Hi everybody,

so, this is my first blog entry here since 2010 (whoa!), but at least I have some nifty blingy things to show to the world. :)

As you might (or might not) know, I’m working on a GSoC to revive Amarok’s Context View.

A little history: the Amarok team was not terribly happy with how the Context View was working. So I proposed to help rewriting it, and I sent in my proposal, to apply for a GSoC slot. The decision taken at the time were few: I proposed that the new interface would be completely based on QML (so it would be fast and sexy) and that it would be completely rethought and simplified.

Most importantly, I wanted to avoid the current lego-style design, inheritance of the plasmoid design. Which, let’s be honest, works on a desktop, but doesn’t really make too much sense in a media player.

So, in the past months, I’ve been doing quite some research: I’ve been working on the interface within Inkscape, I’ve written a working mockup in QML, I’ve produced quite some documentation about how things should work, and obviously, after all that, I’ve also started putting the code where my mouth was.

Even if the research work has been done on all of Amarok’s UI, the coding work was concentrated on the Context View, subject of my GSoC.

Without further ado, here’s a screenshot of the new Context View and what has been integrated in the code so far:

For those of you who want to play with it already (beware, it’s still an early version) you can get the qml branch directly from the amarok repository.

I know this ain’t perfect (of course): the first thing that i need to do now is for example to put the icons in a recolorable SVG, in order to get great looking monochrome icons in all condition, then the Wikipedia visualization will need to improve, and so on (there is a nice TODO in the repository). However, I think it’s a good start.

Ah, and before you ask, I’ll get to the mockups topic. I have actually made more or less complete mockups for the whole UI, but I’m a little reluctant to show them right now: they’re not fully finished, and I’d like to avoid bikeshedding on something of which I’m not totally happy about.

I will show them to you soon, but I first want to get them convey at least the general feeling of the UI that I want to create, not just parts of it. I will actually really need your feedback and testing (who said QML mockup?) but it’s not the time yet. After all, I’m serious about this project, and I will continue helping with the QMLification of Amarok even after the GSoC. :)

Stay tuned!

Just in case you didn’t notice, Akunambol 0.2.2 is out.

It’s a minor release but it adds a couple of important bug fixes anyways.

Go and get it at: http://akunambol.ruphy.org/releases/0.2.2

It’s very exciting when you’re among the first going on something new which looks terribly promising, and I’m very happy to be in this situation right now. =)

Namely, Akunambol is now hosted onto git.kde.org! Cookies to the sysadmins!

If you are following Akunambol’s development you should now clone git.kde.org:playground/akunambol.git, or check out http://projects.kde.org/projects/akunambol, which includes a very nice code browser too.

What else? Ah, yes, we get a commit filter, under the virtual svn path of “trunk/playground/pim/akunambol”.

This is all very cool, right? But since we are among the first migrating, we are experiencing some rough edges too. These are promptly being fixed by the sysadmins (you guys rock!) on IRC, and I’m trying to get some of the most important details we figure out written down for future reference.

One of the main things which created “problems” (more than problems, things-to-be-written-down) was the customization of gitolite made to suit KDE needs. Not all commands are the same that you could find on the official documentation, and most of them are undocumented (besides the usual little bugs).

So, when you move your pet projects to git, make sure to read and update this page: http://techbase.kde.org/User:Ruphy/KDEGitolite. I created it in my user’s namespace because it was meant as a wip-thing, but it can be moved as soon as we find a convenient place for it to stay.

So everybody, have a great migration! :)

Today, I was playing with the idea of redoing the base sheet used in all Oxygen mimetypes. It is infact getting a bit old, and also Nuno thought that it might use a little redesign.

I was feeling particularly inspired this morning, so I fired up inkscape and tried to mess around with the gradients, in order to create a new revision of the sheet. I knew that it wasn’t going to be a full redesign, since we don’t want a completely new design that breaks consistency, but simply a reshape of the colors and gradients to make it look more modern.

I concentrated mostly on the 32×32 size, since it’s the one that is the most commonly used, and I think I got pretty good results there. I’m also quite satisfied of the other sizes: i might still play a bit with the contrast of the 16×16 icon (the smallest) but I think I’m there.

This is what I came up with: (the new set is the one on the right)

So, what do you think?

EDIT: Ah, something I forgot… I was also thinking of putting the folded corner on the top-right, instead of bottom-right as it is now. Opinions?

Just in case you happen to open KAddressBook, and see that the new entries display the vcard name where the name should appear, like it has happened here:

then relax. If I had a large and friendly font, I’d probably also write “Don’t panic”, on the back side of this post.

Your data is safe.

The filter works, too, and the bug is in Akonadi, but just in the tree item view, to be precise. This means that you can expect to see it again as soon as akonadi is fixed, and none of your contacts data is harmed.

To be even more specific, the bug where this is tracked is this one: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=252145

Please note that this only affects KAddressBook tree visualization, and in no way it compromises how the other application work (or visualize your contact data).

So, now that you’re more relaxed about this issue, here comes the howto part of the post:

Infact, in case you still badly need your contacts back, today I pushed a commit which (cleanly) workarounds this problem. To get it, you should do a number of things. Please note that while this procedure has worked for me like a charm, it could not work for you for many unknown reasons. Therefore, please proceed with extreme care!

1. Perform a full sync, so that all of your contacts data is backed up on the server.
2. Checkout the 0.2.x branch from git.

   git clone git://gitorious.org/akunambol/akunambol.git

3. Compile the branch as explained here (look at the section “Building Akunambol”)
4. Stop Akonadi, remove (or just backup) the local contacts, and start Akonadi again. (warning: ./local/share/contacts is where all of your contacts are stored! you might want to mv it instead)

   akonadictl stop
   rm -r .local/share/contacts/
   akonadictl start

5. Now, remove all the cache created by Akunambol. This will ensure that Akunambol won’t think that you just deleted all of your contacts (thus deleting them from the server too) but instead will think that it has just started on an empty addressbook (thus filling it with the data you saved during Step 1).

   rm -rf .kde4/share/apps/akunambol

6. Start Akunambol, and start a sync. Once it finishes you should see all of your contacts in KAddressBook again.

To close this post, yes, I know that all this procedure is a bit cumbersome, but again, if you have had this problem, don’t panic: your data is safe. You don’t need to follow these steps. You will not be able to display it correctly for the moment, but it’s only in THAT particular visualization, and all the functionality works nonetheless, including contacts searching, and other views of your contact list. Then, in case KAddressBook is really crucial to you, and you can’t afford to wait for the bugfix, you can simply use the procedure I illustrated above and everything should be fine. But actually, most of the users (me included) won’t even notice the problem…

Anyways… That’s all for now! Happy syncing! :)

Akunambol has just got a totally new website, RSS powered (so that you can know of new releases or other things as they happen), it’s wordpress-based, and in general much nicer.

Check it out! :) (and let me know of any problems you might find)

Hi,

Akunambol 0.2.1 is out! This is a minor release, but one that adds nonetheless a lot of polishing over what was version 0.2. Here’s a very quick list of changes:

• Fixed 5 out of 6 reported bugs, including all the crashers, and one wish. There is only one minor thing remaining which will be addressed by the plugin infrastructure.
• Implemented a likeback system to gather feedback (the one you see on KMess or Amarok). I hope that it will be useful. :)
• We now have a shiny (well, not too shiny, but…) icon used everywhere, and there’s more integration with the KDE workspace in general.
• Fixed all the licensing issues; there is already an AUR package (even if it’s still 0.2 for now) for Arch Linux users, and a PPA for *ubuntu users is also arriving. If you can make packages for your distro, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Get it while it’s hot, compile it, and try it out: it should be a big improvement over version 0.2.

By the way, since I’ve been asked a couple of times, I’d like to point out that the published funambol snapshot (on the akunambol website) is a prerelease of version 9. In spite of the fact that it’s a prerelease, it’s infact very stable – just – keep that in mind when doing packages, if you want to handle upgrades gracefully. =)

UPDATE:

The tarball http://akunambol.ruphy.org/tarballs/funambol/libfunambol-9.0.2-r2511.tar.bz2 seems to have fixed the problem.

md5sum: 54475b80271a137fb56c1e39c2e470ad

Please report any issue that you might find with it!

—-

A very quick update in case you’re struggling to try Akunambol out:  it seems like the released libfunambol snapshot has some problems building on some platforms.

The error is the following:

./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h: In member function ‘virtual void Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*, int, const char*)’:

./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h:278:34: error: no matching function for call to ‘Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*&, int&)’

./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h:276:18: note: candidate is: virtual void Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*, int, const char*)

./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h: In member function ‘virtual void Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*, int, const char*)’:./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h:278:34: error: no matching function for call to ‘Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*&, int&)’./../../../src/include/common/spds/SyncSource.h:276:18: note: candidate is: virtual void Funambol::SyncSource::setItemStatus(const char*, int, const char*)

If you’re hit by this bug, stay tuned – I’m investigating and I will release a new source tarball as soon as possible. The fix should be trivial but I first want to check with Marco, who provided me with the current tarball.

Quick Update #2 [03/09]: The new tarball is up! md5sum 54475b80271a137fb56c1e39c2e470ad, or use this direct link.

Quick update [03/09]: it seems like the released libfunambol snapshot has some problems building on some platforms (with an error like this: http://pastebin.com/Rd0jpQEW). If you’re hit by this bug, stay tuned – I’m investigating and I will release a new source tarball as soon as possible. Also check http://blog.ruphy.org/posts/115.

I’m extremely happy to announce the release of Akunambol 0.2! =)

Here is an extract from the announcement on the main site:

This is the first release of the 0.2 series, which will be the last one of the 0.x series. We’re in fact planning exciting new things for the 1.0, but we first wanted to release a version for everyone to use, so that it’s possible to sync all the most used PIM data (contacts, events, tasks).

This release should be quite stable, since all reported bugs have already been fixed, and it also introduces the much awaited support for multiple calendars or address books, so you get to choose what you want to sync. Investigations on how to support syncing multiple calendars together are also being done.

From this moment onwards Akunambol will also have a new home, reachable at the address http://akunambol.ruphy.org. The repository still lives on gitorious for now, but will migrate to KDE’s git as soon as it is ready.

In addition to this, akunambol has also gained a new bug tracker. To report a bug or a wish you can now use KDE’s bug tracker (bugs.kde.org) and file a bug against akunambol.

Since this is also a blog post, I could say some more words about the “exciting new things” that we’re planning. In few words, we would like to extend Akunambol’s possibilities beyond PIM, by putting all the syncing logic into plugins. These will be dynamically loaded, like plasmoids, and could sync anything, from contacts to pictures to random files.

This way, it will be possible to provide a complete syncing framework for KDE (ala Android), in which it will be possible to build services based on the web (like RSS fetching) to backups, or even Dropbox-like clones, together with things like ownCloud.

By putting all the logic into plugins, we also loose any kind strong dependency from any library. At the same time there will be both some classes that (for example) will help you if you choose to use a standard protocol (like SyncML), and a generic interface which will allow you to do all the things you’d might like to do.

This will be either controlled by a kded daemon and a notification icon, silently living in the background, or by a GUI application.

The possibilities are indefinite, but we have just started to work on the plugin infrastructure. Let me know if you want to help, or have any idea about a nice syncing plugin. You can do so by either leaving a comment or opening a wishlist bug.

Anyways, we’ve spent way too much words on the future of Akunambol. I mean, you still haven’t tried out Akunambol 0.2!

So, what are you waiting for? Get it while it’s hot, and have fun! =)

Hi!
I just released Akunambol 0.1, a KDE application to sync your Akonadi data with a SyncML server. You want to use Akunambol to have a full backup of your contacts and calendar, and why not, synchronize and share your address book (and calendar) between your mobile, your iPod touch, your Google account and your KDE desktop. Read more to know how to do that.

Akunambol has been built using the Funambol C++ SDK, as part of their code sniper program. I announced it yesterday on their mailing list, but I think that it deserves also a blog post, since it may be of interest for the KDE community. This is the first release aimed at first adapters; however in my testing it resulted to be very stable for the few things it does. There shouldn’t be any data losses, but a backup is as always advised.

If you want to check out the code, please beware that it still kills kittens here and there. For now this is a release that works, and I will  fix most code issues for 0.3 when I’ll be implementing calendar support, thus abstracting much of the code.

Check it out, follow the development, fork, clone and hack on it at: http://gitorious.org/akunambol
Or, just download a tarball from http://github.com/ruphy/akunambol/tarball/v0.1
(yes, it’s github, unfortunately gitorious is still implementing on-the-fly tarball generation for a tag ;-) )

Here’s an extract from the mail sent to the funambol mailing list:

This is a stable release, but of a very immature software – please
treat it as such. Make sure you have a backup of your data before
attempting to synchronize. Fortunately Akonadi allows that with a
single click (check out the akonaditray utlity).

For now Akunambol only synchronizes contacts, the code still kills some
kittens in certain places, but I already successfully synced several
contact datasets flawlessly. :-)
In other words, the few things that Akunambol does for now should work
perfectly. If they don’t it’s a bug.

Please test it and report any problems, suggestions or patches you
might have.

Ok, now that you know something about akunambol, how to get started actually using it?

First, you need to compile and install the funambol SDK. Download it at http://download.forge.objectweb.org/sync4j/funambol-client-sdk-8.0.1.zip, to compile it it’s the typical autotools build system. There may also be a Debian package available created by a funambol developer, I will edit this article with the link once he sends it to me.

Once Funambol is installed, you can compile and install Akunambol like a normal KDE application, using cmake.

The next thing you need is a SyncML server on which you can push and retrieve your contacts. A “remote storage”. You can either install your own or get a free account at my.funambol.com.

Now you’re set. Start Akunambol, insert your username and password, eventually change the sync URL, and press “Sync contacts” to let the magic begin.

That’s all for now! Next releases will include a much more sexy UI, calendar and tasks syncronization too. Stay tuned!