4. How can I install Kontakter on my computer?
5. How can I upgrade my Kontakter to a new version?
6. During an upgrade, will i lose my contacts and settings?
7. How can I backup my contacts?
8. How can I restore my contacts?
10. What are Local and Network account types?
11. How can I create a local account?
12. How can I create a network account?
13. What is the host address and where do I find it?
14. Why is a password necessary?
Kontakter is an easy-to-use yet powerful address book with advance search functionality and a very intuitive user interface. With Kontakter you can store your contacts in a local database or synchronize them with a central database, so you can share all your contacts with other users. Kontakter is free and open source software.
Yes, Kontakter is 100% free and open source. This means that everyone can use it and look at its source code.
Kontakter is open source, so anyone can help to develop, translate, test, improve it! If you are interested in contribution, join the giowisys' open source team on launchpad. If you don't have any useful skills but you want still to help us, consider a small donation.
How can I install Kontakter on my computer??
Installing Kontakter is simple as installing other software. Just download it, and install it like all other software. If you want to install it on GNU/Linux or other systems, see the README.txt in the source archive.
How can I upgrade my Kontakter to a new version?
Kontakter informs you whenever a new verson is available. To upgrade, first, you have to remove the old version, and then you can install the new version. You contacts won't get lost during the upgrade.
During an upgrade, will i lose my contacts and settings?
No, but it is good to make a backup of your database before upgrading.
You can export the database, including all contacts. You will find the export function in: File -> Export -> Database
How can I restore my contacts?
You can import your database backup in: File -> Import -> Database
Each account has its own database of contacts, which is indipendent from other accounts. Accounts are useful to allow more than one user to use Kontakter on the same machine, or to manage contacts from more than one activity in an indipendent way.
What are Local and Network account types?
When you create a new account you can choose between local or network.The local account stores your contacts only in a local database, network accounts can synchronize your contacts with a central database, in order to share the same database with other users. The central database is provided by Kontakter-server.
How can I create a local account?
Just click on the Accounts menu -> new account and then select the local radio button. That's all!
How can I create a network account?
Creating a network account is a little more complex. First you need to know the IP/Host address and the password of the server(computer running the Kontakter-server). The Kontakter-server must be online in order to permit the clients to synchronize the database. To enable synchronization you need ONLY 1 server which holds the main database, the clients, when synchronization is successful, have their own local database that is exactly the same of Kontakter-server, so you can avoid duplicates. Before a client can modify the database of the server, the network engine checks that the local database of the client and the central database of the server are at the same revision, if not, then you must sync the client.
What is the host address and where do I find it?
The Host address (aka IP) is an address which indicates to which computer send the network packets. It is important to distinguish between a local network or a network over the internet. A local network can be created with a router/switch and some PCs, in this case the IP address to use is the local one which is assigned to each computer by the router. On Windows you can see the ip address by writing "ipconfig" in the terminal, on Linux/MacOS X and other Unix-Like, by writing "ifconfig" in the console. If you want to use synchronization over the internet, the IP address to use is the remote address, you can find out yours here. In the last case, your router must be configured correctly in order to forward incoming connections on the defined port. See portforward.com for more information on port forwarding.
The server password is important to give a little of security to the network connection. Still not the best way, and in the next version SSL encryption is planed!