Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

Suggestion of making routing priorities made by activemind is somewhat sensible, however I'm not sure how easy and usable that solution would be.

I've made few suggestions directly over the email to scifi.guy already, so let me recap quickly these for guys here in this thread. First of all, I'd love to see Vicar directly integrated on per-contact level, so each contact card would have additional button that would place a call using Vicar "calling card" number. See attached image as an example. Current solution of Vicar intercepting ongoing calls isn't ideal and I sometimes ended up being charged for cellular call just because Vicar didn't catch up on time. Having per-contact buttons would make that step obsolete.

However, another major feature I'd love to see is support for multiple "calling card" profiles. For example - I could have different CC number to place calls to mobiles, different CC for landlines, different for country XYZ etc.

Obviously, merging both features would be quite troublesome, as creating *a lot* of additional buttons in single contact card (for every contact number and for every Vicar profile) isn't ideal at all, especially when one tends to keep many numbers saved per contact, like me. ;)

All in all I think "golden" solution here would be something in-between, example:

• Each contact card's number would have dedicated "Call via Vicar" button. Ideally Vicar buttons would only be available for international numbers, not all of them.
• Now depending whether Vicar itself would have one or more calling card profiles created:
  • Single profile - "Call via Vicar" button would place a call straight away using that profile.
  • Multiple profiles - "Call via Vicar" would trigger additional, simple dialog window with Vicar profiles listed which should be used for that paritcular call.

So these are two main features I'd love to see in Vicar at some point. Having those implemented would make application just complete for me. :) In fact, Vicar already works quite well for me and I really miss its equivalent for Symbian, so I could setup cheap international calls in my wife's Nokia X6 (as unfortunately Truphone doesn't seem to support X6). ;)

I also made a suggestion of making Vicar not a standalone application in apps menu, but an entry in system settings window, as I believe it fits better there, but this is very minor request.

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

As requested earlier, I would prefer rule based dialing. For instance I use sip to PSTN gateway to call sip numbers when not connected to the internet. In this case, the user can create a rule like- numbers starting with 747xxxx use this no. for calling. similarly no. starting with +44xxxx use this calling card.
Also my opinion about priority: it will slow down things as it will have to check priorities before dialing.

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

MyContacts integration with VICaR is already a step on this direction. Have you tried it?

Also, one of the options that we have already discussed is adding one more button (like MyContacts has already for skype) that would allow the user to decide how to place the call to the international number on a per call basis (a lot like your screen)

Using MyContacts with VICaR also allows you to disable VICaR intercepting international calls so you don't have to worry about calls getting completed by mistake - VICaR will call directly the number selected on MyContacts.

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

Fcrochik, why no sip numbers in my contacts?

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

The truth: because I never used them so I don't even know how they work or if I could make them work on MyContacts :)

If you give me the basic directions of how to setup and use I will look into it.

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

Will it be any slower than what it is right now? (No offence to Scifi, I think this is a good first step). Call the contact, disconnect and then call the calling card, then send the DTMF tones with the pause? I dont think so.

The beauty of systemwide priority is that I dont have to think and tweak every time I am making a call. This way I can specify if I am connected to my asterisk server route all my call through that, or if I am have skype connectivity route all my +44 calls through skype, if not use my CC to complete the call and never put a +44 call on the cellular network.

Here is what I had originally suggested, in my view CC is just ONE of the aspects of call routing, what I want is a way to tell the system how to complete the call depending upon what type of connections I have and what type of connections the conact has (advanced feature). I spent some time thinking about it and felt that all the features I was looking for could be integrated into VICaR since the basic framework is already there. I want to make this or some other application the call routing brains of the phone and utilize the plethora of connectivity options given by this phone to the fullest so that I dont have to hit multiple buttons for making the call, the system does it for me based on my preferences and in future based on what options I have specified for the contact.
Hope that made sense!

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

Well then you are missing out the BIGGEST feature in my book (and dont take this the wrong way).

The beauty of this phone is that as soon as I walk into a wifi zone ( no I dont have a 3G plan uptill now on my SIM) , it connects to my asterisk server and ALL my calls can be cheaply routed through that. I dont have to bother with cell minutes, calling cards, skype anything else.

If I come across another SIP provide that looks promising, I add it to my home asterisk server and viola it now available for me to use on my cellphone or my wife to use from the home phone, and I can swap the dial-out trunks as much as I want without anyone in the house knowing about it, so I can experiment with providers.

No past phone gave me this seamless integration with SIP as N900, I come from 9500, N95, E63 and then E71. There is a reason why this phone rocks!

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

Is this something we can port over to vicar, because I think MyContacts is a great application but just not that useful for people like me. Personal taste, but I dont like my entire screen to be just my contacts. I like to show it off with the multiple things the phone can do and apps I use most of the time (music player, emails, IMs, texts, weather, calendar etc), when I want to call someone, just slide the keyboard and type few alphabets and the contact shows up.
Only Home and Wifey get space on my desktop :-)

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

You sure know how to get my attention... Now I will have to find out and I am sure this will lead to some more hours trying to develop something new :)

By the way: like I said before our goals are close aligned...
Of course I was just concerned about skype-to-skype, skypeout, phone and google voice. Until coming across this thread I had never thought about calling cards... now thanks to VICaR I can handle even more scenarios.

My original goal was quite simple (not to implement): I want to double click on a contact thumbnail seating on my desktop and want the phone to decide how to "make contact" according to my current internet connection, relative location (local call, national call, international call), my (and the contacts') presence status with different services, global settings, contact group settings and per contact settings. I could go even crazier and have different settings depending on the time of the day.

Simply put I don't want to have to think what is the best way to reach some one I just want done! :)

Re: [Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) released to extras-devel
 

We don't actually have to port anything to VICaR... It does work today...

Instead of using the Widget on the desktop just launch the application from the Menu. Make sure to change the settings to tell MyContacts to redirect international calls to VICaR and you should be on your way (you can even disable VICaR on the VICaR settings so it will stop intercepting your international calls when dialed using any other application).