💡 Two modes of operation
GeoInbox works as a GISimple user (authenticated via GISimple server — Keycloak is completely hidden from the plugin) or as a standalone user with manual IMAP/POP3 configuration stored in a local SQLite database.
What GeoInbox does
📧 Email Browser
Browse IMAP/POP3 mailboxes directly inside QGIS. Download GIS attachments (GeoJSON, GeoPackage, Shapefile, KML) with trust-based sender validation.
🔀 Data Versioning
Compare client datasets against a host GeoPackage or PostGIS database. Detect attribute changes, geometry modifications, added and deleted features.
🎨 Diff Layers
Visualise all differences as colour-coded temporary QGIS layers: Features Added, Features Deleted, Attribute Changed, Geometry Modified, and 5 geometry-part overlays.
🌐 GISimple Integration
Authenticate against a GISimple server. Browse group-shared datasets, download uploaded files, and sync GeoJSON layers directly into QGIS.
📦 Geov Format & MiniGISimple
Import and export portable .geov ZIP projects (GeoJSON + symbology). Exchange field maps with the MiniGISimple Firefox extension. See Geov Format & MiniGISimple.
🔒 Trust & Security
Three trust modes — Trusted Accounts, Network Trusted (CIDR), and Trust All. GISimple group members are auto-trusted. Credentials stored in the QGIS credential manager.
🗄️ Host Connectors
Transactional read/write connectors for GeoPackage and PostGIS. Atomic commits with automatic GeoJSON backup and full undo/redo support.
Supported formats
✅ GeoJSON
Native support for GeoJSON files with full feature preservation.
✅ GeoPackage (.gpkg)
Complete GeoPackage support for vector and raster data.
✅ Shapefile (.shp)
Traditional shapefile format with all associated files.
✅ KML
Google Earth KML format for geographic data exchange.
✅ ZIP archives
Compressed archives containing multiple GIS files.
✅ Geov (.geov)
GeoVirtuallis project ZIP (project.json + layers/*.geojson) for QGIS ↔ MiniGISimple exchange.
✅ PostGIS
PostgreSQL spatial database connectivity.
✅ WFS
Web Feature Service protocol support.
✅ IMAP / POP3
Email protocol support for attachment retrieval.
Plugin phases
✅ Phase I - Email Reader & Attachment Downloading
Status: Complete
IMAP/POP3/EWS adapters, trust evaluation, zip extraction, GIS format validation, message caching.
✅ Phase II - Data Versioning & Commit Changes
Status: Complete
Smart/manual matching engine, attribute + geometry diff, transactional commit with backup, undo/redo, conflict detection.
✅ Phase III - GISimple Realm Integration
Status: Complete
Server-side Keycloak auth, group dataset browsing, uploaded file sync, auto-trust propagation.
Dependencies
GeoInbox uses only Python stdlib and QGIS built-in APIs. No third-party pip packages are required for core functionality.
| Component | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
QGIS |
≥ 3.28 (Qt6) | Core GIS platform |
Python |
3.12 | Bundled with QGIS 4.x |
PyQt6 |
bundled | UI framework |
SQLite |
stdlib | Local configuration storage |
exchangelib |
optional | EWS adapter (experimental) |
msal |
optional | Microsoft Graph OAuth (experimental) |