KDE PIM/Akonadi

Akonadi TODO

The following list contains the things which need to be done for Akonadi.

Core

Status	Item	Description	Contact
DONE	Cache policies	As discussed in Osnabrueck	Volker <[email protected]>
DONE	Agent configuration	As discussed in Osnabrueck	Volker <[email protected]>
TO DO	Item size	Needed by Mailody	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Item streaming in ItemSync/ResourceBase	As discussed in Osnabrueck	[mailto: <>]
IN PROGRESS	API for additional item parts	As discussed in Osnabruck	<Volker/Tobias>
IN PROGRESS	Infrastructure for showing additional dialogs from agents/resources	As discussed in Osnabrueck	<Tom>
TO DO	Allow to limit ItemFetchJob to current cache content	Prevents search index feeder agents from downloading all remote data	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Conflict detection in resources	See Osnabrueck meeting notes for details	[mailto: <>]
IN PROGRESS	Fix API for item/collection modifications	See Osnabrueck meeting notes for details	<Volker>
DONE	Remove DataReference	Fold back into Item	Tobias <[email protected]>
TO DO	Support standard commands for QUndo framework		[mailto: <>]
IN PROGRESS	Action framework	see below	Volker <[email protected]>
IN PROGRESS	Tray app	small app to control the server and have a something that can report errors	Toma <[email protected]>
DONE	Server-side copy	for items and collections	Volker <[email protected]>
TO DO	Finish collection model/view	see below	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Solid integration	Switch online/offline state in ResourceBase automatically	[mailto: <>]
DONE	Hierarchical dptrs	Use for all job classes, check where else this makes sense	Tobias <[email protected]>
TO DO	Make unittests work without destroying the production database		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Backup support	Dump & Restore database contents, also useful when upgrading to a newer database version	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Error reporting	Akonadi::Job basically has only one error code: Unknown	[mailto: <>]
IN PROGRESS	Collection statistics for sub-trees	Provide a CollectionStatus object covering the full sub-tree in the model, allowing accumulated unread counts etc.	<Thomas>
IN PROGRESS	Use 64bit ids	Otherwise we'll run out of identifiers in 6.8 years, and that's just thanks to the ItemAppendJob speed limit ;-)	Tobias <[email protected]>
TO DO	Nepomuk integration	Generic Item tag/rate/comment, etc.	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Sync collection tree after creating a new resource	see AgentInstanceCreateJob	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Payload serialization format versioning	see below	[mailto: <>]

Supported Types

Overview on the current state of support for various types:

Type	Serializer	Multipart Support	Models	Views	Resources	Notes
Email	yes	partial	MessageModel, MessageCollectionModel, threading proxy model	?	maildir, IMAP	threading agent
News	yes (1)	partial (1)	(1)	(1)	NNTP
Contact	yes	no	ContactModel	-	vCard, facebook, KRes
Events	yes	no	EventModel	-	iCal, KRes
Notes	no	no	-	-	-	not started yet
Feeds	no	no	-	-	-	not started yet
Bookmarks	yes	no	-	-	local bookmarks, del.icio.us

(1) see Email

Mail specific extensions

Status	Item	Description	Contact
TO DO	Extend Message Model	Add all required columns, save/restore layout, flag delegate, configurable columns, etc.	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Share mail flag code	Standard actions, standard flag enum/constants, Nepomuk interaction	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Extend ENVELOPE	Add more information to the envelope payload part in the serializer plugin, eg. trheading information is missing	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Fix/finish threading		[mailto: <>]

Event/Todo/Journal specific extensions

Status	Item	Description	Contact
TO DO	Todo proxy model	See KOrganizers To-Do view	<Bruno?>
IN PROGRESS	Subtype identification	See discussion on kde-pim mailinglist	<Kevin?>
TO DO	Agenda view	KOrganizer agenda view based on Akonadi	<Bruno?>
TO DO	Month view	KOrganizer month view based on Akonadi	<Bruno?>
TO DO	Timeline view	KOrganizer timeline view based on Akonadi	[mailto: <>]

Resources, Agents and others

Status	Item	Description	Contact
IN PROGRESS	KResource Akonadi bridge	for applications using KCal or KABC	Kevin <[email protected]>
IN PROGRESS	Akonadi KResource bridge	for data accessed through KCal or KABC resources	Kevin <[email protected]>
TO DO	Expire Agent		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	MBOX Resource		<Thomas>
TO DO	Extend IMAP Resource		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	POP3 Resource		<Thomas>
TO DO	RSS Resource		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Filter Agent		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Search		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Filter Rule GUI	Used by filters and searches	[mailto: <>]

Resource status overview (this should list all resources existing in KDE3 or already under development for Akonadi):

Resource	Retrieve Collections	Retrieve Items	Change Collections	Change Items	Configuration	Notes
iCal	yes (4)	yes (1) (2)	no	yes (5)	yes	does not yet watch for file changes
vCard	yes (4)	yes (1) (2)	no	?	yes	does not yet watch for file changes
maildir	yes (1) (4)	yes (1) (2)	?	?	yes
mbox	no	no	no	no	no	not started yet, code exists in KMail
IMAP	yes (1) (4)?	yes (1) (2)	no	no	no	code exists in kio_imap4 and Mailody, support for extensions: quota, ACL, annotations missing, what about Kolab and Scalix?
POP3	no	no	no	no	no	not started yet,code exists in kio_pop3
NNTP	yes (4)	yes (2)	n/a	n/a	yes	Needs support for local collection names and collection hierarchy
Local Bookmarks	?	?	?	?	(3)	Code in akonadi/resources
OpenChange	?	?	?	?	?	Code in akonadi/resources
Facebook	?	?	?	?	?	Code in playground/pim
del.icio.us	?	?	?	yes	no	Code in playground/pim
KABC	no	yes	no	yes	yes
KCal	no	yes	no	yes	yes

(1) only full sync supported currently, need optimization (2) does not yet honor cache policy (3) still relies on QSettings for configuration and/or doesn't provide configuration over D-Bus (4) does not yet provide correct access control settings (5) only adding new items, not changing existing ones

Akonadi Braindump

Ideas/notes etc. on various open issues in Akonadi.

Akonadi Standard Actions

Idea: Have something like KStandardAction for Akonadi that not only includes the representation of the action but also its state management and the actual operations. Like libakonadi that should be splitted into a generic, type-independent part and be extensible for type-specific actions. This will enable code sharing among many applications and guarantee consistent actions everywhere.

State management: watch selection models of a collection and/or item model.

Use KXMLGUI for context menus in standard views to allow easy extensibility with custom actions.

Generic actions:

• new collection [done]
• new virtual collection
• delete collection [done for single selection]
• copy collection [done]
• cut collection
• paste collection [done]
• synchronize collection [done for single selection]
• synchronize resource
• synchronize everything
• show collection properties dialog [done]
• delete item(s) [done]
• copy item(s) [done]
• cut item(s)
• paste item(s) [done]
• paste native data
• tag item(s)
• comment item
• rate item(s)
• configure resource
• add resource? (would need a type parameter, etc.)
• delete resource
• manage local subscriptions [done]
• move to submenu
• copy to submenu

The list is definitely long enough to make this worthwhile.

Collection Model / Collection View

Ideas/missing features/bugs of the collection model/view:

• Enable/disable status columns
• Show status after the name (see KMail)
• Size column
• Save/restore layout
• Custom collection icons (see KMail, also needed for resource defined special folders (eg. Inbox)
• Status tooltips (see KMail in 3.5.9)
• Quick search
• Favorite folder view as proxy model on top of the normal collection model (FlatCollectionProxyModel might be helpful for there)
• Accumulated statistics (unread, total, size)
• Fix dnd: move/copy/cancel menu always shows up and never has any effect

Compatibility

Notes on how to keep long-term protocol, source and binary compatibility.

• Detect server version in Akonadi::Session, might be useful in case of protocol extensions/changes
• What about database server version updates?
• Versioning or any other kind of serialization format meta data, we'll need that in case of changes in serialization formats (see eg. Robert's compression patch where this is needed)
• We currently use 32 bit ids, probably hard to change later on, is that enough?
• Plugin versioning

Resource API issues

Notes/ideas/complaints about the Akonadi::ResourceBase API:

• Extremely error prone:
  • Scheduler dead-locks when a requested operation is not correctly announced as finished, esp. a problem in error cases.
  • Using the result methods multiple times or when not requested asserts
• Item streaming is missing, requiring all data to be in memory at once
• Non-incremental updates need to know the results of ItemSync to not have to provide all data, even for already existing/unchanged items.

API / BC issues

Smaller stuff that should be fixed before the ABI freeze and is not yet listed above:

• Cleanup the D-Bus format used by NotificationMessage
• No mentioning of "IMAP" in the public API, we are not using IMAP
• Naming and installed location of libraries, headers and executables (see discussion on kde-pim ML)
• Payload part labels are QStrings, attribute types are QByteArray

Deployment issues

• Multiple access: Should multiple Akonadi instances' mysqlds access a single set of data files the mysql will likely corrupt the data. This can happen in any NFS+YP installation where users can log onto any machine and access shared homes. MySQL relies on filesystem locking to prevent multiple access. MySQL multiple instance docu.
• InnoDB tables should not be used on NFS.
• NFS speed: MySQL documentation recommends against locating its data files on network shares.
• AppArmor: Distros' AppArmor profiles prevent MySQL from writing outside its defined data directory (usually /var/lib/mysql). This is a problem at least with *buntu and openSUSE. These will need to be adapted. It is possible to daisy-chain profiles so that MySQL started by Akonadi receives a different profile to MySQL running standalone. An empty profile has all rights. Another possibility is to adapt the general MySQL profile so it can write to ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/akonadi(usually ${HOME/}.local/share/akonadi). Both support for profile chaining and ${HOME} may depend on the version of AppArmor installed. What about SELinux?
• Backup: MySQL data files should not be backed up without telling the mysqld process, otherwise a corrupt backup will be made. LOCK TABLES and FLUSH TABLES at the least. A dump can be made or mysqlhotbackup may be used in some circumstances. We should consider sysadmins' backup techniques when planning/promoting Akonadi, as a simple rsync cronjob with running Akonadi will not work. MySQL backup advice.

KMail Breakdown Plan

The current plan is to put some parts of KMail into a stand-alone library, independent of KMail. This increases code reuse (for example, the message composer could be shared with Mailody) and makes the code a lot easier to maintain and to port to Akonadi.

Status	Item	Description	Contact
TO DO	Bodypart formatters		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Reader Window		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Composer: Editor		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Composer: Message Composer		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Composer: GUI Window		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Queue Manager for mailtransport		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Templates: Core		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Templates: GUI		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Port KMCommands		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Port away from KMMessage and KMFolder* everywhere it is left		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Migration application for index and other config		[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Port MDNs		[mailto: <>]

The Road to World Domination

Sort of related so the stuff above but with a scope for all of KDE PIM and beyond.

Status	Item	Description	Contact
TO DO	Share identity config GUI parts	eg. the signature configuration widget	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Mailtransport Agent	Global shared outbox, central mail sending instance	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Recently sent to support in mailtransport	related to above, based on Akonadi/Nepomuk	[mailto: <>]
TO DO	Composer engine	Shared stuff for KMail/KNode/Mailody: Crypto, editor, editor actions, attachment model, message assembly, etc.	[mailto: <>]