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

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<chapter id="usage-contact">
  <title>The Evolution Contact Manager</title>
  <abstract>
    <para>
      The <application>Evolution</application> contact manager 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>
      contact manager 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 get an e-mail with contact information in
      it and create a new address card on the spot.  In addition,
      searches and folders work in the same way they do in the
      other components.
    </para>
    <para>
      This chapter will cover using the
      <application>Evolution</application> contact manager 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 contact manager, see <xref
      linkend="config-prefs-contact">.
    </para>
  </abstract>
  <sect1 id="usage-contact-basic">
    <title>Getting Started With the Contact Manager</title> 
    
    <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 Contact Manager in all
       its organizational glory.  By default, the contact manager
       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>


    <figure id="usage-contact-fig">
      <title>Evolution Contact Manager</title>
      <screenshot>
    <screeninfo>Evolution Contact Manager Window</screeninfo>
    <graphic fileref="fig/contact" format="png" srccredit="Aaron Weber">
        </graphic>
      </screenshot>
    </figure>

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

    <listitem><para>
           <guibutton>Find</guibutton> brings up an in-depth search window.
         </para></listitem>
    
    <listitem><para>
        Press <guibutton>Print</guibutton> to print one or more cards.
    </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> Stop 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. By
       default, <application>Evolution</application> shows it as a set
       of small address cards, but you can set it to appear as a table
       with the options in the <guimenu>View</guimenu> menu. 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>

    <sect2 id="contact-search">
      <title>Searching for Contacts</title>
      <para>
       Between <guilabel>Delete</guilabel> and <guilabel>View
           All</guilabel> is <guilabel>Quick Search</guilabel>. To use
           it, just type in one or more words you're looking for and
           hit <keycap>Enter</keycap>.
           <application>Evolution</application> will search through
           the contents of every displayed card to find one that
           matches. In other words, you can refine searches by doing
           several in succession.
    </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>.
 <!--  **************************************************
           If you're sneaky, you can
       enter a blank search &mdash; every contact has at least one
       space in it, so you'll display them all. NOTE: This may not actually work.
 ******  -->
      </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>
        If you prefer to perform a more complex search, press
        <guibutton>Find</guibutton> or choose
        <menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Search for
        Contact</guimenuitem></menuchoice>. This will open the in-depth search window, which
        lets you use multiple search criteria in the same way that
        email filters and <glossterm linkend="vfolder">vFolders</glossterm> do..
      </para>    
      <para>
        Click <guibutton>Add Criterion</guibutton> to increase the
        number of criteria you'd like to use in the search, and
        <guibutton>Remove Criterion</guibutton> to remove one from the
        bottom of the list.  Your criteria may be a search within the
        <guilabel>Name</guilabel> or <guilabel>Email</guilabel>
        fields; alternately you can choose to search through all the
        fields with a regular expression.  Then, you can select from
        all the familiar requirements like <guilabel>Begins
        With</guilabel> and <guilabel>Does Not Contain</guilabel>,
        decide whether to match <guilabel>All</guilabel> or
        <guilabel>Any</guilabel> of your criteria, and press
        <guibutton>Search</guibutton> to set it all off.
      </para>
    
    </sect2>

  </sect1>
  <sect1 id="usage-contact-cards">
    <title>Destroy, Create, and Change: The Contact Editor</title>
    <para>
       To delete a card, click on it once to select it, then press the
       <guibutton>Delete Card</guibutton> button.  If you have
       multiple cards selected, you'll delete multiple cards.
    </para>
    <para>
       Adding or changing cards is slightly more complicated.  Any
       time you add information to the contact manager, whether it's
       an old card you're editing or a new card you're just adding to
       your address book, you'll use the contact editor.  To change a
       card that already exists, just double click 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 Card</guibutton> button will open up that same
       window, but with empty fields instead of full ones.  Either
       way, it's the same tool for quite similar tasks, and you'll
       find that it's pretty flexible and can store quite a lot more
       than you'd think would fit onto a file card.
    </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, covered in <xref
        linkend="menuref-contact-editor">, and a toolbar with three
        items: <guilabel>Save and Close</guilabel>,
        <guilabel>Print</guilabel>, and <guilabel>Delete</guilabel>.
        After that, however, it gets slightly more complicated, as you
        can see in <xref linkend="usage-contact-editor-fig">.
      </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 contains no less
        than 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.  You can guess what sort of information belongs in
        fields like <guilabel>Job Title</guilabel> and <guilabel>Web
        page address</guilabel>, but there are several parts of the
        window that are a little more interesting.
    </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>
                     The person's first, or given, name.
             </para></listitem> 
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Middle: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
              The middle name or initial, if any, goes here.
            </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Last: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
               The last name (surname) belongs here.
             </para></listitem>
              </varlistentry>
              <varlistentry>
            <term><guilabel>Suffix: </guilabel></term>
            <listitem> <para>
               Suffixes such as "Jr." or "III" can go here. 
            </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>Eva Lucianne Tester</userinput>.
                    You'll notice that the <guilabel>File
                    As</guilabel> field also fills up, but in reverse:
                    <computeroutput>Tester, Eva</computeroutput>.
                    You can pick <computeroutput>Eva
                    Tester</computeroutput> from the drop-down, or
                    type in your own, such as <userinput>Lucianne
                    Tester, Eva</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 Eva's information under "F" for
                      "Fictitious Helix Code 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
                remember 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.  That's
       really its own topic; for information on that, read <xref
       linkend="usage-contact-organize">.
     </para>
     <para>
       The <guilabel>Details</guilabel> tab is, fortunately, much more
       simple: three sections, all of which are more or less obvious:
       the briefcase next to the details about the contact's
       professional life; the face next to the details about their
       personal life; the globe next to a big blank space you can use
       for anything and everything else you'd like to note about them.
       If you ever wanted to have that uncanny knack for remembering
       obscure details like the date of someone's anniversary (perhaps
       your own) this is the answer.
     </para>




<!--- ############# This section isn't implemented yet either:
    <sect2>
      <title></title>
      <para>
        <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>
      <para>
        You can move cards around just as you would move email
        messages: dragging and dropping works, as does right-clicking
        and choosing <guimenuitem>Move</guimenuitem> from the menu
        that appears.
      </para>
    </sect2>
############### SHORTCUT SECTION COMMENTED OUT FOR NOW -->

  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-contact-organize">
    <title>Organizing your Contact Manager</title>
    <para>
       Organizing your contact manager is a lot like organizing your
       mail.  You can have folders and searches the same way you can
       with mail, but the contact manager 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 contact manager 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>
  
  <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
       you also share your calendars, 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, and will work
       exactly like a local folder of cards, with the following
       exceptions:
       <itemizedlist>

          <listitem><para>
              They 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.
          </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 or delete
              contacts depends on the settings of the LDAP server.
              For example, you may read all the entries in the public
              Netcenter directory (available by default in the
              <guilabel>External Directories</guilabel> folder), but
              you may not change or delete any of them.
           </para></listitem>
       </itemizedlist>
     </para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="usage-contact-automate">
    <title>Contact Manager Tools</title>
    <para>
       The contact manager works with
       <application>Evolution</application> mail and the calendar to
       help you add new address cards quickly.  However, it can also
       manage mailing lists.  There are more tools planned, 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 contact manager'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 contact manager to handle lists of
     postal addresses to print for 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>
<!--
    <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>