Hello friends.
After upgrading from KDE SC 4.3.4 to 4.4, I am missing distribution lists in kaddressbook. They can no longer be found or accessed in the addressbook.
When I write an email, the autocomplete-email function works and fills in the name of the list, but the list name is not connected with any addresses (ie. trying to send an email to that distribution list will fail as kmail tries to send the email to "name of distribution list" instead of the members email addresses of said list)

I read
http://userbase.kde.org/Akonadi_and_AddressBook

and

http://userbase.kde.org/KAddressBook

The later says:

<quote>
Open Contacts and from the View menu ensure that the Distribution List Editor is selected. Select the list you want to use, and in the right-hand panel you will see some information about the list, including a clickable list name. Clicking on that will open a mail composer window with the list of recipients expanded.
</quote>

I fail to find the Distribtion List Editor in 4.4, or is this talking about 4.3?

It goes on with:

<quote>
In the Akonadi-based AddressBook, Distribution Lists are replaced by Groups. This part of the migration is not yet enabled (January 2010) but your list information is not lost: it is still in your std.vcf.
</quote>

Does this mean that there is currently no support for migrating distribution lists from 4.3 to 4.4, or did this information change?

Any help appreciated, ty.

The majority of that http://userbase.kde.org/KAddressBook talks about KAddressBook up to and including 4.3. As you realise, the major change is with 4.4. Almost without exception the problems experienced at this point of change concern Akonadi and Nepomuk. For this reason we have asked you to watch the Akonadi page, where we are attempting to document all the problems encountered and their solutions. Once 4.4 settles down the whole KAddressBook page will need rewriting to reflect the new addressbook.

There is, at the moment, no migration tool for distribution lists. One is in preparation, but was not ready in time for the 4.4 release. It's therefore necessary to employ work-arounds, such as starting a new Group, then filtering your contacts on the information that will be common to a group, so that you can see the addresses that need adding. It's realised that this is inconvenient, and will be addressed as soon as possible. Please bear in mind that the data is still there - it has not been lost - so hopefully once the migration tool is available we can use that to re-configure the less urgent lists.

annew, ty for your reply.
Is there any indication when the migration tool will be ready, ie if it might be added in a 4.4.x release as a regression fix or is this thought of as a feature, coming with 4.5 or later .x releases?

I don't have any definite information on that, but I suspect it will be 4.5. If I'm right, we need to manually build the most needed groups. None of mine are too large - mostly under 10 addresses, so it's manageable. The biggest pain will be for those using distlists for a large number of club members.

>The biggest pain will be for those using distlists for a large number of club members.

yes, unfortunately. i used kaddressbook for distribution lists with 200+ members. i cannot distunguish which contact belonged to which group, so i cannot build them anew. i think the solution for me is to upgrade to 4.3 and wait till further development. thank you for your help,

J.

jappel wrote:>The biggest pain will be for those using distlists for a large number of club members.

yes, unfortunately. i used kaddressbook for distribution lists with 200+ members. i cannot distunguish which contact belonged to which group, so i cannot build them anew.

I have the same problem.

Is the only solution downgrade my applications?

I look for a solution or a workaround...but nothing...Any suggestions?

I've spent quite a while looking at this, with more questions than answers. At the moment I can't see a work-around, but seeing that your need is more urgent than most I've emailed the developers to ask about it. I'll let you know their response.

I meant jappel's need, of course

I'm working on fedora.
Downgrade system is a little bit difficult...for now I must to use kde 4.4.0.

I've emailed the developers to ask about it. I'll let you know their response.

Thank you very much...This condition is a real problem for me and my job.
Thank you.

The only work-around that can be suggested at the moment depends on you being able to access your addressbook on an earlier version. If you don't have any earlier version yourself, perhaps a friend does? I know that in a work situation that can be difficult. However, I'm told that if you can get the old distlist open in an earlier version you will be able to export the distlist as a new addressbook, which can then be added as an akonadi resource.

Unfortunately the only system I have that has an earlier version is a CentOS system, so obviously *much* earlier, and on that one I can't see how to export only the distribution list. I'll try to get more detail, but you might like to experiment with the possibilities. Sorry I can't be more definite.

You should also be aware that even if you manage this, for the moment you can't just enter the distribution list name and have it expand to the names, so the function is very limited for this number of addresses. I think you would have to settle for highlighting batches of addresses and pasting them into your mail, so sending it as several messages. Not what you want, for 200 members, of course.

Ok, with old version of Fedora 12 on virtual machine (qemu) I retrieve my distribution list, export like csv and import it in my production enviroment.

Now my problem is: how can I create a new group (ex distribution list) and insert in it my contacts? For now I have got 130 contacts, I can create a new group but I must to insert contact one by one...

I want to be able to send an email and to "A:" field insert only the name of group (old distribution list), I can't insert 130 names to send emails...

Hope you understand me...sorry for my bad English.

I'm not sure that you can get it that way. Instead of exporting as a csv you should try exporting as an ldap addressbook. Then you can add a new addressbook, of the ldap type. The whole addressbook will be your mailing list. You can create a Group and add them all to it, if it helps any.

I can't export to ldap...I haven't got this option in previous version...

I can create a new group but I must to add contact one by one, I can't select 100 contacts and add them to group at the same time.

For now I disable all my akonadi resources so I have got only one resorce with 130 contacts, with kmail I select all contacts (correspond only with active resource) to send email...is not beautifull but work for now...
If I want to use another resource I must to add it to akonadi, if I want to send an email to my old distribution list I must disable resource...

It is not a beautiful situation and I am bitterly disappointed.

Strange - I tried it in 3.5.3 and ldap was an export option there. Unless, of course, that's because CentOS is an enterprise distro.

I guess the devs thought that 4.4 users would not be using the PIM for such big jobs as huge distribution lists. More and more, it seems to me, developers are saying that releases are ready for testing by the public, but should not be used in a production environment. At the same time distros are pushed by their users to give them the latest and greatest. I don't see how this can possibly work in a production environment. Maybe Debian, renowned for stability over modernity, is a better bet? I don't know.

I guess the devs thought that 4.4 users would not be using the PIM for such big jobs as huge distribution lists.

Ok, but the previous version has got more feautures.
For me it is really unthinkable to release a stable version without this important and basic feautures.

Group lists are usefull to don't choose all time the contacts(2 or 100 is not important) to insert in a email...in this version is not possible to choose contacts in easy way to include in a group list.
In the previous version Akonadi has got a Distribution List (an easy xml file) why remove it? Why create this painful situation?
For me is something crazy...I'm sorry.