Mozilla Email & Calendar PDA Synchronization? 22
jark writes "Outlook is, for the most part, the industry standard for contact management, personal information management and email use in the corporate workplace. We are looking in to deploying Mozilla across our network, included with the Calendar project, but have one last necessary hurdle: PalmOS synchronization. Are there currently any applications that will sync Mozilla mail, address books and calendar events with PalmOS based handhelds? If not, are there any plans in the works for this to become a reality?"
Don't forget PocketPC / Zaurus / etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a WinCE device, and have to jump through several loops to sync my IMAP mail at work - using Outlook. Isn't that awkward?
If people could get a simple, generic calendar/mail/contacts system that worked on both their PC and (any-brand) handheld, they wouldn't miss IE or Outlook for a second.
Yeah, and don't forget... (Score:1)
alpha code (Score:3, Insightful)
The tool itself looks really cool already (a zoom option would be nice, I don't like scrolling) and no doubt it will continue to develop rapidly. I think that it will be moved into the Mozilla source tree once it is in a more useable state. I don't think that that will happen before 1.1, though.
Re:alpha code (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/ABSyncClient
but the real deal is [syncml.org]
SyncML that works on phones and soon palms that is a nice stable platform for doing this the only problem would be patents but since they dont have any filed in taiwan it does not really matter
http://sync4j.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] is a big list
regards
john jones
Evolution? (Score:2)
I've not used it, but it looks quite polished.
Also, it goes without saying that if you don't have Linux deployed across your network, the work involved with that would likely outweigh the benefits...
Re:Evolution? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Evolution? (Score:2)
My guess is that they are like the company I work at where we have to use windows as some of the software we use requires windows (for now) but we still want to move away from msmail / exchange and the calendering of outlook. Ldap does mail but does not solve the calendaring problem.
Scripting APIs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, they don't even have to be standard across toolkits. I'd be extra happy if they all just responded to XML-RPC.
Now, if we had something like Apple's OSA (Open Script Architecture, what AppleScript ties in to) in these GUI toolkits, we could write a perl script to act like a "hotsync conduit" on Windoze/Mac OS with the Palm desktop.
Except, it wouldn't have to be a thousand line pain in the ass C++ app. It'd just a 10 line perl script, looking something like:
use ZaurusSync;
use MozillaOSA;
$pda = ZaurusSync->new();
$pda->openOn("/dev/ttyS1");
$cal = MozillaOSA->new()->application("Mozilla:Addr essbook");
foreach $name ( $cal->personKeys ) {
#getPerson returns undef if she doesn't exist
if ($pdaCal->getPerson($person) eq $person->asZaurusPerson) {#perhaps further checking
} else {
$pdaCal->newPerson( $person->asZaurusPerson);
}
}
$pda->close();
Now, this is hypothetical perl, it won't work, and the parts that normally would are probably malformed.
But this sort of thing is *so* far from impossible. It just has to be figured in from the start of a toolkit or even an app, which could implement it's own.
If Mac OS can do it, why can't we Unix peeps?
Re:Scripting APIs? (Score:2)
I've been chatting with some of the folks in #zaurus on OPN and I'm quite disapointed in some of the features of the Zaurus.
The code example I gave would rely on this OSA existing for both Mozilla's framework as well as on the Zaurus. Or a perl wrapper to make it appear so. According to the people with whom I spoke, the Zaurus doesn't have a consistent and elegant DB API to allow such data access. This perl wrapper would have to deal with the files on the Zaurus device. Sub-optimal. You'd think that without having to worry about legacy stuff, they would've taken the opportunity to do sometthing the right way, rather than the legacy way. Oh well!
Well, my PDA operating environment/system, Dynapad [sf.net] will be able to be scripted just like I'd like.
IMAP (Score:3, Informative)
- I set up a personal imap server. Fetchmail is also running on that box.
- I use evolution to sync my calendar/contacts/etc
- I can use both evo and mozmail to check out my imap mailbox
- I use programs like mailsync to synchronize my palm straight with the imap server.
IMAP indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
Suck it up (Score:2, Troll)
IE is free. It comes with windows. It has its share of security problems but they are easily fixed and deployed. How easy do you think it will be to patch all your copies of Mozilla when something happens? And it will happen. Will you be able to use Active Directory or NT Policy patch to manage all your PC's? I assume since you don't like MS, you don't have SMS installed.
How much time do you want to "waste" getting people up to speed with a system they don't know anything about? Deploy Mozilla at home or at your friends' houses. Geek it up somewhere else.
Suck it up and go with MS - you might not like it, but all the people you support - your CUSTOMERS for all intents & purposes might not like Mozilla. They know how to use IE. They don't want to learn anything new. They'll resent you if you take away their ability to use their Palms.
My $0.02, to be sure, but look at the big picture. It's great to stand up for and support what you believe in, but I have yet to hear a good solid argument for the kind of thing you're trying to do.
Native Mozilla Address Book - Palm Sync (Score:4, Informative)
I found some stuff in the Mozilla Status Updates [mozilla.org] that may interest you:
June 14th MailNews Update [mozilla.org]
The comments in the reports were written by Netscape employees. It looks like Palm sync functionality is in the early planning stages, so Netscape probably want it for Buffy, the codename for their next release after 7.0 (7.0 is codenamed MachV). Basically, it looks like it's in development but it probably won't be available in Mozilla for some time.
What about a calendar server? (Score:1)
You could try moz + steltor calendar (www.steltor.com) as a reasonable compromise. This has agenda synching tools (for CE, psion and palm).
Syncml widget? (Score:1)
http://sync4j.sourceforge.
Does anyone have any practical experience with Syncml? I can't claim to have any experience with it personally, but I get the impression that it is supposed to be THE transfer format for any small device - phone, PDA etc, so why not create/use that?
I know that not everyone is onboard with Syncml, but creating proprietarysyncml filters seems more efficient that creating new proprietaryproprietary filters every time someone comes up with a new email program. That way, Mozilla, Evolution etc could all benefit from the same set of converters.
Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm hoping someone else will.