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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 handheld and remote devices.
Since <application>Evolution</application> supports most major
network protocols, including <glossterm>LDAP</glossterm>, it can
fit into almost any existing network.
</para>
<para>
Another advantage of the <application>Evolution</application>
address book is its integration with the rest of the
application. That means that 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 and all work in the same way they do in the
other components, so you don't have to learn another system for
similar tasks.
</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. The
contact manager is illustrated in <xref
linkend="usage-contact-fig">. By default, the contact manager
shows all your cards in alphabetical order, and in a
<glossterm>minicard</glossterm> format.
</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>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
The last feature is <guilabel>Quick Search</guilabel>; to use
it, just type in the name of the person you're looking for and
hit <keycap>Enter</keycap>.
<application>Evolution</application> will search through all
the cards to find one that matches.
</para>
<para>
If there are no matches, the card display will be blank. To
display <emphasis>all</emphasis> of your contacts, you can
leave the <guilabel>Quick Search</guilabel> field blank, and
press enter.
</para>
<para>
The rest of the contact manager is taken up by the display of
your cards. You can view it as a table or as a list of
cards— switch between them in the <guimenu>View</guimenu>
menu — and move through them alphabetically alphanumeric
buttons and the scrollbar at the right of the window.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="usage-contact-cards">
<title>Create, Change, and Delete Cards</title>
<para>
The easiest thing you can do with a card is delete it. To
delete a card, click on it once to select it, then press the
<guibutton>Delete Card</guibutton> button.
</para>
<para>
Any time you add new information to a card, 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>
<sect2 id="usage-contact-editor">
<title>The Contact Editor</title>
<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 full
menu bar. FIXME: The contents are still changing rapidly,
but you should be able to guess what they're for.
</para>
<figure id="usage-contact-editor-fig">
<title>Evolution Contact Editor</title>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Evolution Contact Editor</screeninfo>
<graphic fileref="fig/contact-new" 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 house for postal address; a handshake for contacts
(FIXME: I don't understand this feature, and the button
doesn't do anything yet.); 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>
<guilabel>Categories</guilabel> feature, which is discussed in
<xref linkend="usage-contact-organize">, there are a few
things you'll want to know about: the first of these is the
<guilabel>Full Name</guilabel> button.
</para>
<para>
You can enter a name into the <guibutton>Full Name</guibutton>
field, or you can click the 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 (the surname, or family name), 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>
<para>
The <guilabel>Full Name</guilabel> field has one more trick
up its sleeve: it interacts with the <guilabel>File
As</guilabel> box to help you organize your contacts. 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,
Lucianne</computeroutput>. You can pick
<computeroutput>Eva Tester</computeroutput> from the
drop-down, or type in your own, such as
<userinput>Lucianne Tester, Eva</userinput>. I suggest that
you 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
Employees" </para>
<para>
The other feature I want to mention involves the little
squares next to several of the fields. Click on them and
you'll get a menu of different labels; for the fields in the
telephone section, it's a long list involving things like
<guilabel>Home</guilabel>, <guilabel>Home 2</guilabel>,
<guilabel>Other Fax</guilabel>, and
<guilabel>Pager</guilabel>. Select from among them to
determine which four telephone numbers to display at any given
time. Of course, these connected times mean that people often
have more than four telephone numbers. You can display only
four in the editor, but <application>Evolution</application>
can remember them all for you. When you click the little
square button for the list of labels, any that you've already
filled in will be marked. </para>
<!-- FIXME: do this whole thing later.
<variablelist>
<listitem>
<term>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem> <para>
<guilabel>Name:</guilabel> Enter the person's name here
</para></listitem>
<listitem> <para>
</para></listitem>
<listitem> <para>
<guilabel>Business:</guilabel>
</para></listitem>
<listitem> <para>
<guilabel>Job Title:</guilabel>
</para></listitem>
<listitem> <para>
<guilabel>Home:</guilabel>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
-->
</sect2>
<!--- ############# 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.
Categories are discussed <xref
linkend="usage-contact-organize-group-category">.
</para>
<!--
<para>
Another useful UNIMPLEMENTED
<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. Note
that each card must be in one and only one folder, unless
you want to have duplicate cards.
</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. A dialog box will pop up with check-boxes for
different categories in it. You can select as many or as
few categories as you like.
</para>
<para>
Then, you can refer to all the cards in that category by:
</para>
<para>
If the master list of categories don'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. (FIXME: This isn't quite accurate.)
</para>
<tip id="usage-contact-categories-multiple">
<title>Another way to use Categories</title>
<para>
You can categorize contacts by typing the category
names into the <guilabel>Categories</guilabel>
field. You can also create new categories that way:
just type in a category name, and it counts as a
category.
</para>
</tip>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="usage-contact-sharing">
<title>Sharing your Cards (and keeping them to yourself)</title>
<para>
Cards can be shared over a network. 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
workgroup 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— why
overload the network with a list of babysitters, or tell
everyone in the office you're talking to new job prospects?
<application>Evolution</application> lets you decide which
folders you want to make accessible to others.
</para>
<para>
To begin sharing a folder of address cards, wait until
<application>Evolution</application> supports this
feature. (FIXME!)
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="usage-contact-automate">
<title>Extra Contact Manager Tools</title>
<para>
The most obvious contact manager tool is that it works with the
mailer and the calendar to help you add new address cards
quickly. However, it can also manage mailing lists and help
you find directions between the locations of any two contacts.
</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 by (FIXME: wait for feature implementation,
then document). 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
postal mailings.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="usage-contact-automation-extra">
<title>Map It! and other extra features</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>
