Online Address Book / News: Recent posts

Users, I need your input: what do you want OAB to do? My current list of features to add before to the 0.7.0 release is below:

http://www.codythefreak.net/wiki/index.php/UpcomingFeatures

Many of them are already completed, and I'm a bit ahead of schedule now, so if there's any one feature you'd really like to see, please email me: codysmith@users.sourceforge.net.

This release introduces two new bells/whistles some UI improvements and MANY bugfixes. This version is significantly more stable than any other release since 0.6.0, and has been much more rigorously tested. If you've been having trouble with 0.6.3, I highly recommend upgrading.

Sharing allows you to share information publically, so if you want to include the URL of your vCard in your signature file, or link it from your website, you can have it point to OAB. I've also introduced UI to allow users to export to LDIF or xCard format (useful for Jabber users).... read more

This release offers significant speed improvements via two layers of caching vCard information. It also allows users to users to take notes on a per-attribute basis, so for example, rather than simply knowing that 510-555-1234 is Mike's home number, I can attach a note saying "dorm number, he's only home after 7pm", or perhaps "as of 5/5/2002".

Here is the relevant section of the changelog. Note that adding friends currently only works if you import a vCard that already has such a property (UI for this feature will be in 0.6.4). Also LDIF support is currently very experimental, and it is not directly accessible via the UI (but you can try getldif.php?group=x&cardname=y).... read more

I've just rolled a Debian package for the latest release, 0.6.1. It includes installers that will perform most of the necessary install steps automagically. For Debian users, this is definitely the easiest installation method. I was able to get up and running in 2 minutes and 48 seconds after downloading. The very simple install steps are here, if you're very unsure of yourself:

http://www.c7f.net/wiki/index.php/InstallOnDebian... read more

This release streamlines a lot of the setup process and adds a few critical features, like the search page and multi-moded views (list view or category view), as well as minor bug fixes. Also, it's much prettier!

IMPORTANT: I've taken the user data directories of the source tarball, because upgrading will be 10 times easier if you locate them somewhere else. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND choosing a $BASE_PATH outside of the actual code tree extracted from the tarball.... read more

The most important improvements in this release are: a framework for quirks, if other address book programs produce slightly flawed vCards, and session support, with a better authentication scheme, making shell-less installs easier.

Here's the snippet from the CHANGELOG:

Quirks and Sessions (2004.04.04 to 2004.04.23)
- Quirks framework for receiving buggy vCards
- base64_macosx quirk
- Session-based authentication, no longer htpasswd based
- Upload single file containing multiple vCards
- Interface for setting FN when uploading cards
- Can now delete groups
- Group actions now in drop-down boxes
- Proper handling of duplicate properties with different
values per type (e.g. 'TYPE=dom;TYPE=pref' vs. 'TYPE=dom,pref')
- Can now edit ORG field
- Can now logout
- PHOTO objects now no longer get stretched
- Fixed sorting
- Fixed behavoir when register_globals = Off

A demo version of Online Address Book is available for your perusal:

http://ct-demo.c7f.net/

Changes made to the demo are erased every thirty minutes, so feel free to make changes to the demo unrestrained. Use:

Login: demo
Password: demo

For more information about using the demo, see the information on the project website:

http://www.codythefreak.net/oab.php#demo

The initial public release of Online Address Book has just been made available. OAB has been under intermittent development for more than a year. The intitial package includes:

- PHP source code
- installation notes, documentation and change log

Upcoming plans for the project include:

- publically available demo page
- PHP installer script for users who do not have
shell access
- anything else that people ask for, because I'm
just a nice guy!