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    Kontact documentation

    It's Saturday night. Time for a little grim humor.

    I'm more than a little frustrated by the witless way this quite decent application is presented to us. It LOOKs great. I get good use out of the calendar functionality. I'd like to use the feedreader, but it loads duplicates of items, multiple times a day. Maybe I set it up wrong. But, how would I know, 'cause...

    There's no blippin' documentation! Like too many other KDE programs, the Help menu contains dead links or links to forums which have modest participation and no answers for my problems. (And by the way - just how many forums can YOU track until you start to hear people talking to you in the dark? Heh heh.)

    So, I'm left to flail around trying to get things to work on my own. After several weeks, I finally discovered how to get the Akonadi server working (I think), and now all my external data resources are internal to Akonadi, but it doesn't appear possible to ADD another calendar to the 3 I have already. This is simply crazy. There must be a way. But if they told you....well, that would be cheating, yes?

    Does ANYONE know where some real documentation for this software might be found? It's not exactly a new kid on the block, but seems still to be living in the street. AND, why have a bloody Help>Kontact link that tells me that the file it's looking for doesn't exist? Since when is this good practice? And don't bother looking in the packages for a documentation file to load - there isn't one. (Another great idea: provide documentation in a file which doesn't load with the main program - I've seen that one far too many times.) There's always this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontact - which is at least interesting reading, if not really documentation.

    Significantly frustrating...

    So, why not turn a liability into an asset? This (and many other opensource programs should be presented to us something like this...

    "Kontact - the PIM software for the man who never reads instructions. You'll feel right at home, 'cause there aren't any." Gals, of course, will have to get a guy to help them (preferably a guy with a lot of time).

    This it's just me? Hardly. Read on - The big Linux Achilles: Documentation - http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/op...06&tag=nl.e550

    #2
    Re: Kontact documentation

    Yes, you are right. There hasn't been any decent documentation on Kontact in a long time. There is a bug (#363887), that doesn't seem to be too active. I've downloaded the kdepim-doc package, but it is just about useless as it is for version 1.1.1 with 2005 copyright date. No doubt some pieces haven't changed in a while, but the Akonadi thing has been a bother since KDE decided to start using it.

    If you got to the Kontact web page, they refer, and defer, to an irc board and some message list. It's very unfortunate that those who understand the programs best are not able, or perhaps not allowed, to write decent documentation.

    While I can't say that I've had any problems with dupes in the newsfeed under Akgregator, still there are other problem areas that NORMALLY can be resolved with adequate documentation.

    Afraid all I can do is commiserate.
    The next brick house on the left
    Intel i7 11th Gen | 16GB | 1TB | KDE Plasma 5.27.11​| Kubuntu 24.04 | 6.8.0-31-generic



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      #3
      Re: Kontact documentation

      jglen490 - thanks for your comment. Misery loves company. While you were posting, I was updating my original post, which now has some new material. Just more support for the central thesis.

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        #4
        Re: Kontact documentation

        Have you tried the kde forums? The office section seems to have kontact queries althought the forums aren't that active.

        There can be a problem with documentation. I don't think many developers are interested in writing docs and few other people understand the apps well enough to do so. However, I think the major problem is the route for user support. Most projects still seem to be committed to mailing lists which may work well for a small number of developers keeping up with their project but for users they are very awkward.

        I seem to remember reading that the whole kde pim is undergoing a complete rewrite that will probably be in kde 4.5? How long after that till it is stable enought for use is another matter

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Kontact documentation

          I actually like Kontact quite a bit, and would like to see it thrive. I find that the calendar functionality works better than anything else I've tried, and I'm grateful for that.

          I wonder why we don't have a wiki for user contributions re: documentation. I think I'll propose this at the forums, and return here with an announcement, if the idea flies. Getting increased user involvement would be an excellent idea for apps such as this.

          Thanks for your thoughts...

          t.

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