Some quick Feature "Suggestions"

[jdinkel]

I just checked out the flash demo and read a little on the site. I just happened to be evaluating eGroupware when I heard about Zimbra, and _almost_ like Zimbra better except for one missing feature: resource booking. A module for booking meeting rooms, laptops, projectors, etc is an extremely useful feature.

I have a few more little "usuability" ideas. 1) It might be useful for the first time a user logs on, if they would be prompted to replace the Email link in the Windows XP start menu with a link to Zimbra. 2) Have a tray application much like the Gmail Notifier.

3) ...is a little more involved. Why need an extra client for offline access? Maybe there is some way to have a "local cache" of the Zimbra web interface (maybe not necessarily using firefox or IE, but maybe it would?), so users can also have the native Zimbra look and feel, even when offline!

Those are just my first impressions. With the power of AJAX, they seem to be possible.

[KevinH]

Resources are in the next release (later this month) so no worries there.

1) Well not sure we can do that from a browser but drop a bug in bugzilla.


2) This is on the list. We've got a little tool in house of you can use something like poptray in the mean time.

3) Offline support for Zimbra web client is a big one and we've thought alot about it. The trick is doing it in a browser/OS independent way to keep the client free of ties to any particular OS or browser.

[hwinkel]

My 2cents to that... I user can decided to have offline support or not. and maybe Mozilla XULrunner can help because of the supported plattforms..

Just top of my head...

Holger

[olo]

The most needed eature IMHO are the public folders, with the following features:
* folder types, chosen at creation time, predetermining the type of shard information they hold (calendar items, notes, tasks, mail messages, contacts)
* user-controlled ACLs (discretionary access control)

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by olo

The most needed eature IMHO are the public folders, with the following features:
* folder types, chosen at creation time, predetermining the type of shard information they hold (calendar items, notes, tasks, mail messages, contacts)
* user-controlled ACLs (discretionary access control)

We have shared folders for calendar and contacts today (3.2 beta). The rest are on the roadmap and coming.

All of our sharing has user-controlled ACL's

[olo]

Our HR department uses public folders heavily with drag and drop operations:

• they move/copy their new private contacts to shared contact folders
• they publish document files to others by drag-n-dropping them from the file manager to a mail public folder (a new message with an attachment is automatically created then)

The first one could be implemented in Zimbra without problems, I suppose, but what about the second one? Is file upload based on drag-n-drop to a browser from a file manager even techniaclly possible? Does anyone know AJAX techniques that would accomplish it?

[KevinH]

DnD of contacts is in 3.2 and part of the latest beta. The latter DnD of files on the desktop -> AJAX UI is only possible with a plugin so we've not attempted it yet. Ideally they'd use Zimbra to author the docs and then never need bring in external docs. Regardless they could always use the Outlook Connector for this task.