[otlkcon-devel] Big Changes - RE: development environment

[Kervin P. <ke...@ad...>]

I took some time off to work on Open Connector today considering what we've spoke about.

The connector source tree is now Microsoft Public License.  This is an OSI approved license and it helps us utilize example code.  I've made the change on the Sourceforge project, and will update all documentation as we move along.

The second make change is that I've started a new code branch for the merging of our old providers with the Microsoft supplied code.   The new providers will use the new Wrapped PST architecture.

As time permits I will work on...

1.       Merging all CalDAV functionality into the new providers.

2.       Merge installer and configuration GUIs into the new provider

3.       Creating that .Net bridge to allow more development to be done in C#

Anyone feeling like helping would be welcomed.

Best regards,
Kervin

From: g4...@no... [mailto:g4...@no...]
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 7:17 PM
To: Kervin Pierre
Cc: otl...@li...
Subject: Re: development environment - RE: [otlkcon-devel] Status?

Hello all,

Further searching around the Unix/MAPI theme shows Evolution has covered a lot of ground.

See here for their project status: http://www.go-evolution.org/MAPIProvider

This matrix is interesting too: http://www.go-evolution.org/MAPIProvider/vsOWA

Jerry.


Kervin Pierre wrote:
This is very interesting.  I hadn't noticed that.

These providers have been around in one form or the other for  at least 10 years now, first distributed with the MAPI Provider book.

We could never use them though because there was no explicit license attached to the source.

But with their inclusion on  Codeplex and explicit license we can now probably utilize those.  I'll look into this further.

Best regards,
Kervin


From: g4...@no...<mailto:g4...@no...> [mailto:g4...@no...]
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 2:32 PM
To: Kervin Pierre
Cc: otl...@li...<mailto:otl...@li...>
Subject: Re: development environment - RE: [otlkcon-devel] Status?

K, seen these? http://www.codeplex.com/OutlookMAPISamples

Kervin Pierre wrote:
You won't need Exchange, so that should help simplify the environment.  You won't need to inspect packets either.  You will need to inspect assembly.  Are you familiar with MAPI internals at all?  Or IDA Pro and Assembly Language?

I really only ever used a CalDAV server for testing.  We can use Bedework ( http://bedework.com/ ) for this.

If you plan on working on migrating the datalayer to C#, then you won't need a server at all.  All the testing can be done locally.

If you plan to work on shared folders support then you will need IDA Pro and lots, and lots of patience :)

Unfortunately, there isn't much documentation.  But I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

 The role of the datalayer is to save MAPI data.  This is what saves appointments and messages to the disk.  It is only used by a very small number of interfaces.  Actually IMAPIProp (http://otlkcon.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/otlkcon/trunk/otlkcon/opncon/O_IProp.cpp?view=markup ) and IMAPITable being the biggest consumers.  Currently, it uses an SQLite database.  We should move this to SQL Server Compact for better locking, application transaction model and more support for platform database abstraction features.

Again, feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like.  I will try to clarify things as best as I can.

Best regards,
Kervin