Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

First off, thanks very much for the source! It's excellent, both in and of itself and as an example of how to do this type of work.

Do you do development on the/a device? Do you recommend a particular way of testing changed packages on the device (N950, in my case)?

And separately, have you considered a merge tool that suggests a whole bunch of merges at one point, like the N900's "Merge Contacts" feature? I don't know if it's Ovi/Nokia Sync or switching from First/Last to Last/First view and back, but I've got four copies of lots of contacts and it's a real pain to individually go through the merge process for every one; as new contacts come in via parsing of email recipients the annoyance will only grow.

Thanks again for reaching out and for the source.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Hi,

I'd just like to say thanks very much for the great work - I've had my N9 for a week and love it more and more every day. The services/contacts and messaging framework is a prime example of why: it's how mobile devices should abstract all this stuff, instead of being tied to one service provider.

I've used mc-tool to add my generic jabber account, but I'd assumed that a service was going to be added in a future firmware release. Is this definitely not the case?

I would also like to vote for the option to hide the SMS button for non-mobile numbers. The N900 had that very option. Another thing I'm missing from that is separate work and home mobile number categories.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

you have no idea how high and thick the walls are between the business units.

For sure the windows department is very well separated from the
small group of unixers. By site, if not by country.

So the partner up with MS doesnt mean a lot for the meego boys.
As far i can tell. At least not yet.

--
by the way, this is a pheomen visible in many giant corporations
(especially if they had a lot of aquisitions, i have visited the trolltech boys once.. they are all by themself holed up in oslo,norway.. still today.... - all thats common, is the exchange server, and the domain in their email address)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

C'est strange. Since youre able to use MSN on the N900, I mean. Cant be THAT difficult to get on the N9, can it? And if it isnt obvious by now; I have no idea how any of this works, SW wise. :P

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

That's the difference between an official implementation by MS and a reverse-engineered free one. On the N900, there's (my favourite among others) the msn-pecan telepathy plugin, taken from pidgin, the open source desktop IM client. It's not official in the slightest. The developer's guessed how MSN works and written something that approximates it.

Harmattan uses telepathy too, albeit a newer version, so it would probably be relatively straightforward to migrate one of these plugins over from the n900. However, this would only give you telepathy compatibility which would mean accounts can only be added via the 'mc-tool' command in the terminal, and aren't displayed properly in the contacts app. A full implementation would require registering an MSN service that registers msn-haze or pecan as its IM provider, which involves a lot more new work. That said, this is what the services framework is supposed to provide for, so I bet it's a pleasant experience to implement.

Of course, a full MSN/Live service which could from one msn login add hotmail to the mail app, msn im, skydrive media sharing and a feed from messenger social would be nice. That's the kind of thing that this framework was designed to support. :D

If there are any holes in my understanding of all this, I'd love to learn more.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

^ You're pretty spot-on from what i can tell, & based on what the Nokia dev's already been saying so far.
Nicely summarized....

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Add me to the chorus of kudos for this - there's a "smoother" feel to the Contacts and IM integration than the N900 had. And that was pretty smooth in and of itself.

MfE connected to Google got me my contacts (only synching those) using standard email for GMail, and CalDAV for (multiple) calendar synching.

However, the birthdays of my contacts are one day off - one day early. Right there in the text in the contact record. Is there a bug I can go add my clamor to?

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

I like the way N9 handle messages. However, would it be possible to merge all the messaging log with a contact via different channels, and hitting the protocol button at the left hand side of the text input widget will allow me to choose which channel should be used to send the message?

For example, I have a contact foo who is on both Google Talk and Facebook Chat. So instead of having 2 different messaging logs (one for each communication channel), is it possible to merge them as one? Then to send foo a message, I can just tap on the protocol button (either google talk or facebook chat) to change which channel (protocol?) to use to send him/her message?

Sometimes the widgets in the messaging view are not very tap friendly. Sometimes it is friggin difficult to activate message composition mode for replying, and tapping the contact icon to open his/her profile also need super precision.... which is a bit annoying

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

awesome thanks =]

call me silly, but who? how can i contact him/them? im sure its an easy fix for them so shouldn *cross fingers*

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

I do develop in scratchbox, and rely mostly on the test suite to check that I didn't break anything. We then of course have testers who check with the device.
I'm not sure if you're allowed to replace a system package (qtcontacts-tracker) with a package that you built yourself, since its AEGIS origin will not be signed. I don't exactly know how the security works for N950 :-/ If it ever blocks you from doing it, one possible hack (just thinking out loud, untested) would be to just change the soname so that it gets scanned *before* the normal libqtcontacts-tracker.so (name it libaaaaa.so). The second "tracker" contact manager should then be ignored.

Using ovi sync and two devices is the best way to get duplicates. Ovi sync is quite stupid, and even having it *disabled* I had duplication issues. In a more general way, I hate how nokia forces you to have this crappy ovi account just to use maps. But I digress :) Future version will have an automerge button that will partially solve that issue, it however stays quite conservative in finding merge candidates. Having a third party merge application would be a good idea too (one that would do interactive merge, vs. unattended for contacts app). You might want to look at the libqtcontacts-extensions-tracker lib then, which has a merge request function ("merge" is not a stock qt-mobility operation).

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Good to hear :)

I can't really comment on that officially, but I would say it is very unlikely that Nokia will provide a jabber account plugin. I would rather expect the community to do that.

About the option: We have quite some space in the settings panel for contacts, I'll forward that to the UI designers

About the subtypes: I never understood why the UI mixes "context " (work, home) and "subtype" (landline, mobile, fax...), since those are two different things semantically, and in our API. A weird UI decision indeed.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

As I said in an earlier message, I once package papyon and telepathy-python, and it worked (got MSN contact list imported etc), so adding MSN support is definitely possible. The part I didn't do is the account plugin (slightly more tricky, but nothing impossible).

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

The birthdays of your contacts are coming from caldav I guess? Since we don't have that feature (yet) in sales release...

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

While that is technically possible (afaik), it's not the UI design that has been chosen... So I'd say it's unlikely it'll ever be done in the official "Messages" app. All the messages are in Tracker though, so it would be easy to merge them in one unified conversation.


The text field tapping has been improved and will get better in future releases.
About the contact icon, I think you're the first person complaining about it, not sure if the touch area could be made larger...

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

See http://wiki.maliit.org/Contact , it's all open source :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

oh, ok, because it can be kinda annoying having a lot of messaging app open just to send message to a single person (if I can't get him/her through gtalk/facebook, then i would send her a text message, hence there are 3 apps open). But I can still live with this. So everything is saved to tracker (I suppose this is an RDF store?)? then it should be possible to write an app to export a unified conversation log right?

thanks for the prompt reply :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

They are indeed. Many of them began life in my N900, pulled in from Facebook via Hermes, merged with my Mac's address book with iSync and then synched with Google Contacts using Spanning Sync. Thence to the N9 via mfe.

I suppose the fact that it was at all possible is impressive. :p

Thanks for the reply - I await the next rev of the retail code.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Hi,

I would like to report a couple bugs on the N9, I haven't seen anyone mentioning the use of SIP on the N9, but it is something I use a lot, so it is an annoying for me.

1. I imported contacts from the N900, where I had several SIP numbers. These were all missing after the transfer, if there were other numbers for the contact with the SIP number. For contacts with just a SIP number the imported contact profile was empty.

2. when I manually added the SIP number to the appropriate field, saving the contact and then open the profile, the toolbar for calling or sending IM messages to this SIP number is missing. This occurs when adding the SIP number to a contact with other numbers or skype. Also when I click to edit the contact, the SIP field is empty?!

3. after creating a new SIP (only) contact, the SIP call and IM toolbar is there, but when I want to edit the same contact, the SIP filed is again empty.

The N900 had issues with incoming calls for one of the SIP providers I use, but this is not an issue on the N9, which makes me very happy. On the other hand, the handling of SIP contact numbers is worse than it was on the N900?! There the number was always displayed and could be edited at will.

In the end, I would like to ask, why it is not possible to send SIP IM messages to the mobile phone numbers I have for a contact, but I can call the numbers through SIP (there is no icon for IM on the toolbar when opening a contact profile, just call through SIP) ? I can send IM messages to the same number through my SIP account, if I save the same number as a SIP username.

I am guessing not many use SIP, but I use it daily.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Yes, you can look for nmo:IMMessage and nmo:Conversation (if I remember correctly)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Quite many caldav bugs were fixed in later versions, I remember a bug where the one day offset would happen for full-day events (which is probably the case for birthdays), it works for me now. So yes, next update should hopefully bring a fix.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Well actually it's a "feature"... When importing contacts from another device, we don't know how to link IM details (SIP etc.) to existing accounts. Who tells me that the SIP identifier I received is valid in a SIP account on device?

Toolbar missing -> that does not seem right :/ SIP is probably less tested, but I don't observe this issue on my phone, with 2 SIP accounts. It might either be a bug that does not happen in my setup, or one that was fixed (added a SIP number on a local-gtalk-skype merged contact).

In the editor, you will never see any existing online accounts, those are visible in the "unmerge" view (not very intuitive :-/).

Same reason as above, you cannot edit the SIP number. You need to delete and recreate it. In the same way, you can't edit the GTalk/Skype ID of someone. The way the N900 dealt with that was I think easier to understand.

The UI design for online accounts is in my opinion too quite contrived...


Not possible to send messages to a phone number: because we don't assume that every phone number is a valid SIP identifier. How would that work by the way, convert it to SMS?

There are two distinct things on a contact card:
1. A "call with SIP" item that is shown for every phone number, same as "call with skype". That is for every contact, no matter if it has a SIP account or not.
2. The SIP "toolbar" with call/message for contacts that do have a SIP account (no matter if it has a phone number or not)

I'm not sure if we show the "call with sip" button for phone numbers only if the SIP server advertises the "call out" feature or not.

I hope this clarifies things for you, feel free to ask back if I left anything out :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Alright, but I am not a fan. Don't like it when a device tries to be smarter than me...

actually, it is a bit more funky than that.

I entered the SIP number for a Skype contact and I appeared in the contact profile as a toolbar, but then later disappeared?!. I have open IM conversation with these contacts and on top it displays the number and when I press the contact icon next to it is opens the correct contact card but there is only the skype toolbar there. So I tried to go the unmerge view as you suggested but there is only the skype there also. Contacts with just SIP are ok, the SIP toolbar does not disappear and the number is visible when I go to unmerge.


I use a local sim (finnish) card and the SIP I mainly use is provided (I pay for) by the mobile provider from another country. Through this SIP account I can call and send SMS as if I were in on the other network and it displays my non-finnish number to the recipient.
If I try to send a SMS, I cannot add a SIP contact as recipient.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

A smarter way would be maybe to leave the IM address unlinked, and ask the user on first use if he wants to link it to an existing account...
But again, combinatorial explosion applies to code complexity too :)

OK, that seems to be a bug, though I have really no idea why it would happen :-/

If you want to send a "SMS" via SIP (which is not an SMS but a SIP message then), you need to use the "start chat" button, not the "new SMS". I don't think the case of SIP accounts forwarding to SMS was considered.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

By the way, a future version will show the IM accounts in the contact editor, which should be more understandable. And there'll also be service icons for the "read only" details.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

I was so far only able to test a N9 for only several hours. But for my a really big problem appearded at the way how the contacts names are displayed.

In the settings panel for contacts I have for the option how to display the names only "prename - name" and "name - prename".
I would prefer to have here a additional option like "nickname" at the N900.

So the Contacts application should display the Nickname of a Person. If I haven't entered a nickname it should take the "prename - name" or something like that as a fallback.

In many cases are a name not meaningful enought while searching for a phone number in the contact database.

I have many contacts related to a Company or a Job. At example "dentist". So I wrote at my N900 in the Nickname field "dentist Bob Butcher".

This way I was able to search for his name or his Job in the contacts list. Never mind if I was in this moment able to remember his real name or not. Same goes to many business contacts. At example, my IT Hotline has no realname data.

I used the Nickname field also to create this way my own usergroup. I placed after each name a short Group ID like "Family". So I simply typed at my N900 Family in the Search Field to filter my Contacts to see only Family members.

With over 1200 Contacts in my Adressbook I'm perhaps not a usual user. But ths N9 seemed to me very capable to handle this without problems.

I'm sure this should be a easyfix. The settings panel for Contacts is anyway very empty. :)

P.S.: Already orderes a N9. Even if this will stay a toy while I have to continue using my N900 for my daily business. The N9 is just tooo great!

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

That's fixed in a future update :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Please gave me your contact data. You deserved a great big hug just in this moment! :D

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Hi abustany, thanks for your replies and all the valuable information that you are sharing.

I found out that pinch to zoom is possible in the Email client, I wonder if this feature can be implemented in the Messages Client? This would solve the "tiny fonts" issue. Seriously, the default view of the thread messages is really too tiny to read comfortably. The pinch to zoom would be a quick fix, but if there is a system wide option to increase the displayed fonts' size, it will really help, especially for those of us who are already dependent on reading glasses to read newspaper. Yes, it might break some of the default layout but what is a nice layout when the information that the layout is suppose to present is not legible... Alternatively, can we default the font size to no smaller than 8 points? As I am in the opinion that any size smaller should be avoided for text that need to be the focus information on any screen.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

I don't have a 1.0 image anymore in my hands, but I'm 99% sure the font size increases in the next update you'll receive (hopefully soonish).

An alternative solution would be to hack the CSS theme files, but I guess those belong to root (and are maybe protected by the security framework), so not sure how possible that is.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Bluetooth issue / difference between synced and typed in contacts?

I'm usign car's integrated bluetooth thta can browse call logs (missed, placed, answered) and contact book via car console. It almost works which is already good news as with N900 this never worked. But then to the "almost" part... for some reason in contact book I (car) cannot see any synced contacts (whether MfE or BTn makes no difference) however all contacts thta I've typed in via the påhone UI work ok. I also tryed to copy some of the synced numbers to SIM bu thta didn't help either. Any idea what migh cause this? What is different in those contacts thta are created using tha phone?

Ps sorry about typos, blaim sapple on screen keyboard. Too hard to edit.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

For some reason the bluetooth daemon filters out MFE contacts. We had a guy complaining internally too, as far as I know it's not fixed yet :-/ I'll try to push for it again on Monday.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Its not just MfE but also all old contacts that I transferred via bluetooth from N900 hence I presume all that have been created via synchronization. Pretty annoying...


P.S. With these couple of bugs still by best phone ever and I'm now comparing how they've felt at the time of the release. 9210 gets closest because it was sort of revolutionary at the time of release but it's still lagging far behind. This is much better to me than iPhone at the time of it's release. Pity that the ecosystem is sort of dead :(

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

@abustany
Don't have an N9 (yet) but just wanted to say thanks for all the info. I've learned so much from just this thread that I can't wait to get an N9. Thanks for all the work.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

feature request: ability to store public key under the contact profile

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

use the "notes" field :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

So, I checked what the status for the bug you mentioned, it seems to be because some services like MFE or Facebook don't allow sharing the contacts to third parties (yes, you don't have the right to share *your* contacts with yourself, that's smart). So I guess that for this reason the bluetooth daemon filters on "local" contacts only, I still don't understand why that would exclude contacts synced from bluetooth (which as far as I know are seen as local contacts)...
Anyway, it seems that the issue is being worked on, I can't promise anything regarding a fix since there is no solution yet, and it's not my team. Furthermore, I'm not totally sure what my NDA allows me to tell :)

About the ecosystem, you'll surely never reach the level of iOS or Android, I'm personally in this category of users that don't need millions of apps, but I can understand it's a blocker for some people.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

Well big thanks for your replies so far :) Frankly, the system is f*ck*d if it doesn't allow me to share my contacts with my car. Other phones let me do this so I'd think there is a way around the licenses. Maybe it's just matter of definition of 3rd party. Using bluetooth is not really 3rd party to me, not as such and automatically anyway.
But I respect your honesty. And you should respect your NDA :)
I'd be happy with some "hack" that marks all contacts as local... hint ;)

And what comes to ecosystem, I made a conscious decision to take this into use so I'm ok('ish) too :) But I must admit there are couple of apps I'd just love to see and it seems unlikely we'll see those, at least not all. My shortlist would be: Kindle, Zinio, Evernote.

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

that's something that i thought of, and are going to use at the moment, but i am already using it for door lock codes for some of my contacts :)

a new field "public key" and the ability to either type it in, paste it in or read it from a file would be great.

a follow up for this would then be the ability to use the above mentioned public key in the various integrated communication methods, but this could be left for 3rd party developers :p

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

I'm not sure, but perhaps a encrypted password storage application would be a better place for such kind of information? :)

Re: N9/N950 Contacts/IM - Get help & give feedback here
 

public key is public, there is no need to hide it, and it should be assigned to the correct person (contact) for easy management

private key, that is what you want to keep in the password storage application or encrypted container etc.