kinds of resources on adding 
an addressbook which partially even seem to be broken). KAddressbook starting 
no more without any information (even on console) is a pain.
Fortunately there is akonadiconsole which is a great tool (didn't even explore 
all features) to help in that cases. But as you write, it's nothing a normal 
user should be forced to use.
Based on my experience in the last hours I'm really afraid of the next step 
with Akonadi based KMail. Breaking an e-mail application like I could do with 
KAddressbook is a reason to let people switch to TBird.

Okay, you know theses things anyway. If you could explain the various resource 
types for new adress books, I were already happy. If you can help me with the 
update problems of the contact data, that would be even better. I'm willing to 
experiment a bit, let's see how things go on.

Best regards,
Andreas
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