path: root/help/C/usage-contact.sgml

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<chapter id="usage-contact">
  <title>Working with Your Contacts</title>
  <abstract>
    <para>
      The <application>Evolution</application> address book can
      handle all of the functions of an address book, phone book, or
      Rolodex.  Of course, it's a lot easier to update
      <application>Evolution</application> than it is to change an
      actual paper book. <application>Evolution</application> also
      allows easy synchronization with hand-held devices.  Since
      <application>Evolution</application> supports the <glossterm
      linkend="ldap">LDAP</glossterm> directory protocol, you can use
      it with almost any type of existing directory server on your
      network.
    </para>
    <para>
      Another advantage of the <application>Evolution</application>
      address book is its integration with the rest of the
      application.  When you look for someone's address, you can also
      see a history of appointments with that person.  Or, you can
      create address cards from emails with just a few clicks.  In
      addition, searches and folders work in the same way they do in
      the rest of Evolution.
    </para>
    <para>
      This chapter will show you how to use the
      <application>Evolution</application> address book to organize
      any amount of contact information, share addresses over a
      network, and several ways to save time with everyday tasks. To
      learn about configuring the address book, see <xref
      linkend="config-prefs-contact">.
    </para>
  </abstract>
  <sect1 id="usage-contact-basic">
    <title>Getting Started With the Address Book</title>    
    
    <figure id="usage-contact-fig">
      <title>Evolution Contact Interface</title>
      <screenshot>
    <screeninfo>Evolution Contact List Window</screeninfo>
    <graphic fileref="fig/contact.png" srccredit="Kevin Breit">
    </graphic>
      </screenshot>
    </figure>

    <para>
      <inlinegraphic fileref="fig/full-1.png"></inlinegraphic>
      <guilabel>Contact List</guilabel>
    </para>

    <para>
      The <guilabel>Contact List</guilabel> lists your contacts which you
      entered.
    </para>

    <para>
       To open up your address book, click on
       <guibutton>Contacts</guibutton> in the shortcut bar, or select
       one of your contacts folders from the folder bar.  <xref
       linkend="usage-contact-fig"> shows the address book in all
       its organizational glory.  By default, the address book
       shows all your cards in alphabetical order, in a <glossterm
       linkend="minicard">minicard</glossterm> format.  You can select
       other views from the <guimenu>View</guimenu> menu, and adjust
       the width of the columns by clicking and dragging the grey
       column dividers.
    </para>

    <para>
       The toolbar for the address book is quite simple:
       <itemizedlist>
    <listitem><para>
           <guibutton>New</guibutton> creates a new card.
    </para></listitem>

    <listitem><para>
           <guibutton>Find</guibutton> brings up an in-depth search window.
         </para></listitem>
    
    <listitem><para>
        <guibutton>Print</guibutton> sends one or more of your cards to the printer.
    </para></listitem>
        <listitem><para>
           <guibutton>Delete</guibutton> deletes a selected card.
        </para></listitem>

        <listitem><para> <guibutton>View All</guibutton> displays all
           the address information in the folder.  Use this button to
           refresh the display for a network folder, or to switch from
           viewing the results of a search and see the whole contents.
           </para></listitem>

        <listitem><para> <guibutton>Stop</guibutton> stops loading
           contact data from the network.  This button is only
           relevant if you are looking at contact information on a
           network.  </para></listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
    </para>

    <para>
       Your contact information fills the rest of the display.  Move
       through the cards alphabetically with the buttons and the
       scrollbar at the right of the window. Of course, if you have
       more than a few people listed, you'll want some way of finding
       them more quickly, which is why there's a search feature.
    </para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-contact-cards">
    <title>The Contact Editor</title>
    <para>
      <orderedlist numeration="arabic">
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Click once on the contact.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Press <guibutton>Delete</guibutton>.
      </para>
    </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
       If you want to add or change cards, you'll use the contact
       editor.  To change a card that already exists, double click on
       it to open the contact editor window with all the current
       information already filled in.  If you want to create a new
       one, clicking the <guibutton>New</guibutton> button in the
       toolbar will open the same window, with blank entry boxes for
       you to fill in.
    </para>
    
    <para>
      The contact editor window has two tabs,
      <guilabel>General</guilabel>, for basic contact information,
      and <guilabel>Details</guilabel>, for a more specific
      description of the person.  In addition, it contains a
      <guimenu>File</guimenu> menu, (see <xref
                           linkend="menuref-contact-editor">) and a toolbar with three
        items: <guilabel>Save and Close</guilabel>,
        <guilabel>Print</guilabel>, and <guilabel>Delete</guilabel>.
      </para>
    
    <figure id="usage-contact-editor-fig">
      <title>Evolution Contact Editor</title>
      <screenshot>
    <screeninfo>Evolution Contact Editor</screeninfo>
    <graphic fileref="fig/contact-editor" format="png" srccredit="Aaron Weber">
    </graphic>
      </screenshot>
    </figure>
    
    <para> The <guilabel>General</guilabel> tab has seven sections,
      each with an icon: a face, for name and company; a telephone
      for phone numbers; an envelope for email address; a globe for
      web page address; a house for postal address; a file folder
      for contacts, and a briefcase for categories. 
    </para>
    <para>
     <variablelist>

    <varlistentry>
      <term>Full Name</term>
      <listitem>
        <para>
              The <guilabel>Full Name</guilabel> field has two
              major features:
              <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>
                    You can enter a name into the <guibutton>Full
                    Name</guibutton> field, but you can also click the
                    <guibutton>Full Name</guibutton> button to bring
                    up a small dialog box with a few text boxes
                    <variablelist>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Title: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
                      Enter an honorific or select one from the menu.
                    </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>First: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
                    Enter the first, or given, name.
             </para></listitem> 
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Middle: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
              Enter the middle name or initial, if any.
            </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Last: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
               Enter the last name (surname).
             </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Suffix: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
               Enter suffixes such as "Jr." or "III."
            </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
            </variablelist>
                   </para>
        </listitem>
            <listitem>
          <para>
                    The <guilabel>Full Name</guilabel> field also
                    interacts with the <guilabel>File As</guilabel>
                    box to help you organize your contacts.
                  </para>
                  <para>
                    To see how it works, type a name in the
                    <guilabel>Full Name</guilabel> field:
                    <userinput>Rupert T. Monkey</userinput>.  You'll
                    notice that the <guilabel>File As</guilabel> field
                    also fills up, but in reverse:
                    <computeroutput>Monkey, Rupert</computeroutput>.
                    You can pick <computeroutput>Rupert Monkey
                    </computeroutput> from the drop-down, or type in
                    your own, such as <userinput> T. Rupert Monkey
                    </userinput>.
                 </para>
          <tip>
            <title>Filing Suggestion</title>
           
            <para>
                      Don't enter something entirely different from
                      the actual name, since you might forget that
                      you've filed Rupert's information under "F" for
                      "Fictitious Ximian Employee."
                    </para>
          </tip>
        </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>
             </para>
           </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
            <term>Multiple Values for Fields</term>
            <listitem>
          <para>
                If you click on the small arrow buttons next to the
                <guilabel>Primary Email</guilabel> field, you can also
                choose <guilabel>Email 2</guilabel> and
                <guilabel>Email 3</guilabel>.  Although the contact
                editor will only display one of those at any given
                time, <application>Evolution</application> will
                store them all.  The arrow buttons next to the
                telephone and postal address fields work in the same
                way.
              </para>
          </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
      </variablelist>
     </para>
     <para>
      The last item in the <guilabel>General</guilabel> tab is the
       <guilabel>Categories</guilabel> organization tool; for
       information on that, read <xref
       linkend="usage-contact-organize">.
     </para>
     <para>
       The <guilabel>Details</guilabel> tab is much simpler:
      <itemizedlist>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        The briefcase - Describes the person's professional life
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        The face - Describes the person's personal life
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        The globe - Misc. notes
      </para>
    </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <tip>
    <title>Contact Shortcuts</title>
    <para>
      You can add cards from within an email message or calendar
      appointment.  While looking at an email, right-click on
      any email address or message, and choose
      <guimenuitem>Create Card for this Address</guimenuitem> or
      <guimenuitem>Create Card for this Sender</guimenuitem>
            from the menu.  While looking at a calendar appointment,
      right-click any email address, and choose
      <guimenuitem>Create Card for this Address</guimenuitem>.
      (NOTE that feature may change!  unimplemented!)
    </para>
      </tip>
    </para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="contact-search">
    <title>Searching for Contacts</title>
    <para>
      <application>Evolution</application> allows searching through contacts
      quickly and easily.
    </para>
    <para>
      To search through contacts:
      <orderedlist numeration="arabic">
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Select your search focus in the search bar.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Enter your query.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Press return to search.
      </para>
    </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
      You can refine searches by doing several in
      succession, or start over by pressing the <guibutton>View
    All</guibutton> button.
    </para>
    <para>
      If there are no matches, the card display will be
      blank. When you'd like to see all the cards again, press
      <guilabel>Show All</guilabel>.
    </para>
    <example id="contact-quicksearch-ex">
      <title>Refining a Quick Search</title>
      <para>
    Tom comes back from lunch and finds a note on his
    keyboard: "Curtis in sales called for you, but he didn't
    leave a number, and I forgot to write down the name of the
    company he works for. He said it was important, though."
    Tom is not at all annoyed.
      </para>
      <para>
    He opens his contacts folder, and runs a quick search for
    "Curtis." There are eighteen different people with that name
    in the file. He then enters "Sales," and
    <application>Evolution</application> narrows it down to the
    right Curtis. He only becomes annoyed when he discovers that
    the call was not actually important.
      </para>
    </example>
    
    <para>
      To perform a complex search through your contacts:
      <orderedlist numeration="arabic">
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Open
        <menuchoice>
          <guimenu>Tools</guimenu>
          <guimenuitem>Search for contacts</guimenuitem>
        </menuchoice>
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Name the rule in the <guilabel>Rule name</guilabel field.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Setup your criteria information in the <guilabel>If</guilabel> section.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        If you want to add more critera, click the <guibutton>Add
        criterion</guibutton> button.
      </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>
        Click <guibutton>Search</guibutton>.
      </para>
    </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </para>
    <para>
      To show all your contacts, select <guibutton>Show All</guibutton> in the
      <guilablel>Search Bar</guilabel> or search with an empty query.
    </para>

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-contact-organize">
    <title>Organizing your Address Book</title>
    <para>
       Organizing your address book is a lot like organizing your
       mail.  You can have folders and searches the same way you can
       with mail, but the address book does not allow vFolders.  It
       does, however, allow each card to fall under several
       categories, and allow you to create your own categories.  To
       learn about categories, read <xref
       linkend="usage-contact-organize-group-category">.
    </para>

<!--
    <para>
      Another useful <application>Evolution</application> feature is
      its ability to recognize when people live or work together.  If
      several people in your address book share an address, and you
      change the address for one of them,
      <application>Evolution</application> will ask you if you wish to
      change the address for all of them, or just for one.
    </para>
-->

    <sect2 id="usage-contact-organize-group">
      <title>Groups of contacts</title>
      <para>
         <application>Evolution</application> offers two ways for you
         to organize your cards.  The first way is to use folders;
         this works the same way that mail folders do.  For more
         flexibility, you can also mark contacts as members of
         different categories.
      </para>

      <sect3 id="usage-contact-organize-group-folder">
    <title>Grouping with Folders</title>
    <para>
       The simplest way to group address cards is to use folders.
       By default, cards start in the
       <guilabel>Contacts</guilabel> folder.  If you've read <xref
       linkend="usage-mainwindow"> then you already know that you
       can create a new folder by selecting 
           <menuchoice>
           <guimenu>File</guimenu>
       <guisubmenu>New</guisubmenu>
       <guimenuitem>Folder</guimenuitem>
           </menuchoice>
           and that you can put new folders anywhere you like. Just
       like with mail, cards must be in a card folder, and no card
       can be in two places at once.  If you want more
       flexibility, try <xref
       linkend="usage-contact-organize-group-category">.
     </para>
    <para>
          To put a card into a folder, just drag it there from the
          folder view.  Remember that contact cards can only go in
          contact folders, just like mail can only go in mail folders,
          and calendars in calendar folders.
         </para>
      </sect3>
      
      <sect3 id="usage-contact-organize-group-category">
    <title>Grouping with Categories</title>
    <para>
           The other way to group cards is to mark them as belonging
           to different categories.  The difference between folders
           and categories is that folders contain cards, but category
           membership is a property of each card.  That means that you
           can mark a card as being in several categories or no
           category at all.  For example, I put my friend Matthew's
           card in the "Business" category, because he works with me,
           the "Friends" category, because he's also my friend, and
           the "Frequent" category, because I call him all the time
           and can never remember his phone number.  
        </para>
    <para>
           To mark a card as belonging to a category, click the
           <guibutton>Categories</guibutton> button at the lower
           right.  From the dialog box that appears, you can check as
           many or as few categories as you like.
        </para>
    <para>
           Then, you can refer to all the cards in that category by:
           <!-- FIXME --> Waiting for Evolution to support the
           operation.
         </para>

       <!-- FIXME: Feature Not Implemented
    <para>

           If the master list of categories doesn't suit you, you can
           add your own.  Just enter the new category's name in the
           text box, then click <guibutton>Categories</guibutton> and
           choose <guilabel>Add to Master List</guilabel> in the
           window that appears. 
         </para>
       -->

      </sect3>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>
  
<!-- we need a LDAP server up for me to test this -->
  <sect1 id="usage-contact-sharing">
    <title>Sharing your Cards</title>
    <para>
       If you keep your cards on a network using an <glossterm
       linkend="ldap">LDAP</glossterm> server, you can share access to
       them, browse other address books, or maintain a shared set of
       contact information for your company or your department.  This
       is the sort of feature you'll want to use if your company has a
       list of vendors and clients that needs constant updating.  If
       share calendars as well as address books, people can avoid
       duplicating work and keep up to date on developments within
       their work-group or across the entire company.
    </para>

     <example id="usage-contact-sharing-ex">
    <title>Sharing Address Cards and Calendar Data</title>
      <para>
        Ray wants to schedule a meeting with Company X, so he
        checks the network for the Company X address card so he
        knows whom to call there.  Since his company also shares
        calendars, he then learns that his co-worker Deanna has
        already scheduled a meeting with Company X next Thursday.
        He can either go to the meeting himself or ask Deanna to
        discuss his concerns for him.  Either way, he avoids
        scheduling an extra meeting with Company X. 
     </para>
      </example>
    <para>
       Of course, you don't want to share all of your cards&mdash; why
       overload the network with a list of babysitters or tell
       everyone in the office you're talking to new job prospects?  If
       you keep cards on your own computer, you can decide which items
       you want to make accessible to others.
    </para>
    <para>
       To learn how to add a remote directory to your available
       contact folders, see <xref linkend="config-prefs-contact">.
       Once you have a connection, the network contacts folder or
       folders will appear inside the <guilabel>External
       Directories</guilabel> folder in the folder bar.  It will work
       exactly like a local folder of cards, with the following
       exceptions:
       <itemizedlist>

          <listitem>
      <para>
              Network folders are only available when you are
              connected to the network.  If you use a laptop or have a
              modem connection, you may wish to copy or cache the
              network directory and then synchronize your copy with
              the networked version periodically.  <!-- FIXME: HOW? -->
      </para>
      </listitem>

          <listitem>
      <para>
              To prevent excess network traffic,
              <application>Evolution</application> will not normally
              load the contents of LDAP folders immediately upon
              opening.  You must click <guilabel>Display
              All</guilabel> before LDAP folder cards will be loaded
              from the network. You can change this behavior in the
              <interface>Contact Preferences</interface> window.
          </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
      <para>
              Your ability to view, change, add, and delete contacts
              depends on the settings of the LDAP server. 
          </para>
      </listitem>
       </itemizedlist>
     </para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-contact-automate">
    <title>Address Book Tools</title>
    <para>
       The address book works closely with
       <application>Evolution</application>'s mail and calendar tools.
       For example, you can use the address book to help you manage
       mailing lists, and send or recieve address cards over email.
       More tools are on the way, and when they arrive, <!-- FIXME -->
       they will be described in this section.
    </para>

    <sect2 id="contact-automation-basic">
      <title>Send me a Card: Adding New Cards Quickly</title>
      <para>
    As noted before, when you get information about a person in
    the mail or in a calendar entry, you can add it to an address
    card.  To do so, right click on any email address or email
    message, and select <guimenuitem>Add Address
    Card</guimenuitem> from the menu that appears.  Of course,
    <application> Evolution</application> also adds cards from a
    hand-held device during HotSync operation.  For more
    information about that, see <xref linkend="usage-sync">.
      </para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="contact-automation-lists">
      <title>Managing a Mailing list</title>
      <para>
     You already know that when you are writing an email, you can
     address it to one or more people, and that
     <application>Evolution</application> will fill in addresses
     from your address book's address cards if you let it.  In
     addition to that, you can send email to everyone in a
     particular group if you choose.
      </para>

<!-- FIXME this feature not yet implemented 

      <para>
         You can also use the address book to print postal addresses
     on mailing labels.  Future versions of
     <application>Evolution</application> will allow you to you
     export a group of cards to a spreadsheet, database, or word
     processor so you can print address labels or prepare large
     mailings.
      </para>
 -->

    </sect2>
    <!---  FIXME this feature not yet implemented 
  <sect2 id="usage-contact-automation-extra">
  <title>Map It!</title>
  <para>
    Need a map or directions? Click
  <guibutton>MapIt</guibutton> from within the contact
    manager, and <application>Evolution</application> will
    map the address for you online.
  </para>
  </sect2>
    -->
    
    
  </sect1>
</chapter>