Kontact is a PIM, a "Personal Information Manager". What does that mean? It means that it has calendar, addressbook, email and so forth. And I guess you could call that "personal information" that Kontact "manages".

But I would like something new. I would like a system where I could enter notes, data, information, clippings, images etc. I believe that Kontact already jas "Journal"-component? But at least last time I checked, it didn't really provide what I'm looking for. And at very least, the UI was so confusing that I closed it after staring at it for 30 seconds.

For reference: On the Mac there is a "personal database" called Bento. There's also an app called Journler. I would like an app along those lines. You could enter any kind of information in it, it would be cross-referenced to each other (when needed), it could also refer "outside"information, like entries in addressbook, bookmarks and emails.

I would like to be able to use this system to write down anything. Whenever something interesting happens, I could just write it down. It would cross-reference the people involved, dates and actual things that take place. If needed I could search for things like "Jane said something to me last week, what was it?". Or "Who told me about this great app last month?".

In short, it would be journal of everything ("everything" in this case being "everything I write down in there") that happens in my life.

I believe that value of data increases exponentially when we combine it with other data. And this would be what this app does. It would be a journal, but it would also be a database that binds it all together. It could also collect data in the background, so if (for example) you type in that "Jane told me today that xxxxxxxxxxx", the app could tell you while you are typing that that "Jane sent you an email last week with subject yyyyyyyyyy".

The app could provide a desktop-plasmoid so the user could quickly write down things as they happen, without having to launch a full-blown app for it (maybe this could tie with the notes-plasmoid?).

Of course the building-blocks of this app would be Nepomuk and Akonadi. But there would be a need for a lot of muscle around those two backends.

I think it's time to take "personal information" to a whole new level.

Does this make any sense, or am I full of ****?

This kind of linking together is exactly what Nepomuk provides, however it will takes some time until application have been modified to store whatever context they already have about data and query it again.

There is a lot of new technology in KDE4's application framework and application developers will first integrate those that do not require large changes to their application code.

Very new projects like Dolphin can often integrate this more quickly since their code base is still more flexible.

Traditional PIM applications like Kontact will probably gain such features indirectly, i.e. through moving towards being Akonadi based and Akonadi working with Nepomuk to store and query the meta data.

Cheers,
_

anda_skoa wrote:This kind of linking together is exactly what Nepomuk provides, however it will takes some time until application have been modified to store whatever context they already have about data and query it again.

Yep. But the thing is that even if the backend is taking shape, there are no actual apps to do this. Backend is useless if no app uses it. And this is about that app. An app that stores my information and cross-references it. An app that would be my journal for life.

It just occured to me.... This app would also have to support syncing. I might have several computers, and I would have to keep that journal in sync on all those devices. if I type some information in to my journal in a netbook, it would have to sync back to my desktop when I connect to the network, and vice versa.

Now, I might try out 4.2-trunk soon, just to see what Kontact is looking like these days. And while there is the "journal"-component, I feel that it would have to be totally redone. I feel that it's simply not up to the task. But we shall see.

It almost sounds like what you are looking for is a program called BasKet. Unfortunately, the only stable release is for KDE3, although I hear that someone is making KDE4 port.

jrick wrote:It almost sounds like what you are looking for is a program called BasKet. Unfortunately, the only stable release is for KDE3, although I hear that someone is making KDE4 port.

In a way, yes. But Basket seems to me like a tool for taking quick notes, rather than a proper journal. I would like a tool that could host information that spans years, whereas Basket seems more focused on more short-term notes.

I would definitely like to see Basket be a part of this system, since as things are right now, it seems to be the closest thing we have on KDE.

I already gave two example-apps of what I'm looking for, but here are few others:

Yojimbo
MacJournal

Yes, they are Mac-apps. Reason for that is that there seems to be more these types of apps for Mac than for Windows. Also, I know Macs better than I do Windows .

I'm thinking that this app would be externally quite similar to typical email-client. But instead of folders and the like, you would have tags. Each note you take would have one or more tags associated with it, and the notes would then be accessible through those tags, just like emails are accessible through folders. There would also be a built-in calendar (if you check MacJournal-screenshots, you can see what I mean), which would enable you to look for notes based on dates as well. And of course you could search as well. Searching should have some intelligence in it, so you could search for (for example) "jane last week", and it would show all notes related to Jane that happened last week. The app would also show you relevant entries when you are adding content. Like if you are adding something about Jane, the app could show you content related to Jane (in a sidebar for example).

The most important feature of this app is the ease of adding content, so the user actually uses it. Therefore the UI needs to be simple, clean and easy to use. The user should become accustomed to adding stuff to his journal.

It also occured to me that the app could be used through a runner in Krunner, provifing even more flexibiilty to the usage.

I think you could come a long way with Thunderbird, using the Lightning extension for appointments and a notes extension for notes.

Maybe the only problem would be linking file content in the addons, although Lightning does allow me to link e.g. openoffice docs to a task or an event. I don't care too much about the notes thing, but when you look for note addons for Thunderbird, there's quite a few.

TB allows for tagging of messages, and so does lightning, but the problem is they use different tagging systems

XiniX wrote:I think you could come a long way with Thunderbird, using the Lightning extension for appointments and a notes extension for notes.

I'm not sure. Thunderbird is still just an email-program. And notes are notes, whereas I'm looking for a journal. And lightning is just a calendar. I'm looking for something a bit more comprehensive than email, calendar + notes. The app I'm looking for does not exist yet. Some of the examples I listed might come close (to be honest, I haven't really used them), and on the KDE-side, Basket might be the best bet at this point.

What about zim?

Zim

widux wrote:What about zim?

Zim

It looks promising, but it's missing the "intelligence" of automatically linking information to other pieces of information and the like. It doesn't seem to support tagging either. But it looks promising.

the good thing is that we seem to have all the tools we need . There are lots of apps that have implemented part of my "dream-app", and we should have the foundation (Nepomuk and Akonadi) up&running shortly. This is perfectly doable.

In my opinion the whole desktop with all (kde) applications should be considered as THE personal information manager. The better the underlying services like nepomuk and akonadi and of course the better the integration of these services into the application, all information would be better connected.

msoeken wrote:In my opinion the whole desktop with all (kde) applications should be considered as THE personal information manager. The better the underlying services like nepomuk and akonadi and of course the better the integration of these services into the application, all information would be better connected.

True, and my dream app would tie in to other relevant apps. I do not want one gargantuan app that does everything, but a journaling-app that ties seamlessly with the rest of the desktop. I want an app that could store my life in itself .

Basically, I'm talking about an app for creating a journal. Journal is basically information. What happened, where, when, with whom. It's also a place to store ideas, notes, information etc.

Now, the beauty would be that this information would be contextually aware. It could fetch data from Kmail, so it could tell you that "this person sent you an email last week". It would tie with calendar and addressbook. It would tie with itself, so it could show you connections between various pieces of data.

Naturally, the keys to this app are Nepomuk and Akonadi. But those two are simply the groundwork. What is missing is the actual app.

OK, I'm now running the "Journal"-section of Kontact. And it is as I guessed: It's not suitable for this task When I launch it, I'm presented with an UI that is utterly confusing. When I click "New journal" in the toolbar, I'm presented by an yet another confusing UI. And only in the resulting (confusing) popup.window I have a field in which I can actually enter text. But the whole process is clumsy and awkward. It seems to me that this tool is more geared towards tracking minutes of a meeting or something like that.

And partially related: It seems that after several years (i believe it was back in 2005 I last tried Kontact) the Calendar is still an utter mess.... But I'll probably make a separate thread about that.[hr]
MODS: Since my post isn't really a support-question, this might be better placed in the "DIscussion & Opinions"-section. But it's up to you.