Testable KDEPIM Software for Windows

[Romain Pokrzywka]

On Wednesday 30 March 2011 02:32:32 Andre Heinecke wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At Dienstag, 29. März 2011 19:31:59 Romain Pokrzywka wrote:
> > Just a quick question before I try it out : Is the version self-contained
> > within the installation dir ? Or does it uses the standard user dir for
> > settings and config ?
>
> It uses the standard user dirs for settings and config. The installer only
> writes directly in the installation dir but the applications show normal
> KDE behavior.
>
> > I have a stable e4 kontact which I use as my work email client, so I
> > don't want to is to get messed up in case the RC wipes the existing
> > settings and/or data. Is it safe by default, or do I need to adjust
> > something first ? Or am I doomed ? :)
>
> Actually i do not know exactly, it should respect the environment variables
> (XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_CONFIG_HOME, KDEHOME) afaik. I have not tested it, but
> you probably know the code there better then me.
>
> The package does not wipe existing configuration but you will have problems
> if you have an old akonadiserverrc for example which is configured for
> mysql since your settings would override the defaults of the package and
> may lead to a misconfigured setup.
> To be save i would suggest you make backups of the Userdirs or just run the
> e5 as a different user for some first testing.
>
> Regards,
> Andre

Thanks for the tip.
Fortunately it turns out my e4 setup was in a sandboxed environment already, so installing and running the e5-RC doesn't 
have any impact.
Indeed if I run it through a shell with KDEHOME env var and friends, I can make it run in its own sandboxed env as well.

So I've tried the RC package, and set it up on my work account (fair amount of folders and emails), using the Kolab 
proxy account type against our corporate Kolab server. Here are my first impressions and comments:

- The account wizard should be run automatically on first run or after the installer has completed, and there should be 
a shortcut to it in the windows menu (didn't try the desktop shortcuts, maybe it's there)

- I ran the wizard for a kolab proxy type account. I had trouble during setup, when kwallet was popping up: by the time 
I was done setting kwallet the wizard log had an entry "password entry timed out" and the identity and settings were 
removed. After re-running the wizard (and hurrying up :) ) things got saved properly.

- Nepomuk server is still automatically started, but the initialization fails due to no backend. However the resources 
and server processes are still there. We should disable those by default (maybe have an option to enable them in kontact 
or akonadiconsole)

- I'm afraid there are still hangs in Akonadi while fetching mails : this is the same issue we've been facing forever, 
including on WinCE : sometimes akonadi starts hanging while fetching collections. It'll hang for about 30 seconds, then 
continue fetching a bit more (more debug output in the akonadiconsole debug view), then hang again for about 30 seconds, 
then continue a bit more, and so on...

- While akonadi is hanging like mentionned above, Kontact becomes irresponsive. I've let hang in the background and 
eventually it became responsive again. I'm not sure what's best : keep kontact responsive although the backend isn't 
(which doesn't let the user know something's wrong), or have it hang as well, which at least lets the user know things 
aren't going well. But at least this seems to have changed since last time I tried e5.

- Eventually I got a full sync, and I could start viewing mails in Kontact. I got akonadiserver crashes everytime I 
tried viewing a mail with an S/MIME signature. This might be an intereference with the gpgagent running for my e4 setup 
though, so don't necessarily take this into account (I haven't tried on a clean start).

- When checking out the resources list in akonadiconsole, I noticed duplicates for the notes, calendar and contacts 
resources (this issue has been there for a while). This might be due to my first accountwizard attempt failing due to 
the password timeout.


Some positive points now :

- The installer worked flawlessly, and shortcuts and email integration are great

- The default UI style of Kontact is MUCH better now, it's not the ugly gray background anymore but a nice white 
background that makes it looks much more native. I didn't feel the need to switch to Oxygen to make it visually 
pleasing.

- I like that the installers packs all the useful tools like akonadiconsole, qdbusviewer, etc.


One final question : so in this release Akonadi uses sqlite as the backend ? I didn't see any mysql process running so I 
assume so. The akonadi configuration page was somewhat broken, not showing the backend in the combo list (I guess 
because sqlite isn't listed in there).

Oh and it seems that the package is a release build only. Maybe we should make it ReleaseWithDebugSymbols instead ? This 
would make crash reporting and more complete, so we can at least get a usable stacktrace.

Anyway, looks promising, great work so far!
I'll make sure to show it off at Camp KDE next week ;)

Cheers
Romain


ps: I'm going to try and fix the issues reported as much as I can. This is more just a brain dump at that point, but of 
course I'm expecting myself to fix them just as much as anybody else

-- 
Romain Pokrzywka | romain.pokrzywka at kdab.com | Senior Qt Software Engineer & Trainer
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, a KDAB Group company
Tel. Sweden (HQ) +46-563-540090, USA +1-866-777-KDAB(5322)
KDAB - Qt Experts - Platform-independent software solutions
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