Hey guys,
So I just quit using Outlook after the past many years, with some Thunderbird in between before I moved back to KDE (love it). Kontact is amazingly featured and I love that too, however some questions -

KOrganizer
#1 I send out an event invite and the only way I can get it to send it seems is it shows the event details in plain text, then an ICS attachment. I tested on GMail, Android, etc. and it all pretty much is useless as I cannot open the ICS File, there are no respond options/buttons, etc... Most users I email and deal with are using Gmail, Their phones, or Outlook - Outlook may work (havent tried yet) but a lot more than that use their Phones and mainly Gmail, is it normal to be sent out like this? Or more to my point is there any plugins or any other ways to have it sent out more like Thunderbird/Outlook do where you can actually see the accept/decline/etc? That's my only issue as I use that probably tens of times a day including weekends and when I don't know if they are coming it makes it a bit hard, and I don't know that because they apparently have no option to accept and have to just write it down vs it being taken into their calendars as normal? If I setup a groupware server would that send out the invites any different?

#2 I have my Google Calendar linked into KOrganizers which is great, however If I send out an invite on that calendar, when I go to edit it, it says 'you are not the owner of this event yada yada...' - since when it actually creates it swaps to show my gmail address as the organizer, probably nothing I can do about that? Is there any way to create a normal calendar (like came with default setup) and have that mirror over to google using other software?

KMail IMAP
#3This ones a biggie, as usual from what I've seen haha. Just to clarify, as after weeks of researching while using I see different answers to this, but what enables imap IDLE? The Server Subscriptions or the disconnected IMAP?

#4 I have Kontact running on my work desktop and laptop, generally open at the same time (not sure if this has anything to do with it), using any other client I have no issues but basically sometimes what will happen is the sync goes into a hissy fit and just KEEPS syncing (ONLY my inbox) constantly/over and over, often (seemingly) duplicating my emails - I eventually toggle disconnected mode/server subscription and it'll kick it back into normalcy but then I have to re-sync all my past emails if I want to go back to disconnected mode/etc... Any ideas on this? I thought it may be the clamd filters, as when I checked one of the emails it had like 15 X-VirusScan or whatever that flag is - disabling those filters helps a little but it did do it without, so not sure.

#5 I have tried with both Disconnected on/server sub off, vice versa, both, etc. trying to figure which is imap idle, (guessing server subscription?), and that works great but at some point it always stops working/syncing and I have to check mail to get it back to sync, having it randomly stop syncing every so often is a bummer as of course I don't notice!

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Sorry if anything is not understood/clear, let me know and I can clarify where needed, also I have searched Google and the forums (these and a ton of others + bug reports) for literally the past 2 weeks of using before coming here because those above issues are still unresolved and there is really no clear answer to any one of them; sometimes I would find similar issues but not the same and other times I would find 10 different answers to the same issue (and none worked). So hopefully someone can help clear these up for me as a lot of what I found was very old. I really love Kontact and really want to stick with it, but unfortunately the main thing being the INVITES/system may force me over to a gnome alternative which I hate doing (how's evolution run on KDE?).

Summed up:
#1 Is there any way or plugins available to send a better format of invites from Korganizer? ie like Outlook/Thunderbird which are more widely recognized (accept/respond buttons/input to calendar wise on receiving end)?

#2 Is there any way or plugins available to sync/mirror a personal/local calendar with google calendar in Korganizer? (not having it integrated, already have that, but mirror the two so can use Personal/Local as the calendar to send meeting invites from and stay the organizer).

#3 To clarify, does server subscriptions = IMAP IDLE, or does disconnect mode? I know disconnect mode is what it sounds, downloads emails for local/offline viewing, but I saw three posts saying/showing it was disconnect mode which was IDLE support (however I'm pretty sure the former).

#3B - Is there any way to check that the connection is IMAP IDLE? Akonadi console I'm assuming just digging through debug log?

#4 On IMAP, often times the client will go into a syncing-fit where it constantly syncs the INBOX (only the inbox) over and over and over/non stop creating seemingly duplicates (not really there) and causing issues, disrupt it by toggling server subscription/disconnect mode to whatever it wasn't and it's okay again (for then). Disabling clamd filters seem to help - may be because two Kontact's open on two computers both scanning clamd? Very odd.

#5 IMAP stops syncing after a bit, have to use check email to kick it back into gear, tried with server subscription/disconnect mode on/off off/on on/on etc. and doesn't seem to make a difference.

Oh and last thing - when I do work offline mode, it seems akonodi still syncs the email??

Information:
Arch Linux x64,
Kontact/Kmail/Korganizer version 4.11.3
KDE v 4.11.3 ? (is Kontact/KDE always same version? O-o)
Hardware isn't the issue, overpowered hardware as well.

Any ideas guys? Thanks,

An update:
So when sending to GMail it just shows the ICS and the time/etc in the body, I noticed when viewing the email it automatically apparently puts that into the google calendar, so that's good and works I guess. BUT when viewing an invite in Outlook (2013) it shows the title/date/time and the attached ICS but Outlook does not recognize it as a meeting invite - is this normal? Outlook can't interpret as such and provide the accept/respond/etc? Of course they can double click the ics file and it imports but shows no response needed and just goes into the calendar, is this the normal way?

Also worth mentioning I have everything checked under KMail Options for Outlook compatibility (send in body/all that stuff), so I thought that should make it understand it as a meeting invite - as it kind of says as much for being the point of using those options, no? I have not tried sending Outlook invite to KMail but trying that now and hopefully that works normally, hopefully someone with some insight/experience could help me out with any of the above questions, thanks guys!

I know this is an old thread, but I found it via a Google search, and you are asking exactly the same questions I had.

Did you ever get any useful feedback?

I too found that when I sent an invitation via Kontact/KMail, it send a simple message with the ICS attachment. This didn't seem to be particularly useful to me, but soon after I sent the invitation, I received an email response that the participant had accepted my invitation. The receiver is NOT using GMail, so I'm not sure through what mechanism they were able to accept my invitation. ?!

I have never used this myself but in my version 4.13.3 there is in KMail Settings under "Misc" a tab "invitations" with various options - have you tried playing around with these?

sinclair wrote:I have never used this myself but in my version 4.13.3 there is in KMail Settings under "Misc" a tab "invitations" with various options - have you tried playing around with these?

I see I should have read more carefully as you state that you have played around with these.
for me if I send to gmail I get a warning but it opens a nice invite with buttons and so on. Have yet to figure how Kontact accepts the response

for Outlook (that I use in vm Windows 7) I have to rightclick on the ics file and choose "open" - then I get all the buttons and whatnot. On choosing "accept" a mail is sent back that Kontact does not understand but that at least tells what response I got.