FAQ

For questions about OSAF as an organization, visit the OSAF FAQ

Chandler Project

Q What is Chandler?

Chandler Project is an open source, standards-based personal information manager (PIM) built around small group collaboration and a core set of information management workflows modelled on Inbox usage patterns and David Allen's GTD methodology.

See Vision for a more in-depth answer to this question.

Q When will OSAF ship Chandler?

Preview is scheduled to ship before the end of August, 2007.

Q What license is Chandler under?

Chandler Desktop and Chandler Server are available under the terms of the Apache Software License, Version 2.0.

The Chandler logo image and the contents of all Chandler Project web sites is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.

The Chandler Hub is covered by terms of service and a privacy policy described in the Chandler Hub section of this FAQ.

Q What is the Chandler Project trademark policy?

A trademark is a right to not have your work confused with someone else's. The work of OSAF, the creator of the Chandler Project, is identified by two primary types of marks: the Chandler name and the dog logo image.

You are permitted to use and modify the name and logo so long as you do not imply your changes come from OSAF. For instance, calling your software "Chandler++" is not allowed by our trademark policy. If your intent is to significantly change the way our software works, you should use a different name and logo. We permit changes to fix bugs, improve security, integrate with other software, and other common modifications.

You are not required to contact us when you use our trademarks.

Please contact us if you have any questions about whether your use of our marks might be confusing:

OSAF trademarks c/o OSAF 543 Howard St, 5th floor San Francisco, CA 94105

Q Is Chandler free? Will OSAF make money from Chandler?

Chandler is open source, meaning that it is not only free but that the source code -- essentially the "recipe" of the program -- will be freely available.

OSAF's mission is to create and gain wide adoption for software applications of uncompromising quality using open-source methods. This implies that first and foremost we will make our software available free-of-charge under free / open source licenses for those operating exclusively in those worlds.

Q Can I donate money/software/hardware/labor/furry animals to you?

Please see donations page.

Q How can I contribute to the project?

Visit Get Involved to learn about ways to contribute to the project.

Chandler Product

Q What market or type of user are you targeting with Chandler?

Chandler's target market are knowledge workers. We're not focused on a particular industry per se, nor are we distinguishing much between work versus home users. We've seen that information management workflows don't respect such distinctions. For our target users, information is the substance of their work and more information is the output of their work: Research, proposals, priorities, direction and decisions? Somewhere in between, knowledge is gained and shared.

For Preview, we've narrowed our scope to target a particular brand of knowledge worker, one we believe is under-served by the software that exists today. These people work closely with every member of their team, acting as a communication hub. In the software industry, they often have job titles like project manager or product manager or program manager.

To enable our target user to collaborate with others, the Chandler Hub web application focuses on meeting the needs of the 'Casual Collaborator'.

See: Target User for a more in-depth answer to this question.

Q Does Chandler do Project Management?

If you mean GANTT and PERT charts, timelines and task dependencies, and resource management, then no.

If you mean a way to manage tasks that unravel into multi-step projects, then yes! Chandler is designed to fill the gap between top-heavy, process-laden project management software and anemic task lists for what we're calling lowercase-p project management.

Q Can I use Chandler for Email?

Chandler is not a full-fledged email client. Do not expect to be able to replace your current email application with Chandler Preview. However, Chandler does send and receive email as well as download messages via IMAP folders in the following ways:

• Send items from Chandler Desktop to others via email. Everyone can view the contents of the item in their email applications as message text. Chandler Desktop recipients receive the item as a full-fledged Chandler item.
• Chandler Desktop users can edit and resend emails as updates.
• Chandler Desktop only downloads email sent from other Chandler Desktop applications.
• Set up special Chandler IMAP folders to drag and drop messages from your email application to Chandler.

See known issues with Email.

Q Does Chandler need Chandler Hub/Server to run? (AND VICE VERSA)

No.

You can use Chandler Desktop as a standalone application and Chandler Server as standalone web application and server.

Chandler Desktop can publish and subscribe to calendars on any WebDAV Sharing Server.

Similarly, you can publish and subscribe to calendars on Chandler Server from a number of calendar applications and any feed readers. See What applications can I use to publish to Chandler Hub? for more details.

However, to get the full Chandler collaboration experience, you will need to use Chandler Desktop with Chandler Hub/Server.

Q Can I access my data through the Web or PDA?

You can access any data you publish to Chandler Hub via the Hub web application. However Chandler Preview does not fully support Desktop users accessing their data via Chandler Hub on the web. For example, collections you've subscribed to will not show up in your Hub account. Preview web access is primarily intended for collaborating with others.

See known issues with Sharing and Collaboration.

Currently, Chandler does not support mobile devices.

Q Both the Desktop and Server are at version 0.7 for the Preview release. Are the releases synchronized?

Actually, no, the releases of Chandler Desktop and Chandler Server are not synchronized. It's just a coincidence that the two were at 0.7 around the time we wanted to release Preview. Chandler Server is a younger product that Chandler Desktop with a different release cycle, and the two version numbers will likely diverge after the Preview release.

Q I found a problem with the software, how do I report it?

Your bug reports are highly appreciated. Please go to our Report a Bug page for detailed instructions.

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Chandler Desktop

Q What are the minimum/recommended requirements to run Chandler?

As for minimum, our ballpark is the mid-range setup that a consumer would have bought in 2003.

• Windows and Linux: Pentium(R) 4, ~2 GHz, 512 RAM
• Mac: G4, ~1GHz, 512 RAM

Recommended, well, the faster the better

Q What platforms does Chandler run on?

Chandler runs on Mac OS X, and Windows and Linux (currently supporting Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (aka Dapper)). Chandler can often run on other platform variations but may require some build work. See ChandlerDesktopSource for more information on currently supported platforms, as well as for links for downloading Chandler.

Q Where is the Chandler database stored on my system?

We call this location the profile directory. Instructions on how to find it and how to explicitly make Chandler use a profile directory are provided in ProfileDirectory.

Q I would like to use Chandler in a different language. Is that possible?

Currently, Chandler is only available in English. However, if you're a developers and would like to download and install experimental translations, we currently have 2: French and Finnish.

If you are interested in contributing new translations, you're welcome to contact us (best is to subscribe to our chandler-dev list). Be aware though that with a rapidly changing user interface as it will be till 0.7 is final, this is somewhat of a thankless job...

If you are interested by the Internationalization coding aspects, the OSAF team developed a set of specific tools for this ( PyICU, EggTranslation) that are available for any Python application. More on this work can be found on our Internationalization page.

Q How do I import calendar files from other applications into Chandler?

• This page contains information on how to import calendar files from other applications into Chandler Desktop.

Q How do I move my data from one version of Chandler to another? (migration instructions)

Migrating to a New Version of Chandler?

1. Start up your old version of Chandler.
2. Go to the File>>Export Collections and Settings... menu to save all your data (items, collections, accounts, sharing URLs and application settings) to a .chex file.
3. Quit Chandler.
4. Download a new version of Chandler if you haven't already.
5. Start up your new version of Chandler. You will be prompted with a dialog warning you that this new version of Chandler is incompatible with the data generated by your old version of Chandler. Go ahead and select Delete Data and proceed with start up. (Don't worry about deleting your existing data. That's what the .chex file is for!)
6. Go to the File>>Reload Collections and Settings... menu to reload all your data into your new version of Chandler from the .chex file.
7. You will be prompted with a dialog warning you that reload will overwrite all of the data that currently exists in Chandler. Go ahead and click Yes to proceed. Chandler will quit, restart and reload your data automatically.

In the future, we hope to automate this workflow. For now, we hope the manual procedure works smoothly for you!

Migrating Specifically from 0.7alpha5 version of Chandler to 0.7.x version of Chandler?

1. Start up your old version of Chandler.
2. Go to the File>>Dump items to file...menu to save all your data (items, collections, accounts, sharing URLs and application settings) to a .dump file.
3. Quit Chandler.
4. Download a new version of Chandler if you haven't already.
5. Start up your new version of Chandler. You will be prompted with a dialog warning you that this new version of Chandler is incompatible with the data generated by your old version of Chandler. Go ahead and select the first option and proceed with start up. (Don't worry about overwriting your existing data. That's what the .dump is for!)
6. Go to the File>>Reload Collections and Settings... menu. The window has "Chandler Export Files" selected by default, so change that to "All Files". Then select the dump file created in the previous step to reload all your data into your new version of Chandler.
7. You will be prompted with a dialog warning you that reload will overwrite all of the data that currently exists in Chandler. Go ahead and click Yes to proceed. Chandler will quit, restart and reload your data automatically.

Q What servers can Chandler Desktop publish information on?

• This page contains information on using Chandler Desktop to publish information on various servers.

Q Can I subscribe to information on other servers/services using Chandler Desktop?

• This page contains information on using Chandler Desktop to subscribe to information on various servers and services.

Q How I can use the Quick Entry box to create notes, tasks, events and mail items

• You can also create items in Chandler using the Quick Entry box. Prepend the text in the quick entry box with the appropriate command to create the item of a specific type. For e.g. /n for notes, /s for starred notes, /m for messages and /e for events. You can also create items of multiple types by combining the commands like /s /m for starred message, /e /m for invites etc.

Chandler Hub

Q What do the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy look like?

The final Terms of Service and Privacy Policy used for the Chandler Hub are now available. The terms are very oriented towards consumer protection. We're committed to your complete privacy. Our guiding principles come from our founder Mitch Kapor, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Q I'm having problems signing up for or activating my account; what can I do?

The most common problem is that your "activation email" is getting lost in transfer or placed in your spam folder. If you have any problems, please contact hub-admin@osafoundation.org and we'll work to resolve any issues you're having. Please keep trying!

Q What information do you need to open a Chandler Hub account?

We only need a name, user name, password, and email address. The email address will not be sold or otherwise misused. It is used only to verify there's a human making the request, and so we can contact your with critical information about service outages or changes.

Q What sort of uptime and availability should I expect?

The Chandler Hub is not backed by a huge organization with the resources to provide multiple redundant servers and backups along with 24x7x365 monitoring and fixes. Right now, we expect perhaps a total of one day downtime per year. We keep backups taken multiple times per day, but if there were a serious crash, some data might be lost as we restore from backups.

As we grow, we're committed to introducing better redundancy, better backups, and more 24x7 coverage. We hope to never cause you undue hassle, but please accept our apologies in advance if have difficulty reaching your info when you really need it.

Q How secure is my information on Chandler Hub?

The security of your information depends on a number of factors on both your side and ours. We provide SSL web access so your information is very hard to read while being transferred. Once the information is on our servers, only a very small list of trusted staff have access to those servers. We take backups of the data and move it over a secure network to another machine for backup protection. We try very hard to keep your data as secure and safe as possible on our end, as well as working to provide you the tools to keep data safe on your end.

A great thing about the Chandler Project is you can share easily with people by generating a view-only and/or a view-and-edit URL that you can send easily via instant messaging, email, or the web. You get to choose who to share those URLs with. But if you're trying to keep your URLs private, and someone you don't want to gets access to those URLs, they will have the granted level of access. If you don't send out URLs for a given collection though, only you, with the user name and password, will have access.

Overall, your data is very secure, if you want it to be. If you share items or collections with other people, they are much more likely to change your data than any unauthorized intruder on our side. Anything is possible, and we're glad you're thinking about the security of your data.

Q Who owns the data I put on Chandler Hub?

We strongly adhere to the principle that "your data is your data". We make no intellectual property claim on the content that you upload. Further, we believe that you should always be able to get your data back out, once it is put in; we provide multiple formats for you to "backup" your data as you see fit.

But for practicality's sake, there has to be some limits and since you own that data, you have to give us permission to use it in certain ways, like host the data for you, share it with others if you tell us to, backup the database so we don't lose your data. And if we have a server or database very bad crash or a mistake is made and we lose your data, you can't claim any damages for us losing your stuff (ie, data).

Q I'm trying to run this on my mobile device, what browsers does Chandler Hub support?

Currently Chandler Hub has not be tested with any mobile devices. Though we have been told Mozilla's Minimo 2.0 now supports Ajax. If you are running Minimo 0.2 for Windows Mobile 5.0 and above—set to desktop view, you might be able to scroll around and enter items on to the calendar. Please note this is currently not tested by OSAF.

If you have feedback on what your are seeing on your mobile device please send them along to us and either report a bug or we'll file one for you to track them. Hopefully in the near future we will specify some mobile devices which we'll be able to test against. In the meantime, here is a list of browser support by priority:

1. Windows Firefox 2.0 & 1.5
2. Windows IE7
3. Windows IE6
4. Apple Firefox 2.0 & 1.5
5. Safari 2.0
6. Linux Firefox
7. Windows/Mac Firefox 1.0

The current target screen size - 1024x768 pixels, though the application should still be usable at 800x600 pixels (it just might look a bit squished).

Q What applications can I use to publish to Chandler Hub?

• This page contains information on using other applications to publish to Chandler Hub

Q What applications can I use to subscribe to collections on Chandler Hub?

• This page contains information on using other applications to subscribe to collections on Chandler Hub

Q Is SSL supported? Is SSL required?

SSL access to the Hub is supported (SSL will encrypt your data and password between your browser and the server so no one can snoop on it). We think your privacy and security is important, so we recommend that you use SSL sessions whenever possible. If you just access http://hub.chandlerproject.org/ to login, you should get an SSL session. Look for the standard "locked key" icon in your browser to determine if your session is SSL encrypted.

Requiring SSL can cause problems, so we also support accessing the Hub without using SSL (that is, just regular HTTP, not HTTPS). SSL can cause problems during debugging, mashup development, low-power devices, and many other exotic situations. You are welcome to use non-SSL access, but for your safety and ours, please use SSL whenever possible.

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Chandler Server Questions

Q What is Chandler Server (Cosmo) and what is its relationship to Chandler Hub?

Chandler Server is a software package which includes an Apache Tomcat web server. This package is available for anyone to download and run (therefore hosting his/her own server). Chandler Hub is an instance of Chandler Server that OSAF hosts publicly.

Q How do I get Chandler Server (Cosmo)?

You download the OSAF Server bundle and install them on your server. Take a look at the End User Documentation if there are any questions on how to use Chandler Server (Cosmo).

Q Can I see how Chandler Server work without downloading and installing the OSAF Server bundle?

Yes! Sign up for an account on Chandler Hub and see how Chandler Server works without downloading the server bundle.

Q How do I find information after I download Chandler Server?

ChandlerServerEndUserManual | ServerBundleAdministrator | ServerBundleInstallation

Q How secure is my information on Chandler Server (Cosmo)?

Technically you choose how secure you want your information to be – you can use it like a traditional calendar instead of a collaborative calendar. Chandler Server (Cosmo) does not currently encrypt calendar data. Please see tickets for a full explanation of how Chandler Server (Cosmo) works with small group collaborations.

The Chandler Hub instance of Chandler Server is configured to allow anyone with a ticket to view and edit shared collections.

Q Will Chandler Server run on Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard?

We haven't tested Chandler Server on Vista or Leopard, but as long as Java and the database (Apache Derby or MySQL^?) run, you should be fine.

Q How do I browse my Home directory on the server?

You can turn on access to the Home directory by clicking on the 'Settings' link in the upper right-hand corner, select the 'Advanced' tab in the dialog and check 'Show Account Browser link'. Once you 'Save' the 'Settings' dialog you'll notice the 'Account Browser' link appear next to the 'Settings' link. Please note: items and collections deleted from the Account Browser cannot be recovered.

Why do I get "ERROR XSTB2: Cannot log transaction changes, maybe trying to write to a read only database." in derby.log?

Because there is a problem with Derby on OS X 10.4 with an older version of Apple's JDK 1.5. The solution to this is documented at the http://db.apache.org/derby/faq.html#createdb_OS_X Derby FAQ site. Place your derby.properties file in the top level distribution directory. Note that Apple has issued an update for Tiger's JDK 1.5 that solves this problem.

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Chandler Desktop Developer Questions

Q What is the programming environment for Chandler?

Chandler is written in a popular rapid development language called python and the wxPython graphics toolkit. Functionalities (called parcels or plugins) can be easily plugged in to the Chandler framework.

Q Why did you choose Python instead of Java?

No one reason dominated the decision, but the list of reasons looks something like this:

1. Python is true open source
2. Python data more naturally maps to the quasi-structured nature of Chandler data
3. At the time a language decision was made, client side java seemed to be a barrier to a good user experience. (Eclipse is a more recent counterexample)
4. Python programs are both concise and readable, this makes it excellent for rapid development by a distributed team
5. It is easier to integrate non-python code into python than it is to integrate non-java code into java. For example, right now our UI code is the C++ Library wxWidgets, and we are using a full text indexing system (Lucene) written in Java.
6. Some test programming was done in Python (the UI prototype Andy H. did), and the experience from this test seemed to validate our choice.

Q Why didn't you use zodb?

We grappled with this question here: Why not zodb?

Q What modifications did you make to Python?

We made 2 kinds of modifications:

1. Modifications that affect how it builds:
   • For OS X we modified "configure" to specify our local Python framework within the generated Makefile (via "-framework").
   • When building the berkeley db extension we have changed the way setup.py looks for the libraries (it only looks in our local directories).
2. Modifications that affect how it runs:
   • On Windows we commented out the code that searches the registry for installed extensions (so only our extensions would be loaded by our Python)

Q Where can I find documentation for the API?

See our Developers Wiki for all documentation related to Chandler source code and its API.

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Chandler Server Developer Questions

Q Wow, the build seems to be downloading a lot of jars. Is that normal?

Yes. Cosmo has a lot of external dependencies. The jars only need to be downloaded the first time you build though, and afterwards only when we update our dependencies.

Q Where did all those downloaded jars go?

In your local Maven repository at ~/.m2/repository.

Q Huh? Maven?

We currently use Maven 2.0.4+ which can be downloaded from http://maven.apache.org/

Q The build fails because Maven can't download one of my jars. What's going on?

A few of our dependencies are not distributed by ibiblio (jta.jar is not indepently distributable, and the jcr/jackrabbit/jcr-server jars are built from source). OSAF hosts a Maven repository containing all of the dependencies. The repositories that Cosmo references are all outlined in the master project pom.xml

Q  The build fails with a =NoClassDefFoundError for org/apache/xml/serializer/OutputPropertiesFactory. What's going on?

You forgot to copy serializer.jar from the Xalan distribution into $MAVEN_HOME/lib/endorsed.

Q Why does Cosmo fail to create the Derby database when being built on Mac OS X?

Because there is a problem with Derby 10.1.1.0 on OS X 10.3 (with JDK 1.4) and OS X 10.4 (with JDK 1.5). The solution to this is documented at the http://db.apache.org/derby/faq.html#createdb_OS_X Derby FAQ site. Place your derby.properties file in the top level source directory and, if you distribute Cosmo and run it out of that directory, into the top level dist directory.

Note that Apple has issued an update to JDK 1.5 which solves this problem. Also, in 0.2.4 we have updated to Derby 10.1.2.1 which works around the issue as well.

Q I'm using the server bundle and pointing Tomcat at my Cosmo checkout. When i run osafsrvctl start, I see an error like this in osafsrv.log. What gives?

2006-02-28 11:18:10,785 ERROR [[/cosmo]] Error configuring application listener of class org.osaf.cosmo.jackrabbit.query.TextFilterListener
 java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.osaf.cosmo.jackrabbit.query.TextFilterListener

You probably forgot to run mvn war:inplace in your cosmo checkout. Stop Tomcat, build the webapp with that maven command, then restart Tomcat. The error should go away.