[Evolution] Need help with Contacts - please

[Brewster Gillett <bg fdi us>]

Using Evo 2.28.3 and Ubuntu 10.04.

I am beginning to wonder if any of our senior experts on this list have
ever used Evolution's Contacts module. Perhaps address books went out of
fashion when I wasn't looking, and Autocomplete is the flavor of the
month now. There are some inexplicable things going on in the Contacts
section, and have been for a long time, but we rarely see it mentioned.

At present I have 70 Contacts filed. All but three are individuals.
Problems with the three that are "lists" were introduced in an earlier
email message, and have not yet been resolved. Another topic :-)

When I initiate a "NEW" email message, and follow the instructions
in the Evo Help, as reproduced here,

"Alternately, you can click the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: buttons to get a list
of the email addresses in your contacts. Select addresses and click the
arrows to move them into the appropriate address columns."

then I get the popup window listing my Contacts. Unfortunately, it has
*two* significant discrepancies. First, it only lists 60 of my
70 contacts. I have examined each one of the contacts that are being
omitted, and the few checked or populated boxes in them do not differ
in any discernible fashion from any of the ones that *are* being listed.

"Personal" is the only mailbox choice in use on any of them.

"Any" is the chosen category for all.

Three elements are the maximum (and minimum) number used in all 70
Contacts:

Full Name
File under
email address

So the only conclusion I can reach is that the popup maybe is limited
to 60 entries - can that possibly be true?

The other problem, and I have posted it here at least twice with no
responses, is that the system appears to be completely ignoring,
in all cases, the sorting according to the "File under" field 
in the Contact entries. What it is sorting by is the *first name*
of the Contact. Let me make this one very clear; when I actually
move into the Contacts module, as in to do editing of Contacts,
all the Contacts appear sorted by the "File under" field, as they
are expected to be. It is only in the "SELECT CONTACTS" popup
that appears when you are composing a new message and smack the
"To:" field that they are being incorrectly sorted on first name
from the "Full Name" field.

BTW though I shouldn't have to, I will add that every single one of the
entries in my Contacts *does* have the "File under" field populated. 

What really mystifies me is the apparent fact that I am the only user 
who has noticed these two things, so far.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can look for
to fix these problems? It's always possible that they could be the
result of something I am doing, or failing to do, though I can't see
how. Or are they bugs?

Or should I just shut up, forget about the popup and its sorting and
omission issues, and rely completely on the Autocomplete feature?

Thanks,


Brewster

-- 
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Embrace a sharing community of sustainable justice low-carbon diversity
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W. Brewster Gillett             bg fdi us            Portland, OR  USA
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Simply because you don't like to hear it, that doesn't make it untrue.
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