Hello,
first off let me state that I've been investigating groupwares since weeks and Collaber appears to me like a dream come true - if it weren't for a few uncertainties. So allow me to ask these questions:
* syncing - I can't find a way to get addressbooks or calendar exported out of Collaber. But how could one use the address books and calendar applications on a mobile phone? Obviously there's a ton of possible ways (syncML / Funambol comes to mind), but will you implement any one way soon?
* Importing / Exporting addresses: Is there no other way of importing a batch of addresses instead of individual vcf files? How could I import a list of 6000 existing addresses? And jhow can I make a backup / export of my collected addresses?
* private addresses - am I right in assuming that one needs to create a separate address book in order to distinguish between private and public addresses? Then how can I search through multiple address books at once?
* development status - I'm surprised by the relatively low volume of postings in the collaber forums. To be honest, this creates the impression that the development of the software is not (no longer) very active. Could the developers please comment on that?
* developing own apps - the support forum about the API is already there, but no posts in it yet. When can we expect more info about the API?
* developing work-arounds: Is there a way to access the databases of the server from my own scripts, e.g. to facilitate custom reports, syncing, etc.? For example by way of mySQL commands?
Again, Collaber seems very very promising, the concept of apps (and an app-store) is very charming, and I'd love to be confident that we can switch from basecamp to collaber soon - but I still have a few doubts about the above issues...
regards,
max
- Login to post comments
Thank you for using Collaber.
Thank you for using Collaber. Here are the answers..
* Syncing Address Book : We have not planned anything about the Synchronization with Mobiles. If you can point us to any existing application that does it well, we will be happy to put such functionality in Collaber.
* Importing/ Exporting Address : First of all we have not considered Address Book as crucial application. When we developed it, our aim is just to to have a way to share the addresses with the team. With little help from people like you, we will surly add such batch import functionality.
* Private Address : We are planning to introduce Search which can search in all available workspaces. I hope that will address your problem.
* Development Status : There are more than 15 developers working on Collaber now. The low volume in forum is due to low number of users. We still need to spread the word.
* Developing On Apps : We have not posted anything as no one has shown interest in it. If you are interested, we will provide all the information.
* Developing Work-arounds: We do sell Collaber Server. You can do all kinds of direct access over the database if it is your own server. We do not allow direct access to Collaber Live Servers.
I hope these answers are encouraging. As we did not have any big investors, we are limited in resources. Any help in spreading the word is appreciated.
Thank you
Rajesh Akkineni
To reply on your last
To reply on your last message:
Thank you for your response.
* syncing: From what I've seen in the past, the aforementiones SyncML via the open Source Funambol system seems a very practical way of doing things, embraced by many smaller development teams. You basically only create a web service which posts a report from your address book in that SyncML markup, then funambol offers clients for all types of mobile clients, and for thunderbird etc.
Most groupwares place rather big emphasis on the address book, but I believe that with a working two-way sync collaber would be good enough already.
* import / Export of addresses: simply loading in and saving to a tab-delimited CSV file is good enough for me - I don't do photos of contacts so far, so all goes into a plain text file. Importing a folder full of vcfs should also work.
* private addresses: yes, given that one can have many workspaces, that's also good enough. But I agree a global search is crucial for that to work.
* API: Yes, I'd love to find out more about that topic. We don't usually do Java, but we do develop our own apps, so we're used to making our own tools. How can I get "all the information"?
What kind of database does the collaber server use? I'm fantasizing it could be a plain vanilla mySQL DB with the usual multitude of ways to access? Knowing more about that would also help to understand the syncing issues, of course.
Great to find out that you're so responsive, and that there is a whole team behind collaber. I'm looking forward to your answers, and I might be the next one to spread the word-
best
max
**SyncML seems good. I didn't
**SyncML seems good. I didn't know about it till now. We will take a look at it soon and will get back to you. I think we can synchronize more than just addresses.
** We will implement batch export/import very soon.
** API: To develop applications all you need to know it is "Javascript". A little HTML + CSS like any other web application would be helpful. As of now we have disabled Applications Tool in Collaber Client v1.2.0.2
We will enable it very shortly with an update. Then you can start creating your own applications. Here is a small comparison between general web applications and Collaber applications.
Even though a full fledged tutorial with complete code will be published soon, Here is a very small tutorial.
Applications use Javascript as server side language. (Remember here server side is just part of client itself)
It will print the account name when application is opened. Here 'collaber' is a root object. 'identity' represents the user object. 'name' is a property of identity object. You can see the API to know about all these objects, properties and methods available in them.
Thanks
Rajesh