Own Contact Details / Editor pages for DWC?
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:20 am
Hi Camel,
Still loving DWC, but finding the Android 2.2 contacts system generally somewhat frustrating.
This request follows on from our previous conversation at:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2466
which got a bit off-topic, hence the new thread.
I asked before about whether you could intercept actions from the stock Contact Info page(s) and understand that that would be nothing less than a nightmare.
But am I right in thinking it would be possible to achieve the same thing much more easily by creating your own new, separate Contact detail Viewer and Editor pages specifically for DWC? (Similar to Contact Editor (Pro)).
Apart from my previous wish, that the DWC theme extend further (to the point of choosing phone number, e-mail address, etc at the Contact Info screen), I now have a new, (more useful?) reason for requesting such a feature.
The more I use my 'Droid, and the more numbers I plug in, the more I realise that the key to making it work is to make sure the data is consistent.
Since there is no hierarchical structure to the flat 'Droid Contacts system (which would allow you to have Organisations at the top level, and members, staff or contractors at lower levels, and to move or attach the members/staff to the relevant organisation(s), then be able to navigate up, down or sideways as appropriate), we are stuck with having to link contacts indirectly, using existing fields such as Organisation, Title, etc. As DWC does so brilliantly!
However, for this system to work, the user has to make sure that every "linking" entry - be it Organisation, Title or whatever - is spelled exactly the same in each linked entry. Otherwise, it doesn't link. Which brings me to my request.
Suppose, for example, we have the Organisation "John Bush Ltd", with 10 different staff members I need to list. But at the moment, I only have a few entered.
When I enter the next 6 or 8 contacts, it would be really helpful if, when you enter the Organisation and Title data, DW Contacts used a "Predictive" (lookup) system to offer the details of existing entries as you type, based on the matching first letters. Then, after a couple of letters, you should be able to select the right (and correctly spelled) organisation name from the drop-down list that appears. E.g. I type "Jo" into Organisation and DWC offers me Joe's Print Shop, Joggers Inn, John Bush Ltd, Johnson & Co, etc, and I simply select and click to enter the correct Organisation name. Would save a lot of work...!
I know I can duplicate an existing John Bush Ltd contact, which will already have the Org. name spelled correctly, but that still leaves me with getting the Job Title correct. For example, I work with manufacturing companies. They have lots of different Engineers & Managers - Design Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Maintenance Engineers, Engineering Managers, Engineering Design Managers, Maintenance Managers, Maintenance Schedulers, etc, etc. Because these titles are all quite long (and because of the limited display space in the Search result listings), I tend to abbreviate them, which creates a whole new set of problems - like, how did I abbreviate Maintenance Scheduler - Maint. Sched. or Maint.Sched or M.Scheduler or ...??? I can never remember those specifics - which of course is why we have phones with contact records... and why we have DWC!
It would also be great when, say, an employee moves to a different (already known) company, or when a Company is taken over, or otherwise changes its name.
So, would it be possible to add such a feature to your plan for DWC??? I.e a "predictive" data lookup on certain common fields when Inputting or Editing contacts?
Please
Regards,
Al
Still loving DWC, but finding the Android 2.2 contacts system generally somewhat frustrating.
This request follows on from our previous conversation at:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2466
which got a bit off-topic, hence the new thread.
I asked before about whether you could intercept actions from the stock Contact Info page(s) and understand that that would be nothing less than a nightmare.
But am I right in thinking it would be possible to achieve the same thing much more easily by creating your own new, separate Contact detail Viewer and Editor pages specifically for DWC? (Similar to Contact Editor (Pro)).
Apart from my previous wish, that the DWC theme extend further (to the point of choosing phone number, e-mail address, etc at the Contact Info screen), I now have a new, (more useful?) reason for requesting such a feature.
The more I use my 'Droid, and the more numbers I plug in, the more I realise that the key to making it work is to make sure the data is consistent.
Since there is no hierarchical structure to the flat 'Droid Contacts system (which would allow you to have Organisations at the top level, and members, staff or contractors at lower levels, and to move or attach the members/staff to the relevant organisation(s), then be able to navigate up, down or sideways as appropriate), we are stuck with having to link contacts indirectly, using existing fields such as Organisation, Title, etc. As DWC does so brilliantly!
However, for this system to work, the user has to make sure that every "linking" entry - be it Organisation, Title or whatever - is spelled exactly the same in each linked entry. Otherwise, it doesn't link. Which brings me to my request.
Suppose, for example, we have the Organisation "John Bush Ltd", with 10 different staff members I need to list. But at the moment, I only have a few entered.
When I enter the next 6 or 8 contacts, it would be really helpful if, when you enter the Organisation and Title data, DW Contacts used a "Predictive" (lookup) system to offer the details of existing entries as you type, based on the matching first letters. Then, after a couple of letters, you should be able to select the right (and correctly spelled) organisation name from the drop-down list that appears. E.g. I type "Jo" into Organisation and DWC offers me Joe's Print Shop, Joggers Inn, John Bush Ltd, Johnson & Co, etc, and I simply select and click to enter the correct Organisation name. Would save a lot of work...!
I know I can duplicate an existing John Bush Ltd contact, which will already have the Org. name spelled correctly, but that still leaves me with getting the Job Title correct. For example, I work with manufacturing companies. They have lots of different Engineers & Managers - Design Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Maintenance Engineers, Engineering Managers, Engineering Design Managers, Maintenance Managers, Maintenance Schedulers, etc, etc. Because these titles are all quite long (and because of the limited display space in the Search result listings), I tend to abbreviate them, which creates a whole new set of problems - like, how did I abbreviate Maintenance Scheduler - Maint. Sched. or Maint.Sched or M.Scheduler or ...??? I can never remember those specifics - which of course is why we have phones with contact records... and why we have DWC!
It would also be great when, say, an employee moves to a different (already known) company, or when a Company is taken over, or otherwise changes its name.
So, would it be possible to add such a feature to your plan for DWC??? I.e a "predictive" data lookup on certain common fields when Inputting or Editing contacts?
Please
Regards,
Al