1. Migrating KDE Data COVER STORY
Using your personal data from KDE with other applications
Reusing Personal Data
No matter whether you intend to
make the move from KDE to Gnome
permanent, or simply switch desk-
tops from time to time, you will not
want to do without your browser
bookmarks or your carefully main-
tained calendar and address data. It
may take some work, but there is a
way. BY MARCEL BUCHHOLZ
AND PATRICIA JUNG
I
f you change your desktop environ- doesn’t mean that you will be happy to to a generic KDE address book, which
ment or mail client, either of your start from scratch. can also be launched from the command
own volition, or because you use KDE line by typing kaddressbook.
at home, but Gnome and/or Mozilla at Contacts for the Dragon Enter File / Export / Export List to write
work, the transition will involve some Your personal data will typically com- your address book data to a CSV-format-
time and effort. On the one hand you prise address books, including the email ted file. By default the file will be stored
need to get used to a different look & addresses stored by KMail [4]. If you in your home directory as addressbook.
feel. On the other, there are a few pro- intend to use these in Mozilla’s mail csv (see Figure 1). You can simply accept
grams that need re-configuring. After all component [1] (there is no need to the default.
this effort, you will definitely want to change your desktop to do this, of Most people will put a program
avoid having to re-enter all your data col- course), first open the address book in through its paces, before deciding to
lections. KMail by selecting Tools / Address book . move to that program. If you have, the
Of course you can run most KDE appli- This menu item does not take you to a configuration wizard will already have
cations on Gnome – if they are installed special client-specific address book, but created your individual Mozilla user
on your system; but they will account when you first
often take a while to launch, launched the program. In this
and some applications may case you can head straight for
even crash. But if you have the import wizard.
no say in the kind of software Select Tools / Import … in
installed on the machine you the menu (see Figure 2). As
are using, this is not an you want to import your
option. It’s a free world after address data, select Address
all, and the desktop you use Books. The next window
is a question of taste. You prompts you to specify the
may discover that a new PIM type of data you want to
program covers your needs import; older Mozillas will
better than the solution you only support one type, Text
used previously, but that Figure 1: Where do you want KAddressbook to store your address list? file (LDIF, .tab, .csv, .txt).
www.linux-magazine.com April 2004 23

2. COVER STORY Migrating KDE Data
However, that’s fine, because equally tortuous re-import
we stored the KAddressbook operation. Select Import sin-
data in CSV format. gle file in step 1 Import type.
The next step is to select Then click on Continue to
the exported file; this is move on to step two, Select
addressbook.csv in our exam- single file. Evolution really
ple. If you cannot see the file, takes that literally; Filename
make sure that the file type is must point to a single vCard
set to Comma separated file. On the upside Evolution
(*.csv) . Then click the Open 1.4.4 more or less automati-
button. This is where the fun cally recognized the vCards
starts. we exported from KAddress-
You have to convert the book 3.1.
data to the layout that Mozilla Clicking on Import will fin-
needs. The dialog box shown ish the wizard, but that does
in Figure 3 (the labels may be not mean you are home and
different, depending on your Figure 2: Importing data to Mozilla Mail. dry. Evolution pops up the
version), is used to map the dialog box shown in Figure 5
information in the file (on the right) to The Evolution of an Address to ask you where you want to store the
the corresponding fields in the Mozilla If you opt for Evolution [3] as your PIM, vCard data. The pre-selected folder Con-
Mail structure (on the left). You can click there is a way of migrating your KDE tacts is typically the right answer, but
the Up and Down buttons to move the data, although it does require the latest you can select New to create additional
labels to the position with the matching version of the desktop environment. contact folders and subfolders, which
entry. When you are finished, the results Unfortunately, Evolution does not sup- you can specify as targets. It’s just a
should resemble Figure 3. port CSV lists, and older KAddressbook question of how you like to organize
If Mozilla does not provide a matching versions do not have a facility for export- things.
field, you can simply assign the entry to ing virtual visiting cards, or vCards for That’s not all – if you were lazy in the
an unused Mozilla category, and ensure short. previous step, and told the wizard to
that the checkbox on the left is Even if you have the latest KDE ver- automatically recognize the file type,
unchecked. For example, Mozilla does sion, there is still a lot of work to be rather than specifying VCard, you now
not use titles. This is why we have to dis- done. File / Export / Export vCard 3.0… get to answer the question as to whether
card Title abbrev. (front) in our example. tells the address book to create a single your data are appointments in iCalendar
Find the best compromise and click OK .vcf file for the selected address book format or VCards. In fact, it made us
to start importing. If all goes well, you entry. And File / Import… in Evolution wonder if this was supposed to be a kind
should see the good news after a short launches a wizard that performs an of punishment for not using Evolution
while: Address successfully imported previously.
from textfile…. If an error occurred,
your best bet is to launch the import Appointments and
function again. You can click on Fin- Calendars
ish to finish the import process. Appointments on KDE typically mean
You can select Window / Address KOrganizer – no matter whether you
book to check the results (see Figure run the tool as a stand-alone program
4). The fact that the KDE address or as part of a PIM, such as Kontact
book specifies the column labels in or Aethera [7]. If you want to export
the first line in the exported file made your KOrganizer appointments to
it easy to get the mappings right (see Evolution, the procedure is similar to
Figure 3). On the downside, Mozilla that for vCards. Fortunately, the iCal-
thinks that this line is a record. You endar file will contain all your
can just click Delete to correct this appointments rather than just one. If
assumption. Figure 3: Mozilla leaves data mapping to the user. you like, you can tell the import wiz-
GLOSSARY
Mail client: A program that displays elec- PIM: “Personal Information Manager”, a pro- format whereby the data in a spreadsheet or
tronic messages (email), and uses a server to gram or integrated program suite for database are separated by commas or other
transmit messages composed by the user to a managing your personal data, such as appoint- formatting characters. One line in the spread-
recipient. Modern mail clients typically allow ments, addresses and email messages [7]. sheet or a record from the database occupies
you to collect your mail from a POP or IMAP CSV:“Character Separated Values”(previously a single line in the text file.
server. stood for Comma Separated Values), a text
24 April 2004 www.linux-magazine.com

3. Migrating KDE Data COVER STORY
ard that you are importing ple to export them. Open
iCalendar files (*.ics), the K menu and select
when prompted for the File Bookmarks / Edit Book-
type. When exchanging marks. The bookmark
data between KOrganizer editor shown in Figure 6
3.1.4 and Evolution 1.4.4, appears (incidentally, you
as in our test, the Auto- can launch the bookmark
matic selection worked editor by typing kedit-
fine, assuming that we also bookmarks & in the
chose the calendar folder command line).
in the dialog box shown in The next step involves a
Figure 5. decision. If you will be
You may note a slight using Mozilla [1] as your
glitch at this point: Evolu- browser in future, select
tion’s importer does not File / Export / Export
finish off immediately, and Figure 4: A quick look at the imported KDE address data tells you whether your field Mozilla bookmarks….
asks you to wait for five mappings worked out. This assumes that the
seconds. After this wait, Mozilla browser is al-
the program does finally complete the can simply use the default filename (this ready installed on your machine. Use the
import procedure, and you can view and is icalout.ics with KOrganizer 3.1.4). file selection dialog box to specify the
edit the data. directory name below the Mozilla config-
The whole process assumes that Recycled Bookmarks uration directory, ~/.mozilla, that
you have converted your KOrganizer There is another set of data that most corresponds to your Mozilla profile. This
appointments in iCalender format. To do people do not want to leave behind is typically your username, or simply
so, select File / Export / iCalendar in the when they jump off the world of KDE, default.
menu. Provided you have not stored any the bookmarks used by the KDE The directory will contain a single sub-
data with the same name previously, you browser, Konqueror. It is extremely sim- directory with a random name, such as

4. COVER STORY Migrating KDE Data
will have to launch Netscape and take a (see Figure 7). The characters destroyed
look, by clicking on Bookmarks. on importing the bookmarks were not
Users of the Gnome browser, Galeon repaired when converted to target for-
[5], who want to export their book- mats using File / Save… or Save as….
marks, are lucky. Galeon uses the same Another minor problem occurred
format as Konqueror, the “XML Book- when we attempted to install the tool on
mark Exchange Language” XBEL. To a current distribution, such as Suse 9.
recycle your KDE browser bookmarks, After unpacking the bk_edit-0.6.23.tar.gz
select Bookmarks / Folder operations / archive file, configure complained about
Edit. This launches the Galeon Book- not being able to find gtk-config. In this
mark manager. You can then
open your Konqueror book-
mark file, which is located in
Figure 5: Importing KDE address data into Evolu- the .kde directory, by select-
tion is a slow process – after finishing the import ing File / Open. As the file
wizard, you are asked where to put the card. manager will not normally
display hidden folders,
dmj1pgk2.slt enter the path manually – Figure 7: Bkedit converts bookmarks between multiple formats
this is typically – it has some difficulty with Cyrillic descriptions.
Change to this subdirectory, locate the
Mozilla bookmark file, a HTML file ~/.kde/share/apps/U case, you need both to check whether
called bookmarks.html. Select this file konqueror/bookmarks.xml the GTK dev(el) package is installed, and
and click on Save. Any Mozilla book- if you have the correct version. The tool
marks you stored in bookmarks.html will After opening the file, the program asks cannot use GTK2 and demands the pre-
be overwritten. you to confirm that you want to over- vious generation, which Suse provides in
To prevent this from happening, you write your current Galeon data. If you the form of the gtk and gtk-devel pack-
can temporarily store your Konqueror intend to keep your Gnome browser ages.
bookmarks in a separate HTML file, and bookmarks, you might like to save them After resolving this issue, you can type
then use the Mozilla Bookmarks / Edit by selecting File / Save. make to compile, and make install to
bookmarks / Tools / Import… function to copy the binary, bkedit, to /usr/local/bin.
import them to Mozilla sometime later. Bookmarks Back and Forth Although all of these import and
You may need to remove some dupli- If you regularly exchange bookmarks export techniques are praiseworthy in
cates. To export bookmarks to Netscape between multiple browsers, you should their own right, they will only satisfy
[2], the free, but commercial Mozilla- take a look at the bkedit tool at [6], users who decide to migrate to a specific
based browser, select File / Export / which can handle bookmarks for the program. Peaceful coexistence, as in
Export Netscape bookmarks in the KDE Links, Opera, Netscape, and Mozilla “Let’s use Evolution today, and KMail
Bookmark editor menu. Again, the pro- browsers. The warning on the website tomorrow, or Konqueror today, and
gram will not tell you whether it was that you need to drag & drop Konqueror Mozilla tomorrow”, where all of these
able to export your bookmarks, so you 3.x bookmarks to bkedit is unfounded, programs can access the same set of per-
as our test using KEditBook- sonal data, is a thing that not even the
marks 1.1 showed. We world of Open Source can guarantee.
selected File / Open… to read That is a pity. After all, if it doesn’t work
~/.kde/share/apps/kon here, where will it work? ■
queror/bookmarks.xml, speci-
fying XBEL 1.0 as the File INFO
Type:, and this worked fine.
[1] Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org/
There is one exception: the
[2] Netscape: http://www.netscape.com/
Figure 6: The KDE Bookmark editor makes exporting book- GTK tool had difficulty with
computing/download/
marks to Mozilla or Netscape child’s play. some foreign character sets
[3] Evolution: http://www.ximian.com/
products/evolution/
GLOSSARY
[4] KMail: http://kmail.kde.org/
Bookmarks: These mark Web pages often vis- vidual programs. As they tend to cloud the
ited by a user.Web browsers typically display user’s view for more important daily tasks, the [5] Galeon: http://galeon.sourceforge.net/
bookmarks in a menu for ease of selection. command line tool ls only displays these [6] Bkedit: http://www2.fht-esslingen.de/
Hidden folder: Files and directories whose names if you specify the appropriate flag.
~clfuit00/sasnt/bk_edit/
names start with a dot, have a special signifi- Many graphical file managers and file selec-
cance in the Linux filesystem tree.They tion dialog boxes honor this convention. [7] Aethera: http://www.thekompany.com/
typically contain configuration data for indi- projects/aethera/
26 April 2004 www.linux-magazine.com