RESOLVED 2010 KDE Kmail not using Kontact for addresses

[tschommer]

Great news, putz! 

[txm0523]

@ putz,

Your suggestion did the trick my friend. Thank you so much for guidance and assistance.
Didn't know that the new KDE 4 required you to create a new address book. The older version it was already there.

Once again, thanks.

[robinm]

I had the same issue, looked at the kde forum, googled the problem, pulled my hair out etc. What I did in the end quite simple. Go to configure your desktop (spanner and screwdriver on the panel), then advanced user settings, KDE resources. click the add button and add the akonadi address book. Then your address book should be available to Kmail. Worked on my system.

[putz]

robinm,

Thanks for your input.  It may well be the SOLVED key to this rather than my RESOLVED. 

My problem was when I was deep into trying to figure this out, I had already imported my address book the same way I had always done it; it was there, I could see and use it, just not with Mail.  When I looked at those same configuration choices you did trying to sort it out, there was nothing that lept out at me and said that I needed an akonadi address book.  I had the default address book already.  I knew KDE 4 used akonadi for something; it started when I opened Kontact, but what??? (of course NOW I know).

I'll keep this in mind for my next install.

Thanks,

putz

[kjpetrie]

I think you'll find problems remain, especially if you have more than one address book. I have ten separate sets of contacts and I can never remember them all. They got imported OK, but Akonadi stores them as a single heap - not much use when you need to keep them apart. Any new contacts were added to the appropriate book but were then invisible to Kmail, so that wasn't much use.

A manager on the KDE forum recently gave the opinion the new kaddressbook won't be ready for production use until 4.5, at which point they'll start experimenting with pulling other applications apart. It sounds as if this is beta software at best, and not ready for a stable system like pclos. I have requested a kdepim downgrade at package suggest, as at least 4.3.4 works well.

[dj_bridges]

kjpetrie - there is a way to use multiple address books. Take a look at my thread:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,71021.0.html

I don't really understand Akonadi vs kmail etc, but it does at least work for me. Hope you can get it working too....

[kjpetrie]

Thank you dl_bridges, but I have already read both of the pages you point to, as well as your own thread, and the KDE one (http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=86058&start=10#p150136) where the forum manager, after speaking to KDE developers, reveals Kaddressbook won't be ready for production use until version 4.5.

What you suggest appears to work until I start adding new entries to the address books. Then it all goes haywire with some entries (mostly the new ones) turning up in kaddressbook and others turning up in KMail, but none being visible everywhere. One address book became mysteriously empty, and another had only the new entry in it, with the other 40 invisible. This is why it's taken me about three weeks to discover the problem, because initially Akonadi just imported my address books and they seemed to be working.

I'm worried that if I continue to use the current version my data will get scrambled until it will be impossible to work out which contact belongs where and my business and social life will be irreparably ruined. I rely on ten separate address books, so the software has to be dependable. I won't be able to sort it out if it gets muddled up.

That is why I would like pclos to revert to a reliable version until KDE have finished experimenting. People's data is too valuable to risk in this way.

[dj_bridges]

Hadn't realised it was that dodgy, but have been playing around with it and it isn't exactly stable. Have got all my contacts backed up so not bothered if I lose them. Perhaps it would be good to 'regress' until these features are stable (and perhaps more importantly understandable)!!!!

[kjpetrie]

I spent a couple of weeks trying to build the old version of kaddressbook into the current KDE. I couldn't get it to work. It just doesn't seem to be compatible anymore. So I have resorted to a different workaround based on an old minime 09 ISO and YouCanToo's frozen repo running in Virtualbox with bridged networking and sharing .kde4/share/apps/kabc with NFS. The share is mounted in the VM on .kde/share/apps/kabc, and I took care to create my user there with the same UID as in the host. I can now maintain my addresses on the host from the guest in a way Kmail can recognise. It just means launching the VM if I have to update the address book.

It's a bit monstrous, but at least it works, and it's only temporary until these applications work together well again.