Online Address Book

The demo is a fully functional version of Online Address Book. Here is the pertinant information:	(click for preview image)
User login: 'demo' Password: 'demo'
Admin login: 'admin' Password: 'demo'

Feel free to do whatever you want to the online demo. More specifically, you should free to:

Add contacts

Add groups

Edit contacts

Move or delete contacts

Upload or download vCards

Add user accounts

etc., etc., etc.

Changes made to the demo are erased every half hour (on the hour, and at half-passed), and a new one is created, so there's really not much damage you can do.

Installation and Configuration

The source tarball comes with a file containing all the particulars called INSTALL, which I'm just going to include here verbatim, for the time being:

Summary

tar xzf oab-0.6.4.tar.gz
vi oab-0.6.4/lib/config.php
cd [base path]
chown -R apache .
# if you set $BACKUPS="sudo"
visudo
chgrp -R root vcards.old
# go to setup.php, follow directions

Requirements

apache (>= 1.1)
php (>= 4.0)
zip [optional]
gzip [optional]
bzip2 [optional]

Detail

The most important thing is to make sure that the vcards directory is writable by the web server. Typically, this is 'apache', 'www', 'www-data' or 'httpd'. In the config file, set the $BASE_PATH variable to the full path name of the location you want to OAB to write to. You are encouraged to make this a location outside of your web tree, that is: one that is not web-accessible. Placing it inside the web tree may allow someone to read your private data!

Next, note that there are three possible string options for the variable $BACKUPS, which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you turn on. The allowed values are: "none", "basic", and "sudo".

Set $BACKUPS="none" if you think you will never undo anything. The main benefit is that you don't end up with gobs of backup vCards taking up space.

Set $BACKUPS="basic" if you want the web server itself to copy the files intothe backup directory. The down side: if you have other insecure scripts on your webserver, they may blow away your backups. The up side: it's more secure than "sudo", and still provides a base level of redundancy.

Set $BACKUPS="sudo" if you want to be super careful with your vCard backups. The webserver will issue use sudo to copy files into the backup directory when it's they're changed. If your vcards are in /var/www/ct/vcards and your backup directory is /var/www/ct/vcards.old, you will want to add this line (all one line, even though it's probably wrapped in your browser) to your /etc/sudoers:

apache ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /bin/cp -i /var/www/ct/vcards/* /var/www/ct/vcards.old/*, !/bin/cp -i /var/www/ct/*..* /var/www/ct/vcards.old/*, !/bin/cp -i /var/www/ct/* /var/www/ct/vcards.old/*..*

See sudoers(5) for more information on the syntax.

Finally, if your system is missing support for zip, gzip or bzip2, you can turn off support for those options by setting the associated variables to 0:

$ALLOW_ZIP = 0;

If, for security reasons, you ever need to confuse users about what version of OAB you're using (supposing there is a security vulnerability that is only updated in later versions), you can change it in the config file also. Note the version number appears in downloaded vCards.

Lastly, make sure to set the correct path is set in .htaccess, which will almost certainly be the same as your $BASE_PATH variable.

AllowOverride in httpd.conf

As of version 0.6.1, this step is no longer required. This needs to be set to "Limit AuthConfig" in your httpd.conf for the directory where OAB is installed. For example,

<Directory /var/www/ct>
AllowOverride Limit AuthConfig
</Directory>

Download

The current version is 0.6.4, available at SourceForge. Since this is the first public release, you can expect it to be buggy, but still usable. However, if you turn on backups within OAB, you should never lose any data, no matter how buggy it is.

Detailed Description

OAB is meant to be the final place you ever have to store your Address Book. Since your address book is something you will keep forever, it needs to be something that is easy to take with you. Other software that use proprietary solutions for storage make life difficult for users who want to change their address book software. Because OAB stores its data in individual vCard files on the backend, even if the software suddenly ceases to exist, or breaks beyond easy repair, users will have their important contacts in a format that most address book programs will easily import.

Everything is designed from the standpoint of the user. OAB is built very closely around the vCard 3.0 specification, and offers all the flexibility of the vCard specfication to users. For example, many address book programs give several fields for phone numbers, but will not allow users to add more than "home", "work" and "cell", or sort them in a specific way. Additionally, with other programs, it may not be clear that someone has the samephone number for home AND work, unless the user places the number in both fields. With OAB, you can check the boxes for both home and work.

OAB supports 100% of the vCard 3.0 specification, including inline images within the vCard. It also allows users to create a group hierarchy of telescoping folders, so infrequent contacts can be hidden away during normal operation.

OAB currently requires Apache, PHP4, and *nix operating system. Future plans are to extend the code to work on any web server running PHP on any operating system.

Change Log

0.6.4 = Sharing, New Export Formats, Numerous Bugfixes (2004.07.16 to 2004.07.18)

Share vCards on a publically-accessible page
- Visitors may download cards in any supported format
- Assign any name to a vCard as the title for the download
Can now export XML-vCards (Jabber style, vCard 2.0)
User interface improvements
- Real UI for exporting LDIF and XML-vCards
- Drop down boxes per contact on book.php to lessen clutter
- Avoids "Do you want to repost this form?" messages
- index.php redirects to book.php if already authenticated
Fixed support for multiple photographs per contact
Fixed strange backslash issue ("," becomes "\," or even "\\\,")
Fixed problems with adding notes to cards
Fixed image-uploading problems
Fixed pressing-delete-doesn't-delete-property problem
Fixed re-arrange mode to not turn off each time
Fixed default value for notes

0.6.3 = Speed Improvements, Notes and Friends (2004.07.10)

Significantly faster main page (via double-level caching)
Take notes on a particular property (see Notes)
Link to associated people, friend, parent, sibling, etc.
More OS X address book friendly
Preliminary support for exporting LDIF format (see getldif.php)
Fixed problem in initial setup for users of PHP before 4.2

0.6.2 = Bugfixes (2004.05.18)

Support for PHP on Mac OS X (improved reg_globals)
Fixed 0.6.1-only bug in image uploading
Fixed 0.6.0 and 0.6.1 bug in moving vCards

0.6.1 = Search Page and List Mode (2004.04.24 to 2004.05.02)

Search page
List mode to view all contacts without groups
Nagivation bar with search for at top
Setup page to streamline setup
CSS formatting, with class and id elements for many entities
Support for MSN, Yahoo and ICQ screen names
Support for more image formats

0.6.0 = 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

0.5.0 = Big Initial Public Release (2004.03.08)

Added INSTALL howto
Branched CHANGELOG to TODO file
Created website: http://www.c7f.net/oab.php

0.4.7 = Bug Fixes and Usability (2004.03.07)

Mode toggling now will save current changes first
Fixed extra slashes added in front of quotes
Editing tabs now telescope, and have been reordered
Callbacks for viewing simple fields
- URL callback to URL-ize website properties
- email callback to mailto-ize email properties
"Birthday" now appears in Add Property box
Detail boxes now correctly checked when not in detailed mode

0.4.6 = Seperate Config File (2004.03.01)

Multi-vCard upload controlled by config
Backup modes (none, basic, sudo) controlled by config
Base path can be specified by by config

0.4.5 = Implemented Proper Birthday support (2004.02.29)

Forms that accept dates (month, day, year)
Added everything to CVS
Fixed resorting problem
Fixed inline-binary viewing problem
Notes property now displayed with textarea

0.4.4 = Fixed top property-add dropdown box (2004.02.25)

now doesn't share name with bottom box (problem with Mozilla)

0.4.3 = Password Support, FN Editing (2003.04.13)

support for changing passwords (newpass.php), linked in index.php
FN editing (via link in edit.php)
fancy alternating colors for index.php, smaller group names
added bz2 support to multi-card uploads

0.4.2 = Full View, Tarball support, Logo Quickview (2003.04.11)

full view support, defaulted when clicking "Add Contact"
support for .tgz, .tar.gz, .zip uploads
quickview for logos
better explanations on move.php, uploadvcard.php, newgroup.php

0.4.1 = Usability Modifications

auto-focus and auto-scroll down when adding properties

0.4.0 = User Accounts

htaccess, htgroup and htpasswd setup for /var/www/ct
basic user account support (changes in group.php, index.php, move.php)
bugfixes
- sans-serif font on index.php
- size problems w/ logo (still needs proper fixing)
- preview.php problem with LOGO (was hard coded to PHOTO)
- on off buttons more explicit

0.3.1 = Out-sourcing attachments, highlighted properties, view mode

X-OAB-FILE type that indicates file is outsourced
preview support for outsourced files
quickview support, X-PREF, (current status: ugly)
view mode for contacts, no editing, form support and UI
- also, defaulted edit.php to viewmode
added edit bottons to top of edit.php, too

0.3.0 = Group Class (2003.04.05)

group class for more extensible backend
- index.php, edit.php, getvcard.php, getallvcards.php
code clean-up, distinct files for each class

0.2 = User Interface

vCard groups, adding groups, moving groups
editing contacts, adding contacts, moving contacts
adding properties, sorting properties
uploading vCards
getvcard.php
getallvcards.php

0.1 = Basic vCard Support

support for decoding and storing vcards
keydef, property, vCard classes
adherence to vCard v3.0 specification

Related Projects

vCard PHP is a good viewer of vCards via a HTTP.
phpAbook is a great online address book (unfortunately, it is no longer under development).
Plaxo is a free online address book service where people are connected (like Friendster or Orkut), and whenever a friend changes their address, you'll be automagically notified. It will also sync contacts with many popular Windows address books.

Feedback

If you have any suggestions, questions or comments, please email cody@rescomp.berkeley.edu.

Thanks To

Thanks to SourceForge for hosting the project:

Older entries

Syndicate This Page Back to the Top

This page best viewed while dangerously intoxicated.

codythefreak.net, or c7f.net is not copyrighted, reserved, limited, restricted, or private. Information is always inherently free.

If I don't want you to read, view, or plagarize something, I won't post it up. Courtesy appreciated 2001-2006.
Up 1 day, 21:12.