[Kroupware] my univ and kolab.

[Bo Thorsen]

On Saturday 08 February 2003 09:16, Amit Upadhyay wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My university [student voulanteers] are trying to implement some group
> aware callandering/scheduling thing. I feel making it kolab aware would
> be good thing. The things we are looking for is: curses interface, web
> interface, and possibly windows client. Can any of the developers give
> me an overview of what exactly is involved?

Make a complete iCalendar application and IMAP capable mail reader. Make=20
the iCal app use IMAP for storage and the mail reader for scheduling.=20
Make an addressbook that is LDAP capable and can use IMAP for storage.

I'm not going to describe writing an iCalendar application. You can read=20
yourself the RFCs 2444, 2445 and 2446. I can tell you that several man=20
years are involved in it.

> I have read the whitepaper 1.1. But it contains lines like: "In
> consequence, vCards received as email attachments can be easily added
> to a users contacts repository". Which is telling what can be done by
> existing kolab clients [kde kolab client and OL plugin] [and hence it
> is not an architecture paper, rather a feature introduction or
> something, almost completely useless for programmers]. I need
> information about how do i write php page to retrive the stored notes
> or addressbook for the users for example.

We store the personal contacts in the IMAP folder INBOX/Contacts. The=20
company/university/... wide addressbook is fetched by LDAP.

> I have a fundamental confusion is everything is stored on IMAP servers
> as mails in some special folder, and we got to access them? If so, what
> is the folder structure?

Yes, everything is stored as mails. We have the INBOX folder on the IMAP=20
server, and have Calendar, Contacts, Notes and Tasks as subfolders to=20
that. But in KMail it's actually user settable where he wants it - I=20
think it's Outlook that demands them being there. Another thing is that=20
Outlook expects the folders to have localized names, so for a German=20
user, the folder for Notes are named "Notizen" - can't remember the=20
others.

> Getting notes/appointment request from other users as email
> attachments, and then trying to do something to update our pim database
> somehow. What exactly are the steps involved in it? I parse the mail of
> users and see if there is any useful attachment, prompt user what to
> do, and then update the pim database.

Yes, that's it. And if you wrote the iCalendar app, you would know what to=
=20
do with that mail.

> Another question, I have kde3.1, is it kolab complient? Or do i need to
> cvs -co kde-pim -r kreoupware_branch or something?

Read the description on www.kroupware.org - it describes how to check out=20
the kroupware_branch from cvs.

> I like the concept, but am yet to try it, tell me how diffcult, system
> critical would be to host Kolab server on my pentium3, 700MHz, 128Mb
> ram PC with mandrake9 on it?

I think this machine is big enough. But if there is anything about your=20
machine that needs upgrading, it's the memory - 128Mb isn't a lot.

Bo.

=2D-=20

     Bo Thorsen                 |   Praestevejen 4
     Senior Software Engineer   |   5290 Marslev
     Klar=E4lvdalens Datakonsult  |   Denmark