Hi there,

I'm a (Akonadi-)Kontact-user since the very beginning of its existence and there are a few questions regarding the handling of contacts in the kdepim-suite, which I feel, I have to ask, since I came to no answers since then.

Perhaps, when reading the below, it feels a bit harsh, but let me tell you in advance, that I really do appreciate all the kde team's work and don't mean to demotivate anybody or .. you know. I just don't know, if I'm a stupid user, who cannot use the provided tools in a correct way. Please tell me, if that's the case.


* Persons <-> Contact-files
Reading through blogs, it seems nobody cares about that, despite it's a really obvious issue for me: The akonadi-system doesn't differentiate between a "real person" and a contact-file. Let's explain, what I mean:

Let's say, I install kde, start Kontact and begin adding some contacts. (This would be into the default akonadi contact resource.)
One of the high-praised features of akonadi is, that someone can easily add akonadi-resources. For example: I add a facebook-contact resource. So it happens, that you have more than one resource (which is a legal and wanted scenario with akonadi). It also might happen in general, that you have some facebook friends, which already are in your local contact list. (Actually I think, that's almost always the case). Let's say "Max Mustermann" is one of them.

Next I start KDE's calendar, and you see two birthday-entries from "Max Mustermann" and "Max Mustermann". Not really, what I want, is it?
The same holds for Kmail's contact-selection and many other use cases.

You could say, the solution is simple. Just stop storing redundant contact-information. In this case, that would be: either remove a facebook friend or remove the locally stored contact. Well, you can imagine, I don't want to remove him as facebook-friend, and on the other side I don't really want to store Max' account number on facebook. So, obviously that's not a solution at all.

What is your solution to this, kde team?


* Contacts: Online-Resources
In my understanding, Akonadi also functions as a cache for such resources, so when adding for example an online owncloud-contact-resource, the contacts from this resources should also appear when offline. And you should also be able to add contacts when offline. The Akonadi-resource should handle all of this (syncronization part etc) magically. Am I right with this assumptions or not?
Because it doesn't work this way at all. I'm a laptop user and therefor networkconnections often get broken, which is a natural thing I think. Adding contacts, when offline, doesn't work (though they are in the temporary in the local list, they just never reach the online-resource). Additionally it happens, the contact list from this resource is just empty. It's just no reliable resource. (some holds for the calendar-resource btw)

The question is: Do I use this stuff with the wrong ideas in my head, or are these "just" bugs in the owncloud-resources, which get fixed sooner or later?


This is it for now. Maybe I'll add questions, if some should come to my mind.
I hope somebody is able to help me. Thanks.


-- vootey