10:12 a.m.
Hey guys,
first of all, thanks for developing syncevolution! I really appreciate
your efforts and it's really useful for me!
So, after I lost my 6 years old phone, I decided to get a new phone and
my choice was the Google Nexus 5. Unfortunately, since I never owned a
smartphone before, I didn't know how tightly Google integrated their
services into Android, so I decided to get rid of them (as much as
possible).
Thanks to syncevolution, syncing my laptop with my cell is now (mostly)
a piece of cake, but the learning curve was steep. Please note that I
have never used Android before, so I was a complete newbie in that
regard.
Installing syncevolution is easy - I used the package available in
Ubuntu 12.04 and I installed "sync-ui" as well. I really thought I could
sync directly via bluetooth (I read the HowTo on the page), so I tried
it - but it wouldn't work. I had to figure out that the reason was the
syncml client; Android does not have one.
-> I'd suggest to add a comment to the howto that Android (and most
likely iOS?) will not be able to use this method (at least out of the
box) and that they should use a different approach.
My 2nd approach was using SyncML-clients from the app store; I tried a
bunch of free ones and I can tell you, they are all somewhat broken,
half-broken or contain advertisements (and are still broken). For
example, they won't work at all or they will sync once, but if you want
them to sync a second time, they will terminate with an error.
However, Synthesis SyncML client (testing version is available for 30
days), works perfectly fine with syncevolution (as stated in some
howto).
Configuring syncevolution is easy as well - one just needs to follow the
howto at
https://syncevolution.org/wiki/synchronizing-evolution-http-howto (if
you were able to find it) although I encountered several issues:
(1) The howto configures the phone and adds several sources in one
listing, which are aliases. It actually should be mentioned below the
listing that the values assigned to the attributes are aliases and that
one does not necessarily need them.
(2) I would explain how to find out which "backend" to choose and what
the right database is, like "By printing all databases, syncevolution
will list all available backends with all contained databases; the
backend can be determined as the value after the "=" sign, in the
previous example this would be "evolution-calendar". The database names
are at the beginning of each subsequent line. The values in brackets are
only identifiers, not database names. In the example above, the
available databases would be "Personal" and "Work". Note: Database
names
are case-sensitive!" (I don't know if the latter is true but I simply
presume they are :) )
(3) Explain what "@default work-calendar" means or what it's used for. I
really don't know.
(4) This is by far the most important issue for me: The SyncML-Client by
Synthesis was mentioned a couple of times in this howto, so adding more
databases using the Synthesis SyncML-client should be explained. How can
that be done? For my part, I really don't know how to do that!
(5) Add notes to make a backup before trying syncevolution. At least you
can say "We warned you.". It doesn't have to be a flaw in syncevolution,
any client could do something wrong as well. In fact, I needed my backup
- for one reason or another, one of my addressbooks got dumped.
(Happened only once and I really don't know why, I did not change any
sync modes (such as reload server etc.)...)
In general, I thought that the user experience could be seriously
improved by cleaning up the webpage; the "Wiki articles" box on the side
is just so chaotic, I didn't exactly understand the difference between
"documentation" and "wiki" (I clicked on a link in the documentation
and
I ended up reading a wiki page). I would get rid of one of them!
For example, an introductory page would be neat (needs formatting, of
course): "Welcome and thanks for using syncevolution. If you want to
sync with a phone, click on your OS:
(1) Android (2) iOS (3) MeeGo (Tizen?)
There are currently multiple howtos for phone models:
*list of models, ordered by manufacturer*
If you want to learn more about SyncML, click here."
The OS sub-pages will then tell the user which options he/she can choose
from.
After all this critique and proposals, thanks again for developing
syncevolution. I love Evolution and I don't like sharing my PIM data on
the cloud; syncevolution definitely helped me a lot
Best regards!
Christian
PS: I should have mentioned it earlier, but if there's a way you could
use some (limited) help, let me know.