Kontact

Infobox_Software
name = Kontact



caption = Kontact screenshot showing the calendar view with upcoming tasks
developer = The Kontact Team
latest_release_version = 1.2.4
latest_release_date = January 25, 2007
operating_system = Unix-like
genre = Personal Information Manager
license = GNU General Public License
website = [http://kontact.org/ kontact.org]

Kontact is a personal information manager and groupware software suite for KDE. It supports calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. It uses KParts to embed the various applications into the container application.

History

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 is not useful by itself.

The first embedded components were created by Cornelius Schumacher. He modified the KAddressBook and KOrganizer applications to create the initial addressbook 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 the KMail application. 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 [http://www.kde.org/announcements/changelogs/changelog3_1_5to3_2.php KDE 3.2]

During the construction of the Kontact application suite, the Kolab groupware server was being worked on by [http://erfrakon.de/ Erfrakon] , [http://intevation.net/ Intevation] and [http://www.klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se/ Klarälvdalens Datakonsult] simultaneously and was completed at approximately the same time. This work was done as part of the Kroupware 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 the KNode application by KDE developer Zack Rusin, and Kontact was modified to support an array of mainly web based suites of collaboration software.

Components

Kontact embeds the following
*Summary Page: Shows unread email, upcoming appointments, the latest news and weather
*Mail: KMail - The KDE email client.
*Contacts: KAddressBook - The KDE Address Book
*Calendar: KOrganizer - A Personal Organizer for KDE
*To-dos: KOrganizer
*Journal: KOrganizer
*Notes: KNotes - KDE Notes Management
*Feeds: Akregator - A KDE news aggregator
*News (Usenet): KNode
*News Ticker: KNewsTicker
*Weather: KWeather

See also

*List of personal information managers
*David Vignoni: the designer of the icons.

External links

* [http://kontact.org Kontact Homepage]