On Tuesday 02 March 2010 02:53:14 pm Timothy Murphy wrote:
I'd really like to have a "database" for storing information about contacts (as in an address book). My base is Fedora/KDE.
Yes, I would love such a thing too. Do you have one? :-)
Seriously speaking, it could be used not only for contacts, but in general.
My requirements are:
- The application should be web-based,
like CUPS, BackupPC, etc.
This is crucial. If I could access the database over a web interface, that would be quite sufficient. Actually, what you want is basically a good and functional web-oriented GUI frontend for, say, mysql backend...
- There should be a simple interface with mobile phones.
What do you mean by this? When you are accessing the database remotely (via the web interface), how do you plan to connect to a mobile phone?
- There should be a simple interface with KMail/KAddressBook.
This should be something like "import contacts from the web" kind of option in KAddressBook. It's probably doable. Or, there could be an "export into kaddressbook-type file" button in the web interface, which is probably even easier to implement. Or a comma-separated-values file, which virtually any addressbook app can import.
- The program should be sufficiently flexible
to allow new fields (eg images) to be added.
This is also crucial. I could really make use of a database with dynamic field configurations in tables. Or a sufficiently powerful web-interface which would instruct mysql backend to do all the hard work.
- The program should allow general information
eg about films or books to be stored.
Even better, I would wish to be able to store an arbitrary file into a database field. Or have the field contain a symlink to the file. So I don't want to have _information_ about films and books in the database, but rather the actual films and books themselves.
- I'd like the program to interface with Windows Outlook
and similar Windows programs.
Well, I don't need this one. And web-like access to data is platform- independent, so at least that part could work everywhere.
Currently OpenLDAP is the nearest I can get to this, but I find it very cumbersome, and there seems no simple GUI interface.
Well, as I said above, the *only* thing that is actually needed is a powerful web GUI, for *any* database backend. Mysql, postgresql, openldap, a plain text file, whatever does the work.
As far as I can see, Nepomuk aims vaguely at something like this, but it seems too far from practical use to be of much value.
I'm wondering if anyone has found a solution to this, or indeed whether anyone shares my desire?
Oh, if you ever find such a thing, do send me an e-mail with a link! It would make my life sooo much easier... :-)
BTW, I would add the following requirements:
7. It should be able to handle multiple databases. I might have one for contacts, one for books, one for music, one for... , all in the same GUI. Or to be able to connect the GUI to this or that one dynamically.
8. It should be GPL, of course, and included in Fedora! :-)
Best, :-) Marko
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Marko Vojinovic