path: root/help/C/usage-contact.sgml

    <chapter id="usage-contact">
      <title>The Evolution Contact Manager</title>
      <para>
          The <application>Evolution</application> contact manager can
          handle all of the functions of an address book, phone book,
          or Rolodex.  Of course, <application>Evolution</application>
          allows easier updates than an actual paper book, and much
          easier synchronization with handheld and remote devices. And
          I doubt that you can take your little black book and make it
          accessible to the rest of your office over a network.  Since
          <application>Evolution</application> supports most major
          network protocols, including <glossterm>IMAP</glossterm> and
          <glossterm>LDAP</glossterm>, it's easy to use over an
          existing network.
        </para>
    <para>
          Antother advantage of <application>Evolution</application>
          is that the address book is integrated into 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, and when you get an email
          with contact information in it, you can create a new address
          card very quickly.  In addition, searches, folders, and
          vFolders all work in the same intuitive way they do in the
          other components, so you don't have to learn another system
          for similar tasks.
        </para>
    <para>
          This chaper will cover the usage of the
          <application>Evolution</application> contact manager,
          including organizing large amounts of contact data, sharing
          addresses over a network, and the automation 
          capabilities of the address book.  Contact manager
          configuration is addressed in <xref
          linkend="config-prefs-contact">.
        </para>

      <sect1 id="usage-contact-basic">
    <title>Getting Started With the Contact Manager</title> 

    <para>
          To start managing your contacts, click on
          <guibutton>Contacts</guibutton> in the shortcut bar.
        </para>
    <para>
          Describe the interface.  Include the fact that the
          whole address book consists of a set of cards, organized into
          folders.
        </para>
      </sect1>
      <sect1 id="usage-contact-cards">
    <title>Creating, Deleting, and Adding Cards</title>
    <para>
          You can create a new card by pressing the <guibutton>New
          Card</guibutton> button, or by pressing
          <keysym>KEYSYM</keysym>. The <interface>New Card</interface>
          window will appear.  It has the following fields:

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem> <para>
               <guilabel>Name:</guilabel> Enter the person's name here
            </para></listitem>
            <listitem> <para>

            </para></listitem>
            <listitem> <para>
              <guilabel>Address:</guilabel>
            </para></listitem>

            <listitem> <para>
                 Something
            </para></listitem>

            <listitem> <para>
               Something
            </para></listitem>
      </itemizedlist>
        </para>
    <para>
           You can choose which fields an address card has, and create
       new fields for cards.  For example,
       <application>Evolution</application> provides for two line
       postal addresses by default, but you may have as many or as
       few lines to an address as you wish.  To change which
       fields an address card has, choose DESCRIBE HERE HOW TO DO
       THIS
        </para>

    <note>
      <title>Quick ways to add cards</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 that appears.  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>
    </note>

    <para>
          You delete a card by pressing the <guibutton>Delete
          Card</guibutton> button, or by dragging it into the trash folder.
        </para>

    <para>
          You can move cards around just as you would with email:
          dragging and dropping works, as does right-clicking and
          selecting <guimenuitem>Move</guimenuitem> from the menu
          that appears.
        </para>
      </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.  We'll go over categories in a bit.
        </para>
    <para>
          Another useful UNIMPLEMENTED
          <application>Evolution</application> feature is its ability
          to recognize when people live together.  If two people in
          your contact manager share an address, and you change the
          address for one of them, Evolution will ask you if you wish
          to change the address for both of them, or just for one.
        </para>

    <sect2 id="usage-contact-organize-group">
      <title>Groups of contacts</title>
      <para>
             <application>Evolution</application> lets you put cards
             into folders, mark them as members of different groups,
             and search through them in a variety of ways.  This
             section will describe how to organize and find contact
             information using <application>Evolution</application>.
             CHANGE THIS paragraph: it needs a great deal of work.
          </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.  You can create
          more folders inside that one, or create other address
          book folders as well.  Each card must be in one and only
          one folder.
        </para>
        <para>
              To create a new folder, do this:
        </para>
        <para>
              To put a card into a folder, do this:
            </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, do this:
            </para>
        <para>
              Then, you can refer to all the cards in that category
              by:
            </para>
        <para>
              If the default categories don't suit you, you can add
              your own.  Here's how:
            </para>
      </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>
            I want to schedule a meeting with someone at Company
                X, but I'm not sure who to talk to there.  Our
                corporate network has an address card that states our
                contacts there, so I know whom to call.  Since we also
                share the calendars, I know that Deanna has already
                scheduled a meeting with them next Thursday, and I can
                either go to the meeting myself or ask Deanna to
                discuss my concerns for me.  Either way, I avoid
                having to schedule yet another meeting with Company X,
                which is good since everybody hates their products and
                they're doomed to fail anyway.
             </para>
      </example>

    <para>
           Of course, you don't want to share all of your cards&mdash;
           why overload the network with a list of babysitters, or
           tell everyone on your network 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, select (something) <!--
           DESCRIBE PROCESS HERE -->.  The
           <interface>Sharing</interface> window will pop up.  It contains:
           <!--DESCRIBE INTERFACE HERE-->
        </para>
      </sect1>

      <sect1 id="usage-contact-automate">
    <title>Automating the Contact Manager</title>
    <para>
          The <application> Evolution</application> contact manager
          can perform a wide variety of tasks for you.  From speeding
          up basic tasks like adding a new address card to managing
          mailing lists, you'll find that the contact manager is more
          than a mere address book.
        </para>

    <sect2 id="contact-automation-basic">
      <title>Send me a card: Adding New Cards Quickly</title>
      <para>
            When you get information 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> 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 doing SOMETHING HERE.
             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>