Slashdot Mirror
Chandler 0.1 Released
kolchak writes "Very promising news is Chandler 0.1 (the Open Source PIM) has finally been released. 'While we are still very early in the design and
implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more
fully open project. We have made the release available for download,
opened up our bug tracking database, and opened our source code
repository.'" This is Mitch Kapor's attempt to offer an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, especially to small (under 100-person) organizations, last mentioned in December.
No virus propagation yet though, it is only 0.1 I suppose.
I use FreeBSD exclusively, so it's important that the software be truly portable without any incompatible linuxisms.
I find it awkward that there are no previous attempts at open-source PIM. aren't there?
an alternative to the dearth of apps that already do this... think of some original programs people!! Or better yet, write alternatives to the stuff that's really holding us on Windows...
What's a PIM in this context?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Please note that this is not a straight replacement, or something that is like outlook (that is what kroupware etc is aiming for) but they are aiming more to change things to make it better.
:)
Btw, did anyone find any screenshots?
When I went to have a look at the site I had a list of things I would want to see. These were
Diary
Sharing of Calenders
Phone book
Now this has all of them as well as a few other cools things like inbuilt IM. Good luck to them I say. However I'm not sure but does the system has a centeral server it good log into rather than just peer to peer as it says?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Nothing to see here, move on, move on.
I just got the XP build, and I can't really see how it bloated to 13mb already. I'll have assume that there's a really large API behind the scenes, because the interface is little more than a MyFirstCalendarApp.vb
Oh and 10 seconds saw me crashing it too, just like the other poster.
Still, it's 0.1, so I'm not grumbling yet.
Note that Lotus Agenda, a distant ancestor of this program, is available for free. It's tricky toget working on a new PC, its interface is abysmally clunky by today's standard, but its approach to PIM (that's Personal Information Management) is really great. Agenda was for managing ANY information that you, personally, might want to track. It's like a dynamically-typed relational database, or something.
Or maybe that was overlooked... Has anyone ever thought of going to Microsoft and asking them if the would like to write a version for *nix? I mean, crap, they have a ton of R&D going on. It's not like they're ignoring the future ;)
"Your CPU came with a keyboard? What kind of ghetto deal is that?" -McSuede
Call it the law of Open Source Pangloss Parity: No one will use a piece of consumer oriented open source software unless it looks and behaves exactly like some piece of Microsoft software, no matter how badly the behavior of said MS software was designed.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Not coincidentally, the list of supported platforms is the same as wxWindows, since Chandler is written in Python and uses the wxPython GUI toolkit, which is a Python binding to wxWindows.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
This is very, very funny.
This seem to be another open-source program that try to involve EVERYTHING (email, calendar, chat, documents etc).
;) ).
Well as it is coded in python, this is pretty multiple-platform compatible.
I extracted the windows zip-file and ran the chandler.bat
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I clicked next on the welcome picture. I immediately noticed that this is a non-standard windows application..
The first thing I tried was simple outlook behaviour. It shows the calendar, but it does not feature any clicking in the calendar (like adding appointments etc). But the weeks are displayed correctly.
It seems like this program is like alpha alpha, and it does not give any functionality (unless you like watching on a week
Ok good luck to the authors. I still think you have a very long way untill you can compete with outlook etc. I suggest taking a look at Evolution first.
Could this software BE any more released?
From the article: Our product (code-named "Chandler" after the great detective novelist Raymond Chandler,)
Are these people so out of touch with the world most of us live in that they don't realize a lot of people will think of that goofy guy from "Friends" when they hear this name? Personally, I don't want my applications behaving anything like this guy.
Oh, and does this make Outlook Chandler's cross-dressing dad?
A quick peek at their site did not reveal any information about support for various mobile devices. For me, at least, it's crucial that my calendar app can be easily synchronized with whatever mobile gizmo I happen to be using as a calendar. While Outlook is the only viable alternative (for good or bad, I'm not a Lotus user), this thing gets only a "thumbs up" from me.
Is this the app to use if you have to keep the weenus in check?
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Any screenshots?
This is Slashdot, you're not supposed to post useful information. A "RTFA!" would've been more appropriate.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's nice to see that have included so much documentation about the architecture & philosophy, considering how early in the development they are. That's *real* openness.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
It amused me to find that Outlook Web Access for Exchange runs better through Konqueror on Linux than it does on Windows... (although the abscence of drag and drop is a shame)
If the goal is to have it used by small and medium sized businesses, why aren't there versions for Win 2000, or 98 ?? Most of the small businesses due to budget restrictions haven't yet updated to Win XP - esp due to its activation feature.
Has anyone tried to install Chandler on older Win versions?
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
The point of using Python is to have a cleaner OO implememtation, as you say, and to use a language that's not only mature, but cross-platform and more widely used than the 3 or 4 people who currently code in Ruby.
it is not the outlook client that is of most interest, it is replacing exchange as backend that we should replace first...
who shot the cat in the hat to experiment is insane
You are so not funny...
Okay, I understand this is /. and nobody reads the articles, but why did this have to be modded up? Come on now! It takes 2 clicks, and about 3 seconds to find the list of downloads, which includes Windows...
/. summary in the comments section!
Next up, comments asking for someone to repost the
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Of course it runs on NetBSD.
hahaha dude mark my words when apple goes under within the next 12 months (and you can be definately certain that it's likely) then all those ex mac users will be migrating to something useful. When they take up Linux the revolution has only just started!
At release 0.1 and it is 13M already... Wonder how big it will be at 1.0...
(n/t)
Do not feed the trolls
Ruby is way behind in Windows functionality compared to Python. That would be one reason. Another reason is that Python is probably their favorite language. I thought that would be obvious.
Go to a shrink and get over the whitespace issue.
I made a few screenshots. If anyone would mind mirroring them please. My little server is made from trashcan pickings (only the primo stuff :) ) and a crappy 128Kb pipe. It'll get crushed pronto...
In Soviet Russia, Chandler Bings you!
In Soviet Russia, Nigel makes plans for you!
Why make your own PIM? What's wrong with Evolution? Fix it! Make a different UI, same backend, if you don't like that.
But no, now that Evolution is doing 90% of the job, let screw the rest and make another PIM. Isn't it fun to write new code?
right? right ? Damnit, I'm a fool. That should be write. You knew that.
The server is....we need a usable, easily deployable MS-Exchange/Notes server competitor.
Sure you can build things with LDAP/Imap/web-mail and make them all talk to one-another, BUT you need a server then does alot of this for you...
Until you can point and click your way through a server installation you're not going to win over the MS-Exchange sites.
Yes SuSE have their openmail thing, but need a 'freeware' version of this that runs on *nix (ie more than just Linux, but the *BSD,SOlaris, HPUX, AIX variants as well - like Apache does).
--
Martin
They're using some strange ugly wxpython (http://www.wxpython.org/screenshots.php) widget set... why not gtk2? It looks so much better (not to mention integration with themes and gnome), it's also cross platform.
I know it's only 0.1 but the ui is very ugly, the ions and buttons need to be cleaned up and spaced out.
These UI things may sound trivial but ugly, difficult-to-use programs will not be adopted by the masses.
I do hope these things are sorted out, I'm rather disappointed.
The correct choice would have been Common Lisp. Compiles as fast as C++, cleanest OO on the planet.
I love Evolution. It is the best thing to have happened to my mail reading in years. I currently run the 1.3.2 prerelease, and I enjoy it immensely despite a number of bugs and other issues.
/Janne
That said, Evolution is not an answer. Evo is a client. The server side is almost totally lacking. Chandler provides this in the form of a Peer-to-Peer style server/client architecture. What could (and, I believe, should) be done is to write an extension/plugin for Evolution to access the Chandler server functionality. That way you can use Evo as part of a Chandler setup, or use Chandlers own frontend whichever one you want/like.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
A lot of geeks have trouble following through, hint hint wink wink. Don't act so surprised.
Chandler.Bing
Ta-daaa!
Evolution is an outlook-workalike. That is to say, PIM defined as "Personal-Information management" i.e. "Information about people".
Chandler is a modernised Lotus Agenda. That is to say, PIM defined as "Personal Information-Management" i.e. "Information I personally want to manage"
Bit of a difference.
I think I saw "Phoebe" wearing a Red Hat instead.
In Soviet Russia, Nigel makes plans for you!
What's so horrible about it?
It forces people to clearly indent their code and with a proper editor the indentation is done automatically.
Very promising, until you actually try it out. This thing makes *Java* desktop application look nimble, elegant, responsive and well thought out.
Yes, release early, yadda yadda, but this was _too_ early.
Thanks for the mirror! Ya just earned a fan.
I know the screen shots are a little dull, but the UI will improve. I did like some of the feature set I saw but it will have to come a long way to be a real threat to LookOut/Exchange. Does anyone know why they chose a peer to peer arrangement instead of a dedicated server? It would seem that a dedicated server would make administration and backups easier...
Or is it just me?
Perhaps you missed the part where they said they were trying to implement a cross-platform solution? AFAIK, Evolution isn't available on Windows.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
There's never been anything like Agenda, before or since. Now, THERE was software!
DOS-based, fast as lightning, completely (and intimidatingly) customizable (It opened into a blank page, if I recall correctly). It took any bit of info you wanted to throw at, and allowed you to establish your own relations among the bits. It was a database, an organizer, a rolodex, a "sketchpad for ideas," it was transcendant! No online component (E-Mail, Web) cuz there was no online component to your life -- this was circa 91-92.
In the small office where I was the Tech guru at the time, no two workers' Agenda looked and ran the same -- everybody used it a different way, and the interface reflected that (Ultimately, it was probably that aspect of it which prevented it's widespread adoption in bigger shops.)
Then along came Windows 3.1 and the Web, and upheaval. Lotus spiked Agenda, replacing it with a Win-based Lotus Organizer 1.0. I moved the company over to Jensen's "Commence" program, which held some of Agenda's flavor but proved an administrative bear.
If Chandler can even approach lighting a candle to Agenda (sorry...) -- and run on Linux as well -- I'm there, Opneing Day. But I suspect it'll be targeting the regimented Outlook suits, and not us "Agenda hippies"...
Hmmm. I don't understand why all software for the Linux platform shouldn't / doesn't run on all Linux distributions.
Isn't the kernel the same across all of them? Surely this can only better serve MS by dividing (and conquering) the Linux community. (BTW: Yes, I'm a Linux newbie.)
It's written in Python - so it will work anywhere where python goes. At this stage I suspect that they are more interested in getting some functionality in there so they are focusing on the platforms that they themselves use. I would expect that to change as they get to 0.1
phpGroupware exposed their API through both SOAP and XML-RPC, and I have yet to see *anything* use their backend, other than an old Delphi frontend for WinXX which was yanked from their site. I'm sure there are other web-based groupware suites that also have web-services available, and yet no one wants to build interfaces to them?
Don't get me wrong, Evolution is a nice toy, but only that in the realm of business until someone decides that they want to interface it with an existing groupware server (other than Exchange, which is quite closed-source...), since otherwise there is no open solution to doing this.
I contacted the Evolution people at least a year ago about interfacing with phpGroupware, to get a reply of "if you can reverse-engineer our calendar API, which isn't documented anywhere, you can write it yourself...". (No disrespect to the developers of Evolution intended, but I'm trying to make a point about the little emphasis any of the major groups seem to place on enterprise adoption.)
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
Um, wait...
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
I thought that was the point behind Chandler. Mitch Kapoor was the guy behind Agenda and is the guy behind this... If you read his articles on the subject then I would hope that we will some Agenda-like functionality.
Of course, we're only on 0.1, so what we get here is hardly representative of what might come.
It's bloated already, plus it's about as ugly as you could get, at least on Win2K (it will fit right in in Linux), and it flickers like it wants me to have a fit.
It does have a passing resemblence to Outlook (don't all apps nowadays look like Outlook or MSDEV) though.
I think I'll wait for v1.0 in 3 or 4 years time.
Could someone please mirror the article in case is get's /.'d ??
kolchak writes "Very promising news is Chandler 0.1 (the Open Source PIM) has finally been released. 'While we are still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project. We have made the release available for download, opened up our bug tracking database, and opened our source code repository.'" This is Mitch Kapor's attempt to offer an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, especially to small (under 100-person) organizations, last mentioned in December.
I have found another similar project based on Java and using a decentralized (p2p) architecture http://www.dynamicobjects.com/
Typing this at 7 central time. Where is microsoft.com and msn.com? Hosts won't resolve from here.
At that rate it would be, mmmm, let's see ...
another 10 years until final release?
No?
Whatever, good luck anyway.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
n/t
There's 114 comments and his site hasn't been /.ed yet and I just downloaded chandler at almost 200KB/s.
"Execute a dream"?
So, what you are saying is that doing stuff in front of the computer cannot be a dream? That it will always be work, and that work will always be boring?
On the surface p2p sounds like a great idea for a PIM app that needs collaboration. Then I start thinking about the holes this leaves. Suppose I use a laptop at work and take it home every now and then. If I leave at 4 and somebody wants to schedule a meeting with me for 7:00 AM the next day after I have left, how does it then confirm the appointment? If I just turn my machine off at night then anybody that wants to poll my schedule will have to wait until I come in in the morning. The next hurdle to get over would be the bandwidth issues. P2P apps are necessarily chatty. On a small lan that might not be such a big deal but a decent sized company will surely squash this like netbios. Will anybody want to invest in a program that they know their company will not be able to use a few years down the road when they have tripled in size? Realistically speaking most small companies are not going to triple in size in the next few years but admitting so is like saying that their growth is permantly stunted.
In Republican America phones tap you.
Outlook Web Access is HTML on konqueror, but an ActiveX executable on IE. That may be what causes the differences.
http://www.ScheduleWorld.com/ :-)
Schedule your world with ScheduleWorld.com http://www.ScheduleWorld.com/ (Java Web Startable)
By our own Roblimo, no less: Replacing Microsoft Exchange with a Linux-based solution.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
There *was* something like Lotus Agenda: WordPerfect/Novell/Corel InfoCentral. A free form relational database. Still works great, and has its own macro language which I enjoy working with.
TANSTAAFL
The installer includes a cross platform windowing toolkit and python.
IIRC, it would look at your notes and automagically insert todos/meetings. Writing a note that read "closing on house next tuesday at 10AM", it would insert a meeting for 4/29 at 10AM (next tuesday for me) with the contents of the note. Or a pointer.
It imposes the language's author's preferences regarding code indentation (and in general, style) on the software developer. If you can't see how that's wrong, there's no point in arguing further.
You also find yourself paying attention to something (whitespace) which should be otherwise irrelevant.
Here is Chandler running on Mac OS X. It seems to have UI issues, or issues with my screen size since some of the icons in the upperleft are obscured by the menu bar. Chandler: http://homepage.mac.com/zizban/chandler.jpg
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
How can whitespace be irrelevant if it's part of the language? that's like ignoring semicolons in C or parens in Lisp!!!
To the moderator rating this as "offtopic": read the fscking article! Chandler is written in Python and the OP is asking why this is the case (besides the obvious "that's what I use, sue me" argument). How's that offtopic?
The OP does have a point: sampling advanced CS students (read: the ones who have some significant coding time under their belts) at my school, less than 10% know enough Python to save their butts if it comes to that. Taking a look at Ph.D. students who have been coding for *at least* 6 years straight, out of 18, 1 can write Python. And that one needs to consult the documentation fairly often if he wants to do anything significantly bigger than parsing XML documents or similar. And couple can write the same level of Perl. A few more have learned Java, did a their share of programming with it and dumped it. But all can write fairly decent C++.
By choosing Python you limit the potential contributors. And even if sufficently motivated contributors might learn Python just to write a patch, it's not going to be the best code there can be -- just because of the simple fact that it's a language they haven't mastered^W^Waren't familiar with yet.
That's exactly his point. Dufus. He's saying that whitespace *should* be irrelevant, the fact that it isn't means that it's one more thing the coder has to worry about.
allways useful, and they'll have more testers and those who follow through and actually download/install their software.
to paraphrase rat poison's (x gui/shell) site, screenshots - because too many ppl will bitch in their absence.
dmarien
I think the word you were looking for is "plethora." The opposite of dearth.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
...about whether this is Outlook2 or not, my question is: Why the hell is Slashdot promoting a 0.1 release? Should I expect the next point-release of Slypheed or Aethena to be similarly promoted?
If it's about the author, focus on him...the app itself is practically useless at this point.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Does anyone know why they chose a peer to peer arrangement instead of a dedicated server?
I'd guess that would be to encourage adoption of their software from the users instead of trying to appeal to jaded system administrators and other administration folks. No server makes it much easier to adopt for a small department in a large bureaucratic company.
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... try to ban it, of course...
...
Chandler will have a rich ability to [... create] a context sensitive "view" of many types of data, mixing-and-matching email, [...] MP3's
Chandler will make it extremely easy to share all types of information with others
There you go, its secured its own death sentence.
Hell, the page even has the words 'peer-to-peer' on it, so you can bet they know about it...
Chandler_src_0.1.tar.gz includes the source to python, several modules including zodb, swig, wxpython, jabber-py, and thier own build system named hardhat.
Why do they feel the need to distribute those packages as part of the chandler cvs tree? Most of these modules have played well together in mixed versions for years.
Just curious, buy why couldn't citadel/ux/ index.php
http://uncensored.citadel.org/citadel
be used to do Exchange like stuff? Wouldn't it make sense to expand on this foundation?
I'm more interested in testing Rachel 0.1, and to a lesser extent, Monica and Phoebe 0.1.
Got a split opinion about that. For one, everything in the docs seems pretty solid. They have a concept more advanced than "let's copy outlook" and seem to know what they're doing. This might go far.
On the other hand, I ask myself why everyone and his dog is copying outlook/exchange? I'm forced to use outlook at work, and frankly, it sucks. The calender is about the only thing remotely useable, and even it has many serious shortcomings.
It can't be that difficult to write something better, can it? I mean, NOTES had features 5 years ago that are still missing from outlook today.
I'd be my marbles on a project that tries to put outlook to shame over one that tries to merely copy it any day.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Surely there is only one way to indent code. We are not talking about where you place braces here (because, uh, there are none). The only style issue I can think of is that I like to place debugging code in the first column, so that is stands out, which is something I can't do in Python. I can't think of any other style issues. What are they?
At least with the name "Outlook" you know that you're using something that gives you the big picture of what's to come. If "Chandler" doesn't allow me to make candles, I'll be sorely disappointed.
Just from the screenshots and comments, this seems like something my friend's 13 year old could crank out in VB in a week. Not something that I'd expect my 100-person company to adopt.
Can someone explain to me how this is different from Mozilla Thunderbird + Calendar?
It appears to be the same thing to me.
Is there one available? I couldn't find it on the website.
Actually Chandler is planned to be agnostic about p2p vs. dedicated server. You decide what works best for you. Hidden in the wiki there is this document with pretty pictures which dhows various deployment scenarios.
I imagine the sender will queue them up and send them as soon as the client machine is turned back on.
Seems like The Right Thing to me, anyway.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I downloaded this 14MB file and was excited to see it. I opened it up and began thinking about how miserable it looked and performed. I fully understand this is a .1 release however, in the commercial world .1 releases are usually internal developer only builds. This is what the majority of the world is used to. Even developers grumble when they see tubby and slow applications even at .1 releases.
Well, this ain't the commercial world. If that's what you want then dump Linux, load up Win2000, and stop yer whining. If it pains you to see a 0.1 release, *then don't download it*. But implying that it shouldn't be released, or that it shouldn't be available to those who do want to check it out is something you don't have any business saying. It's rather apparent by your statements that you've missed the entire point of open source software altogether.
Like I said, if it isn't for you don't use it. Period.
OS X took all of these problems and simply focused on providing one distribution, that had one window manager and no requirement for compiling code to get functionality. Open source OS's need to do the same.
No, they don't. If that's what you want then Linux isn't for you. Keep on using Windows, or OS X, or whatever makes your little heart quiver with joy. But in terms of OSS it's clear you don't have the first fucking clue.
It really isn't for you. At all.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I will be happy to try the program out and provide my comments on it when it actually has some functionality. But providing half a program is useless. We can't get a feeling for how responsive it will be, or how the various features work together.
For some reason, the idea that someone might want to journal events as they occur throughout the day seems to have escaped most of the PIM software authors. The prevailing model seems to be that every event is planned, has a date, a start time, and an end time. In many cases, though, it's far more appropriate to be able to log events that aren't planned, but that have just happened - as with an impromptu meeting or a telephone conversation. I'm looking forward to the day when this actually appears in something like KOrganizer...maybe the Chandler folks can get a jump on this.
I have to wonder if possibly Mitch Kapor is a strict Creationist and has the word "Evolution" being filtered at his home router or something.
KGroupware will be a mature alternative in KDE 3.2 and Evolution will improve as a outlook clone.
I use squirrel mail on debian box
that sits in a corner
I can access it from anywhere
it has a shared calendar
most people love the idea of accessing
their email from anywhere
its gott be web based
150 KLOC+18 programmers+gnu license=few$$$
i remember reading this in an interview with miguel about Evolution. Sounds like it was such a financial drain their next plugin to connect to exchange was closed source for $$$.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Geez, I kinda like using Evolution - Guess I am not l33t enough - I like the idea of writing applications that break dependency upon Windoze - Open source tax preparation would have been nice a month ago
You do realise that there are Jabber interfaces to those, right? Thus, you could have one free Jabber client up rather than four proprietary clients.
Finally, requiring people to compile software is not a usability plus.
Why not? What's so different between `always click on setup.exe' vs. `always type ./configure && make && sudo make install'? The advantage one gets is a bit of software customised for one's chip, OS, libraries and other software. It's Not That Big a Deal.
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