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Kontact

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(Redirected fromKMail)
Not to be confused withContakt,Contact,orKontakt.
Kontact
Developer(s)KDE
Stable release
5.19.3[1] / March 3, 2022(2022-03-03)
Repository
Written inC++
Operating systemUnix-like,Microsoft Windows(Experimental)
TypePersonal Information Manager
LicenseGNU GPLv2 or later[2]
Websitekontact.kde.org

Kontactis apersonal information managerandgroupwaresoftware suite developed byKDE.It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It offers a number of inter-changeable graphical UIs (KMail, KAddressBook, Akregator, etc.) all built on top of a common core.

Differences between "Kontact" and "KDE PIM"[edit]

Technically speaking,Kontactonly refers to a small umbrella application that unifies different stand-alone applications under one user interface.KDE PIMrefers to a work group within the larger KDE project that develops the individual applications in a coordinated way.

In popular terms, however,Kontactoften refers to the whole set ofKDE PIMapplications. These days many popularLinux distributionssuch asKubuntuhide the individual applications and only placeKontactprominently.

History[edit]

KDE PIM New Year Meeting
Year Date
2003 1/3-1/5
2004 1/2-1/5
2005 1/6-1/9
2006 1/6-1/8
2007[3] 1/12-1/15
2008[4] 2/1-2/3
2009 1/09-1/11
2010[5] 1/8-1/10
2011[6] 2/25-2/27
KDE mascotKonqiand KDE mail applications

The initial groupware container application was written in an afternoon by Matthias Hölzer-Klüpfel and later imported into the KDE source repository and maintained by Daniel Molkentin. This container application is essential for Kontact to operate, but without embedded components it is not useful by itself.

The first embedded components were created byCornelius Schumacher.He modified theKAddressBookandKOrganizerapplications to create the initial address book and organizer components. At this stage no mail client component existed, so KDE still lacked a functional integrated groupware application. However, Cornelius' groundbreaking work acted as a prototype for other developers to base their efforts on.

Don Sanders created the missing mail client component by modifying theKMailapplication. He then integrated the mail client component with the other components, and the groupware container application, assembled and released the initial Kontact packages, and created the initial Kontact website.

Daniel Molkentin, Cornelius Schumacher and Don Sanders then formed the core Kontact team. The KMail and container application changes were imported into the KDE source repository, and Kontact was released as part of KDE 3.2.[7]

During the construction of the Kontact application suite, theKolabgroupware server was being worked on by Erfrakon,[8]Intevation.net[9]and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult[10]simultaneously and was completed at approximately the same time. This work was done as part of the Kroupware[11]project that also involved modifying the KMail and KOrganizer applications to enhance them with additional groupware features.

The core Kontact team, the Kolab consortium, and several independent KDE PIM developers then worked together to enhance Kontact by integrating the Kroupware functionality and making Kolab the primary Kontact server.

Additionally, a news component was created from theKNodeapplication by KDE developerZack Rusin,and Kontact was modified to support an array of mainly web based suites of collaboration software.

Components[edit]

Kontact embeds the following

  • Summary Page: A summary which shows unread emails, upcoming appointments, and the latest news and weather from the user's subscribed RSS feeds

Email[edit]

KMail
Stable release
5.24.3[12]Edit this on Wikidata / 9 November 2023
Repository
Websitekontact.kde.org/components/kmail/

KMailsupports folders, filtering, viewingHTMLmail, and international character sets. It can handleIMAP,IMAP IDLE,dIMAP,[13]POP3,and local mailboxes for incoming mail. It can send mail viaSMTPorsendmailprotocols. It can forward HTML mail as an attachment but it cannot forward mail inline.[14]

Spam and filtering[edit]

KMail uses two special filters to provide a modular access to spam-filtering programs:

  • Send this e-mail to a programallows any program to be specified, and when that KMail filter is activated, the program will be run and supplied with the contents of the e-mail as itsstandard input.
  • Pipe this e-mail through a programnot only sends the e-mail to a specified program, but replaces the e-mail with the output of that program. This allows the use of systems such asSpamAssassinwhich can add their own headers to a piece of e-mail.

These modular filters can be combined with text filters to detect (for example) e-mail which has been flagged by SpamAssassin by looking for the special headers it added.

KMail allows manual filtering of spam directly on the mail server, a very interesting feature for dial-up users. Emails that exceed some threshold size (standard is 50 kb, but it may be set to any value) are not automatically copied to the local computer. With "get, decide later, delete" options, KMail lists them but does not download the whole message, which allows the deletion of spam and oversized messages without wasting time.

Cryptographic support[edit]

KMail's built-in encryption and PGP signature support

KMail supports theOpenPGPstandard and can automatically encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify signatures of email messages and its attachments via either the inline or OpenPGP/MIME method of signing/encryption. KMail depends on theGnuPGsoftware for this functionality. As a visual aid, KMail will colour verified email messages green fortrusted signatures;yellow for untrusted signatures; red for invalid signatures; and blue for encrypted messages.

KMail also supportsS/MIMEmessages as well asChiasmus,[15]a proprietary cryptographic system created by the GermanFederal Office for Information Security(BSI).

Address book[edit]

KAddressBook
Stable release
R14.1.1[16]Edit this on Wikidata / 20 October 2023
Repository
Websiteuserbase.kde.org/KAddressBook

KAddressBookis anaddress bookapplication.

Description[edit]

KAddressBook is agraphical interfaceto organizing the addresses and contact information of family, friends, business partners, etc. It integrates withKDE Plasma,allowing interoperability with other KDE programs, including the e-mail clientKMail– allowing one-click access to composing an e-mail – and the instant messengerKopete– showing the online status of and easy access to instant messaging contacts. It can be synchronized with other software or device using Kitchensync andOpenSync.

A contact may be classified into customizable categories, such as Family, Business, or Customer. Many of the fields can have multiple entries, for example, if the contact has several e-mail addresses. A contact's fields are separated into four tabs and one tab for custom fields.

Features[edit]

  • Exports and imports cards to and fromvCardformat.
  • UsesDBUSto interface with other applications.
  • Interoperable withKMailandKopete,as well as Kontact.
  • Customize fields and categories.
  • Automatic formatting of names.
  • Filter ability, to search for addresses.
  • Capability to query anLDAPdatabase containing person information.

Organizer[edit]

KOrganizer
Stable release
20.01.90[17]Edit this on Wikidata / 10 January 2024
Repository
Websitekontact.kde.org/components/korganizer/

KOrganizeris thepersonal organizer.It has the ability to manage calendars, journals, and a to do list.

News feed aggregator[edit]

Akregator
Stable release
6.1.0[18]Edit this on Wikidata / 23 May 2024
Repository
Websitekontact.kde.org/components/akregator/

Akregatoris afeed aggregator.It supports bothRSSandAtom.Feeds can be sorted into categories. Akregator will aggregate all feeds in a particular category into a single list of new entries so that, for example, all news in the category "Politics" can be shown in one list. It has anincremental searchfeature for the titles of all the entries in its database.

Akregator can be configured to fetch feeds within regular intervals. The user can also manually request to fetch all feeds, individual ones, or those in a selected category. It supports feed icons and embedsKHTMLas an internal,tabbedweb browser.Any external browser can also be called.

Akregator is part ofKDEsince the 3.4 release, and it is distributed with thekdepimmodule.

Usenet news client[edit]

KNode
Repository
Websiteuserbase.kde.org/KNode

KNodeis thenews clientprogram for theKDEdesktop environment.

It supports multipleNNTPservers, message threads, scoring,X-Faceheaders (reading and posting), and international character sets.

Personal wiki[edit]

KJots
Initial release1997(1997)
Final release
5.1.0[19]Edit this on Wikidata / 20 February 2021
Repository
Websiteuserbase.kde.org/KJots

KJotsis a simpleoutlinertext editorwhich can be used to create apersonal wiki.It uses a basictree structureto organize information: it refers to nodes as ‘books’ and leaves as ‘pages’. It includes a book view, which shows atable of contents,and a view mode for all entries.

Similar wiki-style programs areZim(based onGTKand Python), Wixi (based onPythonand GTK),KeepNote(based on Python and GTK), Notecase (based on GTK), BasKet (based onQt), Gnudiary (also based on Qt),Tomboy(GTK, based onMono),Gnote(Tomboy port toC++) andTiddlywiki(self-modifying, single-HTML contained personal wiki, written inJavaScriptand expandable with plugins). AlsoTreeline,an advanced outliner written in Python and personal database available forLinuxandMicrosoft Windows,has similar functions.

Other components[edit]

KNotes
Initial release1997(1997)
Stable release
24.05.1[20]Edit this on Wikidata / 13 June 2024
Repository
Website[1]

Storage back-end[edit]

Main article:Akonadi

Along with theKDE Software Compilation 4life cycle, Kontact moved toAkonadifor storing its data, when in the past every Kontact component implemented the storage technologies itself. Akonadi is currently mostly developed by theKDE PIMteam, but its design is done in an agnostic way and thus not depending on KDE technologies.

The first SC 4 release of Kontact was officially shipped withKDE 4.1.That release did not use Akonadi. Since then the Kontact components have been gradually migrating towards Akonadi. The first stable version of KDE PIM using Akonadi was released together withKDE 4.6.4in June 2011.[21]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^"appdata".GitHub.
  2. ^"license notice placed at the top in one of the source files of the project's repository, probably in each of its source files".Archived fromthe originalon December 13, 2019.RetrievedNovember 22,2017.This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  3. ^ Will Stephenson (2007-01-29)."KDE PIM Annual Meeting Pushes Advanced Design, Enterprise Stability".kde.org.KDE Dot News.
  4. ^Cornelius Schumacher (2008-02-21)."KDE PIM Team Meets to Talk Akonadi and KDE 4.1".ked.org. KDE Dot News. Archived fromthe originalon 2011-05-27.Retrieved2011-04-05.
  5. ^ Stephen Kelly (2010-01-14)."Annual Osnabrück PIM Meeting Brings Exciting Announcements and Ambitious Plans".kde.org. KDE Dot News.
  6. ^ Stephen Kelly (2011-03-15)."9th Annual PIM Meeting Renews Commitment to Innovation".kde.org. KDE Dot News.
  7. ^"KDE 3.1.5 to KDE 3.2.0 Changelog".kde.org.Retrieved20 October2010.
  8. ^Erfrakon.de
  9. ^Intevation.net
  10. ^Klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se
  11. ^"Kroupware.kolab.org".Archived fromthe originalon 2018-06-25.Retrieved2010-08-20.
  12. ^"KMail - KDE Applications".
  13. ^"SUSE Linux – User Guide Chapter 12. KMail — The KDE Mail Application / 12.3. Access Types".uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk.Retrieved20 October2010.
  14. ^Comparison of e-mail clients
  15. ^"Chiasmus™ for Windows/Linux".Federal Office for Information Security. Archived fromthe originalon 22 July 2012.Retrieved20 October2010.
  16. ^https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/cgit/tdepim/refs/.{{cite web}}:Missing or empty|title=(help)
  17. ^"Release v24.01.90 · KDE/korganizer".
  18. ^"Akregator".Retrieved5 June2024.
  19. ^"Release v5.1.0 · KDE/kjots".
  20. ^"Release 24.05.1".13 June 2024.Retrieved22 June2024.
  21. ^"Kde 4.6.4 publishing announcement".kde.org. 10 June 2011.Retrieved16 June2011.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toKontact.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kontact&oldid=1227520033#E-Mail"