Re: [Evolution] Need help with Contacts

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

There is no need to mangle subjects like "Re: [Evolution] Need help with
Contacts/Adam" or address specific people in response;  threading of the
messages will do that for you/us.

On Sun, 2010-08-29 at 19:07 -0700, Brewster Gillett wrote:
> bg:
> > > 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 :-)
> > Yes, representing anything other than contacts is problematic.  This
> > isn't entirely Evolution's fault;  the vCard spec provides no way to
> > represent anything other than a Contact.
> You're confusing me here, Adam - the "lists" I refer to are a standard
> part of the Evo Contacts module, according to the documentation -
> there should be no reason I cannot file 12 names and email addresses
> under one Contact and thereby create a Contact List.

There isn't a reason you can't;  but it does make the interface odd.
And if you are syncing the addressbook with a server the results are
undefined.

>  I have done it
> successfully quite often in the past.  And with lists a whole lot larger
> than 12. These would not constitute "anything other than a Contact" so
> far as I am aware....???
> > > 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."
> > Yep.
> > > 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.
> <snip>
> > > So the only conclusion I can reach is that the popup maybe is limited
> > > to 60 entries - can that possibly be true?
> > Could be.  I'd say that the default behavior is broken anyway - listing
> > ANY contacts by default is incorrect.  
> That doesn't make any sense - right above here I reproduce the
> specific instructions from the help module that tell you you
> will get a Contacts listing whenever you smack the "To:", "Cc:",
> or "Bcc:" buttons on your new emnail.
> > Can you search for your contacts?
> I'm unclear on exactly what you mean by that term in this context.

There is a "search" field in the dialog that appears.  If the left pane
of the dialog does not list all your contacts when the dialog initially
opens can you search for the absent ones?

> I can go to the Contacts area, where I see my list of all 70 Contacts
> marching across the top of the screen, in proper "File under"
> order, and I need only click on one of them to drop down its
> edit window, say, if someone changes their email address.
> I can also start typing in the "To:" field of the new email, and
> that may cause Autocomplete to call up the full name and address.
> I suppose it's doing a search, in that case.
> > [What if you have thousands of contacts, do you expect them all to be
> > listed?  Either (a) the program will try and probably crash or hang or
> > (b) only a subset will be listed and the user will be confused.
> > Conclusion: list none]
> A good question.I don't have an answer. All I know is that the Evo docs,
> as I copied above, do provide that the Contacts list will appear any
> time you click one of those three fields when editing a new message.
> > > 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.
> > Hmm.  I've give that a try.
> > > 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. 
> > Can you even save a contact without that field filled in?
> No - it autocompletes based on some algorithm that selects
> last name first, if the "Full Name" entry above it appears
> to be a person's name, as opposed to, say, a corp or other org.
> It will let you backspace the entry out, but I note that when
> you do, the "OK" block at the bottom right of the individual Contact
> edit window is greyed out - so it's not gonna let you save with that
> "File under" field blank. 
> Given the software's insistence that the "File under" field be
> populated, it's all the more galling that the software totally
> ignores it when popping up the list in composition mode :-)

Well, this goes back to the statement above about not really working for
anything other than Contacts.