BBCard support discussion (Page 1 of 2)

I don't know about re-inventing the wheel like that, though. After all, isn't the point of this "interoperatability" and not just to import/export contact data?

How about using vCard as RDF, then extend that? Like the following example:

How exactly would you include password hashes, avatar data etc. in that?

Having avatars and such things in the "card" takes away the whole "edit-it-by-hand"-part though. By edit I mean that you would like to have forum-specific settings in there somehow (or is it something we can survive without?).

If you want different avatars on different forums, we have a problem. Feels like a good idea to have the avatar there though, makes it much easier :)

Edit: Louis' post answered some questions there...

I would only see any value at all in this addition to punBB if it is small... as such, I wouldn't want such a feature, but obviously some people do, but try to keep it small

And I agree with the idea of XML, rather than integrating VCard.

Examples of vCard support with Microsoft products:

You can use vCard vdf files in Outlook since 98:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as … -us;290840

You can create contacts from vCards or even append them to your signature automatically:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as … -us;248832

Since Internet Explorer 5, you can use vCard to auto-complete forms:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us … /VCARD.asp

You can also grab vCard data automatically from the Profile Assistant:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/mana … istant.asp

Also, vCard is integrated with the Windows Address book, the Exchange server, Sharepoint profiles, and Longhorn contacts, including their new Tablet PC pen-optimized display. So contacts integration won't be going away anytime soon ...

Standards are definitely a good thing, use them as much as you can.

Well, I didn't know that. However, having gone down this road, let's chat a bit more -- faced with all the things vCard support CAN do, why NOT do it? You don't have to implement the full vCard, you could just use it for name, email, time zone, fields that match up.

Also, you could create a separate script to generate vCard files (non-xml) from people's profiles, and add in their interests in the Comment property, adding a URL property for a link to their profile on the originating forum, or if you wanted to go farther, use X- fields for extensions to the vCard, like X-ICQ, X-MSN, X-AOL and X-YIM (Check to see if others have done this before, perhaps we can interop further)

It makes sense to me ... why re-invent the wheel? You don't even have to use XML to do it, with the X- extensions you could store it all in vCard.

There's more to vCard than you'd expect: http://www.imc.org/pdi/vcard-21.rtf

If you don't have a login to phpclasses.org, here's the first class I mentioned:

http://www.CSpotkill.com/vcardclass-2003-03-25.tar.gz

Ah, but couldn't there be a way to have both the private BBCode and a public BBCode/vCard-based thing? Therefore wouldn't using a few vCard fields for both simplify things?

If you aren't interested in a public vCard-supported interface to PunBB then fine. Do BBCard how ever you like. I like the idea of having PunBB support vCard though, so perhaps I'll work on a mod for that on my own, and if/when you finalize something for BBCard, I'll integrate it with that.

Well, you could have vCard be a profile option, perhaps, so they could disable it if they wanted.

In theory, you could add X- fields for AIM and the rest, use the time zone propery for their time zone, maybe even extend the profiles with "Real info" fields and you could load it in Outlook, or perhaps load it into Trillian with a plugin or something, to add new users from their X-AIM fields, etc. I found it rather tedious to search for people with AIM, then browse through each profile for people's screennames to add, and keep doing that for all four services.

I mentioned other ideas above  ... But I suppose it's not that big a deal.

Has any major BB software implemented this?

Well, I don't want to bitch, but in that case I see no use for it, at least as a feature. Personally, I have to say I don't like it. Registering at PunBB asks for: username, e-mail and timezone, and that's it. Profiles are very much soft-dependent. Honestly, I don't see it, right now.