Bug 110350 - different structure to manage phones/email/IM items
Summary: different structure to manage phones/email/IM items
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: kab3
Classification: Miscellaneous
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Debian testing Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tobias Koenig
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2005-08-07 17:25 UTC by Marco Menardi
Modified: 2009-08-05 16:26 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Marco Menardi 2005-08-07 17:25:03 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.4.1)
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages
OS:                Linux

I propose a different structure for KAddressbook data, that, on my opinion, is much more flexible and effective in office usage.
The current structure seems be taken from early PIM assistants, with a very limited capacity, and a rigid structure of data (vCard).
In fact, you have a predefined number of fields where enter phone numbers/emails and whatever, with only a limited set of description for the fields (i.e. home, work, work fax, mobile...).
A program in Delphi that I've build time ago and that I find very effective has a different aproach.
a) you have unlimited number of items (telephones, e-mails, etc.) associated to a contact (master-detail tables)
b) you have a free description of the item (i.e. "wife's phone", "Rome office L2" (I use "L2" as mnemonic to indicete "second phone line"), "private e-mail", etc.
c) you have a list of "types" of item, that currently in my program is: phone, mobile, fax only, phone and fax, e-mail
d) an "additional info" field, so it can contain the IM protocol, if the item is of type IM, or the type of switch if the numeber is associated with a phone+fax (manual/automatic)
e) you can order them at will (so you put on top the more used), thanks to an "order" field

Very draft screenshot (just to give you an idea)
http://www.ammdomus.it/download/KDE/kontact_addresses_03.png

Advantages:
1) you can manage every situations, with a unlimited numbers of "items" per contact, as for people with more than one office, or with a lot of people that can be contacted but have to belong to the same contact (so you have "A.C.M.E. inc." as contact, and numbers/faxes/e-mails of the director, a pair of managers, the responsable of marketing, one secretary, an employee that is a friend of you, etc.)
2) you have separation between the number/e-mail, the description, and the "type" of technology (phone/fax/e-mail/messanger...). This greately helps when automatically dialing, or for other automatic management of these information
3) when you want to contact someone, you can filter the important info in a snap, i..e if you have to make a call, show only the rows of type "phone" or "phone and fax", if you have to send a mail, just the type "e-mail", etc., or have them showed in different color/icons
4) these data can be the base of data for a pecific telphony CRM/CTI program, with call queues, call annotations, etc. (I'm thinking about an integration with Asterisk or Yate PBX, for instance)

Disadvantages:
when you have to synch with a portable PIM (like iPaq), you don't have a 1:1 correspondence with the fields, since it uses the vCard desigh. To overcome this, there can be used multiples aproaches (the first that comes me to my mind is add one more field with "PIM sync vcard kind" that contains the old classifications, so the transfer can work with those items that have tha field that matches). In any case, the current situation is already of partial match.
Comment 1 Cornelius Schumacher 2007-01-19 01:55:40 UTC
Having a user-defined description of phone numbers/emails etc. would actually be a nice feature. We could even add that on top of the vCard format.

All the CRM-like features like taking notes for a phone call and associate it with a contact or having a queue for phone calls are also nice features. We have to be careful to not confuse the user which doesn't need them, though.
Comment 2 Tobias Koenig 2009-08-05 16:26:19 UTC
The development of the old KAddressBook will be discontinued for KDE 4.4.
Since the new application has the same name, but a completly new code base we close all bug reports against the old version and ask the submitters to resend there reports against the new product.