DonationCoder.com Software > N.A.N.Y. 2010

NANY 2010 Pre-release: FenixContacts

(1/9) > >>

fenixproductions:
NANY 2010 Entry Information
Application Name FenixContacts Version 0.9pre3 Short Description Customisable contacts book Supported OSes Windows Web Page RedmineDownload Link Redmine download System Requirements
* .NET framework 2.0Version History
* 0.9 - first "big & public" releaseAuthor fenixproductions Credits superboyac Screencasthttps://www.donationcoder.com/nany2010/sc/fenixcontacts/fenixcontacts.html
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQUbTRfA0cs
Description
FenixContacts is customizable contacts book with extended set of useful features ;)

 The main idea is to have free and good contacts book application which will be focused on Contacts only. It means: no full PIM application with rarely used crap like emailing or scheduling (leave them to real professionals like: TheBat!, Thunderbird and so on).

The main reason of FenixContacts existence is the lack of some specific feature in other applications: customisable details fields.

As I consider this as the most important thing to have (some users do not want to have their books showing dozen of empty fields they never use), FenixContacts provides that.

Features

[*] fields of different types - set any field type you want (i.e. string, integer, fie link),
[*] LiveFilter - filter your Contacts view as you type,
[*] linked fields - define one field as reference to another,
[*] Preview panel with CSS styling,
[/list]

Planned Features
There are too many to write them all and I'd rather like not to tease too much, so I will only give a few:

* improved LiveFilter - with extended (for wildcards) and advanced (RegExp, arithmetic filter) modes
* tree structure for fields - fields groups for better view modes,
* plugins system - must have for extensibility

* database - XML or SQ-Lite handling,
* import - vCards, most popular email clients databases, maybe even importing from IM protocols (I've played few times in the past with ICQ and Jabber handling using C#)
* export - similar to the above,
* list views - there is nothing against giving the possibility to use different listbox controls,
* other - I am opened for suggestions,
Screencast


Screenshots

Contacts list with preview:

NANY 2010 Pre-release: FenixContacts

Customizing fields:

NANY 2010 Pre-release: FenixContacts

Editing Contact details:

NANY 2010 Pre-release: FenixContacts

Linking fields:

NANY 2010 Pre-release: FenixContacts



Usage
Installation
Just unpack and run.

Using the Application
After starting an application, please, open included test.fci file and play a little bit with Configure and Contacts menus :)

Please remember that adding Contacts is not possible if there are no fields set!

Uninstallation
Simple delete?

Known Issues
Please be aware that due to time constraints some things may not work perfect (rush is not helpful ;). In such situation report them on Redmine page (link at the top of the page) and I will try to fix them ASAP.

Please remember to threat this application as introduction to something more powerful I am willing to write. All ideas are welcome and I will consider them for next versions. I also want to start working on v.2 pretty soon with more and more features. before that: I need to rewrite some of my spaghetti code though.

Thank you for all supporters and Happy New Year 2010!

Perry Mowbray:
 :Thmbsup: Very nice. You may want to consider the data mapping requirements of SyncML so that we can sync our contacts later?

fenixproductions:
2Perry Mowbray
Sound like a nice thing to be implemented but... I have no idea about it yet.

Although I will add it to my ToDo list.

Perry Mowbray:
Yes I'm a long term user of Open Contacts, which I enjoy mostly, but there's something about the interface that doesn't quite work for me  :-\

As far as features go, one area that I find frustrating is how these programmes handle family groups, or couples.

Open Contacts does the relationships for companies/employees, and I've used related contacts, but really the address is shared. When it changes you'd want to change it once not many times (if you know what I mean).

fenixproductions:
2Perry Mowbray

I have no intention in writing full Open Contacts replacement. I don't want to get everything so complicated as OC is. For me this is an example of excellent application taken down as much as it possible due to unfriendliness of the user interface. I've always found it too bothersome to use and I tried many times.

I'd like to write something easier to handle by me and other people too. I know that my ideas might overcome my skills but I hope that if I start implementing them with a little steps… I can do it. So I will start with limited functionality and simple interface just to get things done before N.A.N.Y 2010 ends. After that I will focus on extending of what I did.

I had to decide to follow this way because new job takes almost every precious minute from me and I also tent to be workaholic ;)

On the other hand, I will always be few years after OC because I have just started coding my own tool and they've got couple of years of experience. But I know one thing for sure: I will definitely use my application when it comes.

Last thing which still makes me wonder, which is Contacts Express project.

Its author (probable the same guy/people)Someone spent a lot of time to write .NET version of OC (from C++ to C#) to get an application which works and looks the same. In my eyes this is lost effort.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page