ROLODAP, Ldap-abook Projects (revived 2002 thread)

[Yuyo]

Both the Rolodap and Ldap-abook projects are very mature now. Coudn't they be the solution to our address book problem?

http://ldap-abook.sourceforge.net/

http://rolodap.sourceforge.net/

_________________________________

Rolodap

What it is

Rolodap is an open source database for storing an organization's contacts information. It uses PHP and LDAP. Rolodap has easy to use web interfaces. Features include :

* Usable in LDAP enabled emailers like Netscape, Eudora, or Outlook
* No special client software needed-- just a web browser and emailer
* Stores information such as notes, telephone, postal address
* Display of most common information in scrollable tabular form
* Supports creating wordprocessor merge files of postal addresses
* Simple search by user definable categories such as "customers", "courts", "suppliers" or "my contacts"
* Detailed search on any information
* Scalable
* Exports data to csv files for use in any WordProcessor for document merges.
* Exports data to csv files formated so that they can be imported into Palm based PDA's (and possibly others)
* Mailing feature that allow users to send highly customizable emails (the emails can contain field codes for names, addresses, etc so each message is customizable) to groups contacts, without each of the recipients knowing who the other recipients are.
* Themable color schemes that are easy to add schemes to
* Options to search other LDAP databases directly from the Rolodap interface.

----------------------------------------------------

Welcome to ldap-abook

Tired of having to keep all of your addressbooks in sync?
Introduction

ldap-abook is an LDAP based addressbook application, intended for users wishing to maintain a centralized server-based addressbook.

ldap-abook arose out of my frustration at being unable to easily share one addressbook across all the email applications, computers, operating systems, and users in my household. LDAP is rapidly becomming the standard protocol for directory services on the internet, and is already supported by most major email client applications. As such it was the obvious choice for a generally accessible backend. I hope that you find ldap-abook as useful as I have.

ldap-abook provides a schema for an LDAP (v2 & v3) directory and a cgi script which runs under any web server. Once the LDAP server and cgi script is installed, the web interface is used to view, add, modify, and delete entries. Any LDAP-aware email client (eg. Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, etc...) can be configured to look up email address on the LDAP server. If you already have an LDAP directory, ldap-abook can also be configured to work with your schema.

[Jeremy Howard]

Neither of these seems to provide what we're looking for, which is a way to synchronize email clients with an LDAP server using authenticated LDAP.

[Yuyo]

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
Neither of these seems to provide what we're looking for, which is a way to synchronize email clients with an LDAP server using authenticated LDAP.

Are you sure that Rolodap doesn't allow individual authentication?

[Jeremy Howard]

From the description you posted, Rolodap is a LDAP web client, not an addressbook sync client. We already have a web client to the address book (the Addresses link in FastMail.FM)--this is not what we're looking for, unless I'm missing something here....

[Yuyo]

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
From the description you posted, Rolodap is a LDAP web client, not an addressbook sync client. We already have a web client to the address book (the Addresses link in FastMail.FM)--this is not what we're looking for, unless I'm missing something here....

I may very LIKELY be wrong, but the way I understand it, Rolodap is an LDAP web-application that allows access to an LDAP directory through either a web interface or an email client that can contain address books, etc . The difference between this and Fastmail's address book is that the latter is not universally accessible through any LDAP capable client.

There is a demo here:

http://www.dewittross.com/rolodap/auth.phtml

Scroll down for the username and password.

Again, you are in a better position to assess the usefulness of these things and I thank you for even considering them.

By the way, Kirill had posted on this same thread that he would look into the feasibility of incorporating either of these two projects, but his post seems to have vanished.

[Jeremy Howard]

Rolodap is, I believe, an LDAP client that is accessed through the web. It does not expose any special interface to email clients.

We are already aware of a solution to making our address book LDAP capable (we would use OpenLDAP with backsql). And we already know how to web-enable it (we already have!). At issue is whether there is client software that can make use of authenticated LDAP to provide syncing with email client address books. Without authenticated LDAP, LDAP is not useful for FastMail.FM, because we don't want to share your address book with everybody!

[SanjaySheth]

Rolodap Features include :

* Usable in LDAP enabled emailers like Netscape, Eudora, or Outlook
* No special client software needed-- just a web browser and emailer Exports data to csv files for use in any WordProcessor for document merges.
* Exports data to csv files formated so that they can be imported into Palm based PDA's (and possibly others)

Isn't that exactly what people have been looking for ... the ability to have a central addressbook .. in our case, the FM addressbook but be able to integrate it into their Email clients.

Since Rolodap is a LDAP server, it can serve the addressbook info to the email client on request. The web client portion is irrelevant unless you want to integrate it into Fastmail.

Also, since it exports data to csv files, the address book can be imported into email clients as well (or Palm PDA's like they mention). Plus they have tools to import data from csv files as well. Most email clients can also be coaxed into importing/exporting their address books as csv as well.

It is doubtful that email clients will be able to directly synchronize with any ldap server unless that functionality is written into the code. But the ability to at least access the central FM address store from a email client like Eudora or Outlook Express/Outlook has to be fairly handy.

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally posted by SanjaySheth
Since Rolodap is a LDAP server, it can serve the addressbook info to the email client on request. The web client portion is irrelevant unless you want to integrate it into Fastmail.

Rolodap isn't an LDAP server. It's a web interface to your existing LDAP server.

Also, since it exports data to csv files, the address book can be imported into email clients as well (or Palm PDA's like they mention).

This is hardly synchronization! You can already download csv files from your FastMail.FM address book--but we're looking for more than that.

Plus they have tools to import data from csv files as well.

You can already upload from CSV (plus many other formats) to the FastMail.FM address book.

It is doubtful that email clients will be able to directly synchronize with any ldap server unless that functionality is written into the code.

It is this synchronization capability which is exactly what we're after! Have a look at the address sync thread on news://news.fastmail.fm/webmail.fastmail.techie for the prototype code written to date to do this. At this stage we can sync FastMail.FM address books with CSV, SQL, and Outlook Express. There's a lot still to do with this project though!

But the ability to at least access the central FM address store from a email client like Eudora or Outlook Express/Outlook has to be fairly handy.

That's the problem--you can't. Outlook/OE, for instance, do not support authenticated LDAP, so you can't access your personal address book. Furthermore, there's no LDAP write access so it's one-way traffic.

[sjk]

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
Furthermore, there's no LDAP write access so it's one-way traffic.

This seems to be one obstacle to using LDAP for "personal" address books, where you'd like the ability to create/modify entries as part of the client interface without going through import/export hoops. Rolodap looks interesting, but I think I understand why it's not a solution for FastMail.

Here's a LDAP-related note I sent to a local Mac programmer's list a few days ago:

Does Jaguar's AddressBook provide read-write access to LDAP directories or is it read-only? If the latter, are there utilities "regular" users could use to modify AddressBook-related LDAP entries or would that typically be a task for an LDAP administrator? Seems an issue is finding LDAP-savvy clients that can authenticate to LDAP servers.

More generally, is there a solution (LDAP or otherwise) that enables users to maintain a single address book that's accessible from various clients? Or is it still common to have different address books for different clients and try to find some way of sharing/synchronizing them? Seems one way to do it is designate an authoritative master which contains a superset of all the data which others can "download". Unfortunately that can get messy in situations where its convenient to make updates on a client (e.g. creating e-mail contact entries) which can't easily be synchronized with the master.

Got an "I'm curious to know, too" response, which included:

One thing to remember is that LDAP (like any directory utility) is meant for "read mostly, write occasionally" -- its not really meant for write-intensive apps.

Maybe that's another reason why using LDAP for personal address books isn't common (well, Rolodap tries )?

Still, read-only LDAP access (like most modern e-mail clients provide), in addition to FastMail's normal read-write address book (which isn't and won't be LDAP-based), is an extension that some FM users could use. I would.

Synchronization is an issue to more users than which specific databases are used so I think FM's priority in that area is reasonable. Trying to integrate an LDAP backend just doesn't work right now. Oh well.

[mvpittman]

I just change machines, clients, ets so often that address synchronization is a real priority for me. I mean, now that spam protection is in, and I've got custom Sieve filtering with flags, it's the next major enhancement that I'd like.

I know it will happen but I'm certainly hoping sooner than later. I almost considered using another service until that happened, but then I realized that I can't do the other stuff that FastMail has on any other service, so I'm kind of stuck.

- Marland

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally posted by mvpittman
I just change machines, clients, ets so often that address synchronization is a real priority for me. I mean, now that spam protection is in, and I've got custom Sieve filtering with flags, it's the next major enhancement that I'd like.

I agree that it's a high priority. I'll let you in on a secret... we're currently in discussions with a programming guru who we may be hiring in the next few weeks. Assuming this works out, his 2nd or 3rd project will be the address book sync tool.

[lukask]

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
I agree that it's a high priority. I'll let you in on a secret... we're currently in discussions with a programming guru who we may be hiring in the next few weeks. Assuming this works out, his 2nd or 3rd project will be the address book sync tool.

This is great news!

[MZRascoff]

This exchange is over four years old and the requested functionality, as far as I know, never came about! I wonder why not?

[robmueller]

Other priorities ended up taking over, and sync is always harder than you expect. There's entire companies based around the idea of making it work (eg plaxo).

I'll add we went through a bad time with programmers for a while around that time. We'd employ people, but they seemed to come and go rather quickly due to various reasons.

Rob

[sflorack]

Originally posted by robmueller
I'll add we went through a bad time with programmers for a while around that time. We'd employ people, but they seemed to come and go rather quickly due to various reasons.

Stop paying them in beans and maybe they'd stay!