Groups and Sub-Groups

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AlCan
Posts: 150
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 10:00 pm
Location: New Zealand

Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by AlCan »

Hi DWP,

Sorry so long since I posted... Of course, still love DWP, just been busy.

I'm trying to better organise my contacts. I know DWP can create Subgroups inside Groups and I'm trying to use the feature. But it doesn't seem to work as I'd expect. Here's what I've found.

To create a sub-group, I go to the Groups tab and Long Tap the chosen group. The Menu appears. Choose 'Edit Group'.

An 'Edit group' screen appears. Click into the end of the 'Group Name' field. After the existing group name, type in ".subgroup" where "subgroup" is the name of the new subgroup. Press 'Save'.

Note, Camel's instructions in: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2254&p=3013
camel wrote:BUG-FIXING:
.) group / sub-group: add on the end of line ">" to be market a sub-group
have a typo. ">" should be "." to make a new sub-group.

So, say you have a Group named 'Colours'. Adding ".Red" to the end of the name and pressing 'Save' will cause a new group 'Red' to be created inside 'Colours'.

However. any contacts that were inside the Colours group will be moved into the new group Red, inside Colours. I wouldn't expect that.

So, the first question is: Can you have Contacts and Subgroups inside a Group - like you can have Files and Folders inside a Folder as in Windows etc?

Next, once the first group has been created, the Long Tap Menu usually disappears from the 'Colours' group entry. I can't Long Tap on Colours any more. So, creating a second new subgroup becomes tricky. Note that this problem only occurs if the Group's e-mail address and Contact count details are not showing in the relevant Group entry in the Groups list. Sometimes they are there, but mostly, they're not. It may be that this always happens when the first subgroup is created, but I haven't confirmed that.

So, to create a second subgroup beside the first one, you have to use a different method. In the Groups tab, first, note the exact spelling of the group you want to create a subgroup in. Click [ + ] or the Menu button then 'New Group' to create a new Top Level group. Select the appropriate Account, e.g. Google... Only now, instead of creating a new top level group, type in the full name of the new subgroup, e.g. "Colours.Green" into the 'Group Name' field. The new subgroup will be created, but if you get the main group name wrong, another top level group will also be created. However, creating a new Group.Subgroup in this way doesn't result in the Long Tap menu disappearing.

Obviously, there are some inconsistencies there.

Can you please clarify for me whether you can have contacts and subgroups inside one group?

Also, if anyone watching has used the sub-groups feature, how have you liked it? Is it worth doing, or is it faster to just use more top level groups? I'm tending to think that's the case, but welcome any comments.

Cheers,
A
Last edited by AlCan on Thu May 02, 2013 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Currently (i.e Now, not necessarily the date of this post)
using DW Contacts & Dialer version 2.5.3.0-pro
On Motorola Defy with Android 2.2.2 (Work Phone)
AlCan
Posts: 150
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 10:00 pm
Location: New Zealand

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by AlCan »

Hi again,

Found some more anomolies.

If you have several subgroups, on my phone, to delete a subgroup, you have to delete it twice to get it to delete.

Also, the method of creating sub-groups by adding '.newgroup' to the end of the name of an existing group is problematic. When doing it this way, you end up with a "broken" top level group entry, that you can't see the Contact count e.g.(5) at the end of the line, nor the group Account data on the next line. When this happens, you can no longer access the Long Tap menu for that group.

The best way is to Add New group, then type the Group Name as: 'Group.subgroup'

Regards,
A
Last edited by AlCan on Fri May 03, 2013 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Currently (i.e Now, not necessarily the date of this post)
using DW Contacts & Dialer version 2.5.3.0-pro
On Motorola Defy with Android 2.2.2 (Work Phone)
dwp
Site Admin
Posts: 713
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:46 pm

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by dwp »

Hi A
Yes, as you can see.
You need to create a new group.

When you use the group editor to modify the name of the group is equivalent to moving group.

In your example
"Colours" is modified to "Colours.Red"
This is equal to the folder "Colours" to move to "Colours.Red"
When you want to undo this modification.
You need to open the "Colours"
And then hold down the "Red" in the pop-up menu, you can edit the name of the group again.

I think in your case.
Already contains a contact group "Colours"
You need to re-classification of these contact.

You need to create a new group "Colours.Red".
And then move the contact to this group.
AlCan
Posts: 150
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 10:00 pm
Location: New Zealand

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by AlCan »

Hi DWP,

Ok, thanks for that.

Any comment about losing access to the Long Tap menu when creating a new subgroup using the Edit existing Group method? (Then the group account details also do not appear?) That is tricky to fix and makes the feature very hard to use, so seems like a bug to me. Maybe it's OS version specific?

Also, how about the need to delete twice to delete a subgroup?

I guess very few people actually use the subgroups feature so no one has complained, but having to add subgroups by typing in the whole group.subgroup(.subgroup...) pathname (or tree) is not obvious nor simple to me. (It's reminiscent of the old DOS days of computing when you needed to read the manual to figure out what a program could do!)

It's such a great feature (currently not being well used) and I'm sure many more people would use it if it was just a bit easier to uncover. May I please suggest that you add a little bit to the program so that everyone can then easily see the option to create sub-groups, and the way(s) to create them? To me, the real beauty of subgroups in Android is that it allows the user to create multiple pathways to a contact.

For example, you might be a Construction Project Manager. You might have a group of Subcontractors. Below that, you might have subgroups for Plumbers, Electricians, Drainlayers, Data Cablers, Building Automation Installers, Ventilation Services, Glaziers, etc. Joe might be a Plumber, but Bob is a Plumber and a Drainlayer, while Fred is an Electrician, Data cabler and a Building Automation Installer. Bob could be added to three groups without needing to duplicate his contact. Similarly, Fred in Electricians and Data cablers, while Joe might also be a friend, so he can be added to your Friends group as well, while Fred is also a member of your Service Club...

Many more people, like me, will want to divide contacts into Business and Personal (maybe even Hide the Personal ones), and subgroups provides great benefits for these people.

My suggestion:
Part1: when in the Groups Tab|Groups List view, when tapping [ + ] in the Title bar, or Menu|New group, either before or after the Select Account step, add a new step which simply says "Add group" or "Add subgroup"? The possibility is then obvious. If the user chooses "Add subgroup", then ask them to "Select group". If there are already Subgroups in that Group, then they need to choose either "Select subgroup" and drill down further, or "Create subgroup" in the current group, which will take them to the "Add subgroup" editor, which is just like the "Add group" editor, but which 'knows' the current group-subgroup path. They should then not need to type in the whole tree, just the name of the new subgroup, and the editor does the rest.

Part2, when already in a Group (Contacts view), then tap the Menu button then "More", could you add a new Menu entry above "Grid view" which says "Add subgroup" ? Maybe there should also (still) be a [ + ] button in the title bar which accesses the "Add subgroup" editor. Either one would then open the Add subgroup editor as in Part1 above.

Since the subgroup functionality is mostly already there and working, this seems to be only a matter of creating a couple of new menu entries and a new version of the Group editor.

What do you say?

Cheers,
AlCan
Currently (i.e Now, not necessarily the date of this post)
using DW Contacts & Dialer version 2.5.3.0-pro
On Motorola Defy with Android 2.2.2 (Work Phone)
dwp
Site Admin
Posts: 713
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:46 pm

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by dwp »

Hi Alcan
Thank you!
Very good suggestions. This will make more people will use this feature.
I will add it in future versions.
pythagorian
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2016 7:28 pm

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by pythagorian »

I just began using the subgroup feature and it seems to have been updated. I can create a subgroup from the Groups page by tapping on the 3 dots and then on New. There is a dropdown menu to select the Parent group, so there is no need to worry about misspellings.

Once I create the subgroup, I use the multi select create when I am in the Parent group and check the contacts that I want to move into the subgroup. I tap on the 3 dots (BTW if someone knows a formal name for the 3 dots, please let me know I and then tap on Move To. I can then move them into to subgroup.

The subgroups appear within the Parent Group list, at the top. The contacts that have been moved also remain in the Parent list. I am tempted to remove the those contacts from the Parent Group list and have them only in the subgroup. But I am afraid that would mess up their organization in Google Contacts. So I plan an experiment by creating some dummy contacts and a dummy group. I will report the results when I actually do it.
devin
Posts: 1337
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:16 am

Re: Groups and Sub-Groups

Post by devin »

Hello
Now it works is that when you open the parent group it will display all contained in the sub group of contacts.
For example, you create a company group and sub-group contains various sectors. When you open your company should need to see all contacts belonging to this company. So we show all the contacts included in the sub-group.
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