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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: KMail and contacts - RMB behavior
From:       "Michael W. Collette" <metrol () metrol ! net>
Date:       2002-05-30 8:05:12
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On Wednesday 29 May 2002 09:57 am, Eric Ellsworth wrote:
> This is part of it. My KMail/OE addressbooks are the only addressbook I
> own, so I'm a heavy user.  Since I also store my contacts' phone numbers,
> and snail mail addresses in my addressbook, it's really annoying having 6
> entries for Jared Yang, one for each email address or From name he's chosen
> to use:
>     J. Yang jyang@nowhere.net
>     Jaredon jyang@fun.net
>     Jared Yang jyang@school.edu
>     Jared Yang jyang@nowhere.net
>     etc
> Presently when I want to find someone's phone, I have to look through all
> 6. This is why I'm so nuts about making it easy to put multiple email
> addresses into one contact.

I understand what you're getting at here, and why.  Unfortunately I believe 
this to be a dangerous road to go down.  Even as annoying as it may be to 
file away Mr. Yang there.  I too have similar kinds of entries going on.

The reason I say dangerous is due to my coming back around to a point I was 
trying to make upon my initial rant.  Kaddressbook needs to live in harmony 
with other data sources out there in this world.  Be it a Palm, or an LDAP 
server.  Perhaps just to get back and forth from Outlook.  Hopefully, all of 
those things.

By making kaddressbook additionally clever, however well intentioned, breaks 
compatibility with a variety of other applications that need to make use of 
this data.  In my opinion, the lowest common denominator out there is the 
Palm address book.  Its the simplest set of data, and perhaps the single most 
popular electronic address book going.  Its a very proven user interface for 
even very demanding users of contact lists.  Pretty much every sales person 
in my company (with the exception of a couple CE users) manage all their 
contacts with one.

In my mind, interactivity with other applications and appliances should take a 
very high priority over additional functionality.

>  I want simple ways to:
> 1) Add to contacts that exist (initial subject of the thread :)
> 2) Search my emails by contact for something they wrote

This already exists in KMail.  Try the "S" key.

> 3) Backup/synchronize/import/export my addressbook.  In my case, I use two
> desktop machines, both split between Windows and Mdk8/KDE.  In the best of
> all worlds, the addressbooks would stay synced between all of them (well,
> except I'd hate to deal with all the garbage that OE throws into my
> addressbook :-[ )

To my point exactly.  The only thing I honestly know about the Outlook address 
book is that it feeds viruses with juicy tid bits of information.  Thing is, 
in order for kaddressbook to insure an ability to share information with it, 
or any other variety of E-Mail and PIM clients is to keep it as simple a data 
structure as possible.  You simply can't add cleverness and keep 
compatibility going.

Later on,
-- 
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark 
to read."
 - Groucho Marx
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