[Kolab-devel] distributionlists testing

Gunnar Wrobel wrobel at pardus.de
Thu Apr 24 15:26:15 CEST 2008


Hi Mike,

Mike Gabriel <m.gabriel at das-netzwerkteam.de> writes:

> hi gunnar, hi others,
>
> Quoting Gunnar Wrobel <wrobel at pardus.de>:
>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> Mike Gabriel <m.gabriel at das-netzwerkteam.de> writes:
>>
>>> hi gunnar,
>>>
>>> i would like to test your distlist code, but i am not sure how to set
>>> the jigsaw together.
>>>
>>> your external-horde script + patches (which?)???
>>
>> let me commit the stuff to Horde CVS that will be easier. Give me a  
>> few minutes ;)
>>
>
> apart from some problems with the current horde/imp CVS and the minor  
> bug reported the distlist patch seems to work really fine.

What held it up for me was the fact that adding users did not seem to
work correctly when I tested last time. When I returned to distlists
today I realized that this problem originated from the fact that some
of the users I was trying to add did not have an email-adress.

So I actually implemented part of what you suggest below (the optional
"uid" attribute) since it is required for Turba to work
correctly. Otherwise I get the message "4 users added successfully"
and wonder where they actually are in my contact list :)

This highlights a conceptional problem though: As Bernhard mentioned
in his other mail the Kolab concept of a distribution list is a list
you can send mail to. Turba currently only has the concept of a
general group of contacts. This is of course useful, too, but it is
without a question a different concept.

So if you edit distribution lists in other clients at the moment you
might experience some incompatibilities.

> i would  
> like to discuss a feature list around private distribution lists and  
> see what is desired, what can be applicable, etc.
>
>    o do we want to allow cross address book references in privdistlists? (userA
>      in abookA and userB in abookB can both be added to distlistB in abookB or
>      distlistA in abookA

The Kolab UID does not allow cross referencing between IMAP
folders. For a globally unique UID that could be used for referencing
you'd need something like
123456 at user/wrobel/Contacts at kolab.example.org which we don't have and
which would turn out to be a really complex topic.

>    o move distlistA from abookA to abookB (including users from both abooks?)
>    o how about if userA is in distlistA and userA is deleted???
>    o kolab format proposal for cascaded distlists and uniquely identifiable
>      members:
>
>            <!-- Distribution-list specific fields -->
>            <display-name>(string)</display-name>
>            {<member>
>              <display-name>(string)</display-name>
>              <smtp-address>(string)</smtp-address>
>              <uid>{string, optional}</uid>
>            </member>}
>            {<distribution-list>
>              <display-name>(string)</display-name>
>              <uid>(string, not optional)</uid>
>            </distribution-list>}
>
> with the kolab format change, we could discuss further issues like:
>
>    o add people to privdistlists, that do not have an email address (yet)

Implemented, albeit with the possible cross-client difficulties
mentioned above.

>    o remove contacts from an address book, but keep the contact in the
>      distribution list (i know, this will be difficult with horde/turba's
>      internal abook structure, but other clients like outlook support this)
>    o the uid in the member tag and the distribution-list tag would make cross
>      abook references much easier to handle as well, same with people having
>      multiple emailaddresses
>
> TYK: my basic intent is the following: where i am employed, people  
> work with another groupware using outlook clients. i would actually  
> like to avoid the next product upgrade of our groupware, but it is  
> actually really due. i would be much happier to setup kolab at work,  
> but the great hurdle is the - until now - rather weak private  
> distribution list support in kolab clients.

Question is if you will be able to get enough overlap between the
concepts of the different clients. Turba sees the list as a group of
existing contacts. This is something different than a list of emails.

If you want a clean solution for this you'll probably need to
implement turba/lib/Object/List.php instead of
turba/lib/Object/Group.php. It would probably be quite similar in a
lot of places but you could ensure that this is really just a list of
Names and E-Mails without being attached to Turba UID's.

Cheers,

Gunnar

>
> for setting up kolab we will need a webmailer, that supports  
> privdistlist feature and the privdistlist handling of the webmailer  
> should be fully compatible to what people can do with outlook/toltec.  
> outlook supports two different kinds of entries in private dist lists:  
> object references vs. name+mailaddress entry.
>
> in terms of privdistlists i favourize kolab to catch up with what  
> (unfortunately) the majority of groupware (outlook) users is used to...
>
> curious on your feedback,
> mike
>
> -- 
>
> das netzwerkteam
> mike gabriel, hamburger chaussee 240, 24113 kiel
>
> fon: +49 431 64 74 196
> voip/voicemail: +49 431 643 643 6
> fax: +49 431 64 74 276
> mail: m.gabriel at das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de
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>
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-- 
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p at rdus Kolab work is funded in part by KDAB and the Kolab Konsortium

____ http://www.pardus.de _________________ http://gunnarwrobel.de _
E-mail : p at rdus.de                                 Dr. Gunnar Wrobel
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