Planner Server/Client hack.

["Ferry Boender" <f boender electricmonk nl>]

Hi Planner hackers,

I spent a couple of hours hacking up a client-server model around Gnome
Planner. It's a simple XMLRPC server which serves .planner files, keeps a
history, authorizes and authenticates users and provides information on
available planner files. 

The (currently command-line) client can be used to retrieve this information
and to edit remote .planner files. When editing, the client requests the
.planner file from the server. The server locks it and sends it to the client
which launches Gnome Planner. If changes have been made when you exit Planner,
those changes are written back to the server which stores the new version.

The server and client are written in Python and are available here: 

    http://www.electricmonk.nl/Programmings/CoPlanner

The current release (v0.1) is very rough around the edges, and I consider it
more a proof-of-concept than an actual program, but we're already using it at
my job to do collaborative planning. Documentation is currently rather sparse,
and I doubt I'll have the time to answer many questions, so if anybody decided
to check it out, you're basically on your own :-)

PS: I only just saw that the next release of Planner will have database
back-end support. I'm not sure of the goals of such as back-end and whether it
will provide collaborative planning (in which case my work will have been in
vain). But since I already wrote this, I thought I'd share it anyway.

With kind regards,

Ferry Boender