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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    [Kde-pim] KAddressbook Suggestions (& some bugs)
From:       Andreas Mair <amair () gmx ! de>
Date:       2002-06-01 19:19:02
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Hi,

I've played around with the KAdressbook a lot (had to enter dozends of new 
addresses) and so I found some things that should be done to improve 
usability and "acceptability" by users. In the company I'm working for there 
are other KAB users which have the same thoughts. I would be glad if there 
are any responses in what this list thinks about that suggestions (and even 
more glad if those things get included in a future release :-)

But first some details of my system (if you need more, please let me know):
- Intel Pentium4
- Linux kernel v2.4.18
- KDE v3.0.1 (compiled from source)

* Main window's listview
- I think that the list gets very uncomfortable to browse/view if you have 
entered a lot of addresses. There's missing some hierarchy. I think this 
could be done if you use a tree-listview (treeview) with some fields in the 
list, e.g. "company" and "category". So you can open/close addresses 
belonging to a company or having set a category.

- "assistant's name" and "manager's name" should be links to the KAB entry.

- Some hierarchy on the entries would be useful. You could tell e.g. which 
manager has whom under authority (which might be of course has other persons 
under his/her authority). Could also be used for families. 

- It would be a nice feature if one could edit the shown fields directly in 
the listview.

- Hitting DEL should bring up a warning dialogbox.

- Choosing the shown fields, should not re-arrange their positions, so you 
should be able to arrange the fields' positions in the "choose fields" 
dialog.

- Context menu for address lines: Edit, Delete, Add to distribution list 
(Sub-menu with existing distribution lists), Send E-Mail (sub-menu if more 
than one email address), Visit Homepage. Above that it should be 
configurable, so that e.g. a telephone application could include an entry to 
call that person, or another app could include a send a letter...

- Toggling the current view mode: e.g. by category, by company, by vcard 
(configurable)

- Maybe each address line should have a tooltip, that displays all available 
fields of that contact or only the user selectable fields. I think this could 
be useful if you set up your list to only show e.g. name, email, category but 
want to have a quick overview of some other fields, like e.g. nickname, 
telephon, homepage...

- "Incremental search": Pressing a key jumps to the address line starting with 
that letter - ok. Pressing another key jumps to the line starting with that 
letter - hmm. I think it would be better if one can simply type and search as 
if the cursor would be in the "inc. search" editfield, searching the column 
currently being sorted (shortcut for changing current column needed!). One 
could press RETURN to select the found line or ESC to clear the entry buffer 
and go back to the previously selected line. The statusline could inform you 
of the currently type search string, which should be cleared/escaped after a 
couple of seconds where nothing has been typed.

- I think we need a better find feature (if you can call "inc. search" a find 
feature ;-)  One should be able to search for more than one field. Maybe 
there should be an editfield above every column of the listview. These 
editfields should perform ANDed searches.

* Contact Editor
- Displaying addresses edited with the help of the address editor should be 
localized: in my german KDE the zip code is below the city, that's not what 
addresses look like here in Germany.

- It's not possible to enter the address in the textfield and then open the 
address editor - it's simply empty. Even not if I enter an address with the 
address editor, copy the textfield content and paste it in another contacts 
textfield. I think this has to be improved, especially if I enter foreign 
addresses which have another layout - KAB should recognize them correctly.

- "Category" field should be available (preferable in the first tab page). It 
should be setable/editable like in KOrganizer.

- Configureable editor dialog would be a nice feature.

- The editor dialog should save the state of all the comboboxes when it its 
left to reset it the next time it is called (for every entry).

- Save and restore the editor's window size and position.

- There should be a default for "file as", so that I can file all my contacts 
by "surname, firstname" without setting it every time.

- The name editor should offer international/foreign titles. In my german kde 
I have the values "Herr", "Frau"..., but I sometimes enter english contacts 
with titles "Mr." or "Mrs.". Maybe this list should be editable by the user.

- The "Address..." button should be before the Combobox (where you can select 
"privat", "business" or "other") in the TAB order.

- Leaving the "Street" textfield in the address editor should be possible with 
the TAB key.

- Telephone numbers should be converted to some kind of standardized format 
(don't now where it's defined at the moment, ISO or DIN)

- Maybe there should be more than one web-address field.

- One should be able to set a comment for each email address so that (s)he can 
tell if it's private, business...

* Distribution Lists
- The editor should allow doubleclick on entries or drag-n-drop to add them to 
a list.

- In the treeview (we maybe get) there should be a node which contains all 
distribution lists. Adding, deleting of those lists should be possible there  
via context menus. Adding persons to a list should be possible with 
drag-n-drop.

* Other stuff
- Some printing would be nice. E.g. configurable lists, vcards.

- More exporting formats (e.g. HTML), modes like printing above.


* Bugs
- Sometimes arranging the columns of the listview and resizing them has 
strange behaviour: e.g. if I resize column 3, column 2 gets resized instead. 
Sorry, can't reproduce it. Now and then that's the case, will give you more 
info when I have it...

- After saving the address book, column 1 resizes to a certain width. If I 
don't change the width and save again, it's not resized, but if I change the 
width, it resizes again that certain width.

- After saving the address book the "file as" field resets to the default 
(Title, Firstname, Middlename...). Very annoying...

Kind regards,
Andreas

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