PHP iAddressbook does only have very little dependencies since I wanted it to work on as many systems as possible.

You need:

• PHP (any recent version should do)
• a database (MySQL, PostgreSQL or anything else supported by ADOdb)
• (optional) iconv (if you want to import vcards that are not UTF-8 encoded)
• (optional) ImageMagick's convert or GD (if you want to import photos)

Installing the address book consists of four steps:

1. create a new database called addressbook
2. create three new tables inside this database called addressbook, addressbook_cat and addressbook_catmap using the template found in the root directory of the archive (addressbook.sql)
3. make a copy of conf/config.php.dist or create your own conf/config.php (for a list of all available configuration parameters see conf/defaults.php). The settings in conf/config.php override those in conf/defaults.php.
4. if you want authorization support make a copy of auth.php.dist into auth.php and add usernames and passwords as needed.

1. make sure that your PHP installation has sqlite support
2. adjust your conf/config.php
3. either create a new sqlite database or use the one supplied with PHP iAddressBook
4. sqlite version 2.x and version 3.x are not compatible, make sure that you are using the correct version (sqlite-db2 is for version 2.x - sqlite-db3 is for version 3.x)
5. make sure that the webserver and PHP can write to the sqlite database file (use chmod 777 sqlite/sqlite-db2)
6. make sure that the webserver and PHP can write to the directory where the sqlite database file is located (use chmod 777 sqlite/)

$conf['dbtype']      = 'sqlite';
$conf['dbname']      = 'addressbook';
$conf['dbserver']    = AB_INC.'sqlite/sqlite-db2';
$conf['dbuser']      = '';
$conf['dbpass']      = '';
$conf['dbtable_ab']     = 'addressbook_test';
$conf['dbtable_cat']    = 'addressbook_test_cat';
$conf['dbtable_catmap'] = 'addressbook_test_catmap';

This assumes that you already have a web server with PHP support installed and configured.

• Make sure that you have all of the other bits and pieces installed:

# apt-get install libphp-adodb php4-pear php4-sqlite sqlite</code>

• Unzip iAddressbook into your web servers DocumentRoot and rename the folder appropriately:

# unzip -a ab_095.zip -d /var/www
# mv /var/www/ab_095 /var/www/iaddressbook

• Change into the iAddressbook directory:

# cd /var/www/iaddressbook

• Change permissions on the provided sqlite database so that the web server has write permissions (www-data is the default web server user on Debian, if you've changed it to use another user you'll need to change the below command appropriately):

# chown -R www-data sqlite/

• Copy in the new config files you are going to use:

# cp conf/config.php.dist conf/config.php
# cp conf/auth.php.dist conf/auth.php

• Edit config.php and change it so that it uses the SQLite database, the database section should look something like this (note that the dbname, username and password variables aren't needed for SQLite):

$conf['dbtype'] = 'sqlite';
$conf['dbserver'] = '/var/www/iaddressbook/sqlite/sqlite-db2';
$conf['dbtable_ab'] = 'addressbook';
$conf['dbtable_cat'] = 'addressbook_cat';
$conf['dbtable_catmap'] = 'addressbook_catmap';

• You should now be ready to go, you can test your installation by going to the URL (eg. http://www.yourdomain.com/iaddresssbook/)

Upgrading is always tricky since you have to make sure that no personal configuration data is accidently overridden. I tried to separate the default configuration settings from your personal settings to make updating as easy as possible. The data-format for you contacts in the database is stable (even for upcoming categories). Your contacts will always remain safe in the database and are not affected by an upgrade. There is no need to create a new database if you are upgrading.

Follow these steps and you should be on the safe side:

1. Read the changelog (check for changed database layout or other incompatibilities).
2. create a parallel installation of the addressbook and copy your old conf/config.php file to the new installation.
3. if you have a customized template you will have to migrate it manually. I still have to make minor changes in the default templates. Best bet would be to diff the old default template with the new one to see if anything has changed.
4. if everything works as expected, remove the old installation and rename/move your new installation to the old place.

The changelog can be found here

Import should work out of the box as the addressbook can auto-detect the most important encodings. The addressbook can detect vCards in the following encodings:

• UTF-8
• UTF-16
• UTF-32
• (ISO-8859-1)

All UNICODE encodings are auto-detected even if the file does not have a Byte Order Mark (BOM). The last encoding (here: ISO-8859-1) is a fallback encoding if auto-detection does not work (or if the file is not UTF encoded) and can be configured in the configuration file. All encodings supported by iconv are available.

You can use a tool like iconv to change the encoding of your vCards. This is usually not needed. Only try it if the address book does not correctly auto-detect your vCards. Please file a bug report in that case.

In Mac OS X you can to so by opening a console window and typing:

iconv -f UTF-16BE -t UTF-8 vcard.vcf > converted_vcard.vcf

or

iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 vcard.vcf > converted_vcard.vcf

Since version 0.98 the iAddressBook has advanced authentication support. Every logged in user has a set of actions which he is allowed to execute. That way we have complete control over who is allowed to add contacts and who may delete groups or export vCards. If the user is not logged in he can be optionally mapped to a guest account. The guest permissions can be configured as well. Let's see how it works.

• First of all we have to activate authentication support (as long as this is disabled, everyone has full access to the iAddressBook). You can do this in conf/config.php.

  $conf['auth_enabled'] = 1;

• If we want to allow Guest Access we can enable it in conf/config.php.

  $conf['auth_allow_guest'] = 1;

• Now we have to setup user accounts. As with prior versions they are all managed inside /conf/auth.php. Let's create a user with username=fred, password=banana and permissions to execute the actions 'show' and 'img'. Fred should also be member of the group '@editors'. The ACL entry looks like this:

  $auth['fred']['password']    = '72b302bf297a228a75730123efef7c41';
  $auth['fred']['permissions'] = array( 'img', 'show' );
  $auth['fred']['groups']      = array('@editor');
  $auth['fred']['fullname']    = 'Fred The Geek';
  $auth['fred']['email']       = 'fred@geeks.org';

• PASSWORD: The password value contains the MD5-encrypted password (here: banana). You can calculate the MD5 sum in the login form of the iAddressBook by entering 'make md5' into the username field and your password into the password field.
• PERMISSIONS: This field contains an array of actions which this user is allowed to execute
• GROUPS: This field contains an array of groups this user is a member of. The user will inherit all allowed actions from the group
• FULLNAME: This field is only for convenience and contains the full name of the user
• EMAIL: This field is only for convenience and contains the e-mail address of the user

• As the address book already comes with pre-defined groups (@admin, @editor, @guest) you will probably not need the 'permissions' field.

• Groups are also maintained within /conf/auth.php. The syntax is basically the same as with user accounts. Groups only need the permissions field. It should be pretty self explanatory.

$auth['@admin']['permissions']  = array('show', 'img', 'search', 'edit', 'new', 'save', 'delete', 'delete_many',
                                        'cat_select', 'cat_add', 'cat_del', 'cat_del_empty', 'cat_add_contacts', 'cat_del_contacts',
                                        'import_vcard', 'export_vcard', 'export_vcard_cat', 'export_csv_cat', 'export_ldif_cat', 
                                        'login', 'logout',
                                        'debug', 'check');
 
$auth['@editor']['permissions'] = array('show', 'img', 'search', 'edit', 'new', 'save', 'delete', 'delete_many',
                                        'cat_select', 'cat_add', 'cat_del', 'cat_del_empty', 'cat_add_contacts', 'cat_del_contacts',
                                        'import_vcard', 'export_vcard', 'export_vcard_cat', 'export_csv_cat', 'export_ldif_cat',
                                        'login', 'logout');
 
$auth['@guest']['permissions']  = array('show', 'img', 'search', 
                                        'cat_select', 
                                        'export_vcard', 'export_vcard_cat',
                                        'login', 'logout');

• The guest account is a normal user account an can also be configured like any other user account. The guest username is 'guest'. The default permissmions allow viewing, exporting and searching but do not allow changes to the iAddressBook.
• Do not add a password to the guest account.

$auth['guest']['permissions']   = array('show', 'img', 'search', 
                                        'cat_select', 
                                        'export_vcard', 'export_vcard_cat',
                                        'login', 'logout');
$auth['guest']['groups']        = array();
$auth['guest']['fullname']      = 'Guest';
$auth['guest']['email']         = '';

The default action is 'show'. Whenever a user requests an action which he has no permission to execute the address book will execute 'show' instead.

• title
• firstname
• second firstname
• lastname
• suffix
• phonetic firstname, lastname

• nickname
• jobtitle
• department
• organization
• photo

• birthdate
• notes
• categories

• unlimited addresses
• unlimited phones
• unlimited emails
• unlimited urls
• unlimited chat handles (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo)
• unlimited related names

• creation date
• modification date

• maidenname (X-MAIDENNAME)
• custom dates (X-ABDATE)
• addressbook UID (X-ABUID)

These fields will not be included since I have absolutely no need for them. The current design is transparent enough for me.

This section describes the HTML template that is currently used. In the current state the template system should be flexible enough to allow you to design a look and feel as you like (and not as the template system likes).

The template files have the file ending .tpl. The main file that keeps it all together is called main.tpl.

main.tpl
   |
   +- search.tpl
   |
   +- tpl_showcontactlist()
   |   +- contactlist.tpl
   |       +- tpl_contactlist()
   |           +- contactlist_item.tpl
   |
   +- tpl_showperson()
       +- person_empty.tpl
       |
       +- person.tpl
       |   +- tpl_addresses()
       |   |   +- address.tpl
       |   |
       |   +- tpl_phones()
       |   |   +- phone.tpl
       |   |
       |   +- tpl_emails()
       |   |   +- email.tpl
       |   |
       |   +- tpl_chathandles()
       |   |   +- chathandle.tpl
       |   |
       |   +- tpl_urls()
       |   |   +- url.tpl
       |   |
       |   +- tpl_relatednames()
       |
       +- person_edit.tpl
           +- tpl_include()
           |   +- person_edit_phones.tpl
           |
           +- tpl_include()
           |   +- person_edit_emails.tpl
           |
           +- tpl_include()
           |   +- person_edit_urls.tpl
           |
           +- tpl_include()
           |   +- person_edit_relatednames.tpl
           |
           +- tpl_include()
           |   +- person_edit_chathandles.tpl
           |
           +- tpl_include()
               +- person_edit_addresses.tpl

• tpl_showcontactlist() creates the list of contacts. It basically just inserts the file contactlist.tpl
• tpl_contactlist() iterates over all contacts and outputs one contactlist_item.tpl per contact.

• All other functions work the same way, you should get the hang of it. Remark that person_edit.tpl does not call any tpl_functions since i thouhgt it would be easier to just inline all the code. Other suggestions are welcome. I have never done a template system before, so it might still have some inconsitencies.

~~DISCUSSION:off~~