I was trying to add a new address book (turns out that previously the version of akonadi didn't work too well with mysql due to a mysql-based bug) and I ended up adding a lot of random address book resources because I had no feedback that things weren't working as they should've. Now that things seem to be better and Akonadi server actually starts up without complaining I decided to look into the akonadi configuration.

Can I first say that when I tried to search for the Akonadi configuration I couldn't find it - not in system settings at least, which I believe is the most logical place to look. No - I had to run "akonaditray" (it wasn't already running), then right click on it (hidden in the system tray by default) and then click configuration. I dunno, but I would consider that as a bug.

Anyways, once finding the Akonadi configuration I am looking at the Akonadi resource configuration tab. I see a list of what seems to be "resources" representing PIM data. However I'm a little confused.

In Korganizer, I have _one_ calendar listed in Settings -> Sidebar -> Show Calendar Manager. (Shouldn't this option be in the "view" menu instead?) It is a file calendar linked to an .ics file in a local directory. Yet in the resources page, I have 3 listed "Personal Calendar", two of which have a small plug icon under it and the other has the "online" status. Selecting and clicking "modify" on each of them shows no difference between them, and none of the three of them seem to be linked to the file calendar at all. What's going on?

Secondly, I have two "Local Folders" resources. Again, both identical, both showing empty fields (one even saying maildir not found) when pressing modify. I don't even use local folders in KMail! I keep it on the IMAP folders. And even if I did, why are there 2 local folder resources? If it were 1 per folder there should be more than 2.

And finally, the contacts resources are extremely confusing. I've got multiple "Contacts.vcf", "Personal Contacts" and "Default Address Book" (which has the plug icon). What's going on here? I've got _no_ contacts added at all.

Really hope somebody can help me explain what's going on. Or should I not be poking around in Akonadi anyway - is it meant to be a developer-only manager tool?

Hi!

I've also took some time to understand all the functionality of Kmail/Korganizer and Akonadi...

First, the Akonadi configuration was in fact in System Settings, I think in KDE 4.3, but it was removed on the latest version 4.4... It's akonadi not ready yet? There are some bugs for sure...

So the only way right now to get to it is to go through the Akonaditray application.

Second, Kmail and Korganizer do have default resources that do not depend of akonadi. These are the mail accounts that you configure in Kmail and the default calendar that you refer... None of these are akonadi resources.

Now, you can, if want to add akonadi resources to Kmail/Korganizer, namely external address books and calendars.

Akonadi does provide several plugins, most of them the same, but all are unconfigured, so it explains why you have 3 Personal calendars that are "empty". These need to be configured, so for example, one is Work, other is Personal, and other is something else... You can remove them and add them, or just leave them.

Configuring these plugins on akonadi do not make them appear on Kmail/Korganizer. You need to go there to add them, namely on the Calendar Manager... The idea is that as far as I understand Akonadi will be the central point for these resources for all applications.

So far I have Google Calendar/Contacts working more or less and my contacts and calendar from my Nokia also synchronized with akonadi.

I hope that I was able to clarify things up a bit!

Yes it has clarified things up somewhat. The first thing I did is to delete all of them. Nothing complained. Strange how the KDEPIM suite depends on Akonadi yet functions perfectly without any of them.

When starting up Akonadi server again, it seems as though two resources are automatically created. A "Local Folders" and an "akonadi_maildir_resource_7". Opening Kontact and all of its subapps (addressbook, korg, akregator and kmail) doesn't do anything to Akonadi. Adding Akonadi sources through Kontact's addressbook and korg now show up fine in the resource manager and works perfectly.

However I don't see any benefit from running Akonadi? What am I meant to gain from going through all these resources? I noticed a "Link contact birthday to calendar" resource but I have no idea how to use it (and it does seem like quite a small benefit for such a large hassle).

I take it that KDE SC 4.5 will make it compulsory for it to only use Akonadi resources - and will hopefully have interfaces to make it somewhat useful?

Perhaps http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-do ... right.html might make it clearer.

I have read that post and I am unconvinced. Take a look at his last line:

The more we use Nepomuk for the things it was truly designed to make possible, the more we'll see the benefits beyond it being a file indexer.

In this scenario, I am talking about Akonadi. According to his blog post Akonadi "leans" on Nepomuk to help me discover correlations I expect to have at my fingertips. So can somebody show me _where_ I can use Nepomuk for "the things it was truly designed to make possible"?

The only thing I can find as an interface at the moment is KRunner. If I type a contact into it, it will find it as a "PersonContact". Clicking it opens KWrite - yes, KWrite! - with the VCard entry. Not useful at all. No special correlations. At my fingertips? Perhaps faster than opening AddressBook, but no average Joe wants to look at the VCard code. Maybe I'm missing a lot but aside from the file-indexing search there isn't much else I can discover as a user.

Taking Aaron's example of linking activities and data, I am skeptical on how useful this will really be. Why should I care if my Dolphin window semantically knows that it is part of my Project X activity? How does it knowing that information help me? The answer is not to give the "ability to integrate technologies horizontally across our applications and libraries" - no, that is an ideal development environment for a programmer, but until the programmers give an interface to actually make use of the transparency between apps and data, it is useless. Again, we can conclude that user-wise, there will be no visible benefit (at least for a very long time, considering we're now at 4.4.)

So sorry, no. It does not make it much clearer. It makes it somewhat clearer from a developer point of view, but as a user as far as I'm concerned developers like Aaron are only talking about the future and only how it relates to them. Browsing the comments Aaron states the Akonadi and Nepomuk are not user facing names and that they have only surfaced as a technology to encourage other app developers to integrate it. However I believe he is wrong - developers made it into a users interest due to the heavy dependency of applications on it (such as KDEPIM), and the CPU consumption problems many people have been having, and the whole "Nepomuk is indexing" in the systray. As a result, users want to know what's going on.

For the benefit of those who don't read the comment this reply to one of mine seems to give a conclusion:

Akonadi has only recently started Nepomuk (KDE SC 4.5 should include those bits), and the correlations are things such as who sent what attachment when or the email conversations you've had with the people involved with a given entry in your calendar. The tools to expose these relationships will (afaiu, anyways) be making their way into apps like Kontact 2 as they become available

In other words (user-facing) - no. In KDE SC 4.4 (note the version) Akonadi is not useful. Akonadi doesn't do anything with Nepomuk. You cannot find correlations with your PIM data. You have nothing at your fingertips. Please wait until Kontact 2 and KDE SC 4.5 in about 3 months time.

... or at least hope, because according to the 4.5 feature plan the only added functionality you're going to get as far as I can see is "Allows to query calendar events/todos from Akonadi in Plasma" (which I translate as "can search for calendar events and todos")

Case closed (I would love to be wrong!)

Moult wrote:Taking Aaron's example of linking activities and data, I am skeptical on how useful this will really be. Why should I care if my Dolphin window semantically knows that it is part of my Project X activity?

Depends on your workflow I suppose, and how this integration will pan out when it's implemented.

I can think of a few examples of how it could be beneficial (both with and without data-switches).

1. Dolphin remembers which directory it was displaying on a activity-basis so it switches directory when the activity changes. Makes it easier to continue from where you left off.
2. Alternatively, a new view-mode is introduced that show "Last documents accessed when in this activity", since you're unlikely to use the same files when in a "Work" activity compared to a "Leisure" activity.
3. Kontact switches from a address-book containing friends and family-members to one with business associates.
4. To continue with Kontact, the calender and to-do lists could do the same.
5. So could Kopete (just showing different contacts, or even switch to another server-type and login/password combo).
6. Network-manager switches from your home-connection to the company VPN.
7. The plasma-calendar (when it can show Kontact calendar-events) can also show the differences in context.
8. The dolphin sidebar could have a completely different set of places.

Just a few ideas just on top of my head.

Those do sound useful. It's such a pity that developers don't show us "hey, look you can use it for this workflow now! Here's a demonstration!" I guess it's not at that stage yet. Even a to-do list like that would be greatly appreciated.

I swear that the more I use Nepomuk/Akonadi, the more I like, no, love it!

The problem is that sometimes/often I don't understand it, and I don't seem to find a place where it's explained (either easily or technically), where I can actually learn how to use it and its many options.

I got puzzled, as Moult was, of the many resources I found in Akonadi (OMG, what are these for?).
I found 3 Personal Contacts "folders", 3 Personal Calendars pointing at nothing (empty folder field) and other stuff.
I deleted most of them, praying no data would go with it - as I couldn't really understand why they were there.

Now I imported my contacts from a vcf file, but I don't know if they should stay there or it's better to import them in a Personal Contacts folder, or to copy them to the Personal Contacts (which I actually did, and now I can't delete the sub-addressbook thus created..).

In general, I find it difficult to understand if there's any consequences to my actions, if so what they are, or if it's just about how I like to organize my things, being it contacts/calendars/emails and so on..

The Userbase doesn't seem very helpful on this, maybe it's just me not understanding it?

cheers

I second you on that. Additionally to the ressources you already mentioned there is a Kolab ressource, which was probably created during migration, at least I never created it. It says there are Kolab folders in my mail accounts, but I am sure my mail providers do not run a Kolab-Server. The IMAP-Server ressources (with activated offline-mode) for the mail accounts are there as well. This is all very confusing.

As there are often messages like

Code: Select all

WEB.DE Freemail: Select failed, server replied: A000004 BAD unsupported folder name

I wonder if those might come from the Kolab ressource and if it is save to delete it.

poomerang wrote:Now I imported my contacts from a vcf file, but I don't know if they should stay there or it's better to import them in a Personal Contacts folder, or to copy them to the Personal Contacts (which I actually did, and now I can't delete the sub-addressbook thus created..).

[...]

The Userbase doesn't seem very helpful on this, maybe it's just me not understanding it?

Despite of what I wrote, I found some (very few) useful information in this page of the wiki.

The rest of the problems with understanding Akonadi is still there, though

I found it safe to delete all resources and just add the ones I knew I needed.

I noticed tjat the Kolab ressource showed up in korganizer as a calender ressource. I deleted it there and since the next time I logged in, the aforementioned error message did not appear again.