Crocus Contacts

[kyrathaba]

Crocus Contacts

v1.0.0

This program acts as a secure digital rolodex, storing the following information for individuals or businesses: name, phone number(s), email address(es), picture, miscellaneous notes, and more.  Passwording a particular contact is optional.  All contacts are stored in a proprietary format and, if passworded, are only accessible once the password is supplied.  Supports emailing any contact for which an email addy has been provided.

Download

[mouser]

congrats kyrathaba, great to have you participate 

[kyrathaba]

Screenshot stays the same, but I have a better, smaller installation here:

http://www1.webng.com/bowrsanryld/executables/cc_install.zip

I don't like the .NET installer   So this uses a freeware installer.  No the prettiest, but no bloat from bells and whistles, and works.

[kyrathaba]

Enjoyed participating   I plan on doing a remake of this app.  This was my first-ever Windows application .  It's done in C#.  I've never had any formal programming training, and got interested in programming after I got a computer in the late 90s.  I learned a little bit on QBASIC (anyone remember that, lol?)  But .NET was my first introduction ever to Windows and OO programming.  My programming skills are not advanced, but I'm going to try to add a feature to Crocus Contacts that will allow the user to archive contacts into one .zip archive, for backup on their website or a CD.

[SKA]

congrats kyrathaba, great to see your program.

May I refer you this link -it may give you some ideas to improve your program ?  http://www.freebyte.com/addressbook/

I use it but face some usability/data loss problems hence looking for alternate addressbook/PIM which robust and can handle over 100,000 entries to maybe a million or so ? Categories/Groups are essential for me . 

Thanks for your kind efforts 
SKA

[kyrathaba]

Thanks, SKA.  Also, thanks to those who've awarded credits.

I appreciate the link.  I think I have the coding skill to add these features:

* export contact to HTML
* search through contacts
* archive all contact files for backup to website/CD

A lot of the features I'd like to add are currently outside my skill range, but I intend to gradually remedy that:

* import from CVS
* shell extension so that Windows automatically knows to open a double-clicked contact file with this app
* foreign language support
* minimize to system tray (can probably find an online C# tutorial on doing this)

I plan to re-do the application.  I feel like the interface is a bit amateurish-looking.  I also plan to add a help file.  I've just figured out how to zip/unzip using C#, so I can add an archiving feature as well.  Any suggestions are appreciated, as I am quite the amateur programmer.  The program is written in C# using .NET 2.0, but I'm not conversant yet with the deployment feature of the Visual C# Express Edition 2005 IDE, so I used a 3rd party freeware installer (which also looks amateurish). 

[kfitting]

Dont forget CVS export (at least CVS... Excel and OO Spreadsheet would be nice too!).  Proprietary formats are fine... but I'm getting fed up with putting data into one application and then having to worry about what happens when the app goes goes bust or I find another app that does more what I like.  Import/Export functions seem to be the most overlooked part of any app...  good to see you're including CVS import!!

Kevin

[kyrathaba]

Yes, I understand that frustration.  Really and truly, the only reason I used a proprietary format, instead of a more commonly used format, or a database, was that I was trying to teach myself a few things as I programmed.  I wanted to learn how to use serialization (writing a .NET object to a file on disk).

As for CVS, I'll try to do some researching on it.  I'm sure there are plenty of sites that describe the format.  I just need to bone up on it.  I also thought about a feature where your archived contacts could be uploaded, by the application, to your website via FTP, provided you supply the appropriate username, password, and directory.  I have some code that I've successfully used to upload files.

[kyrathaba]

I have an minor revision update of the program available now that uses the Inno Setup and provides windows shell integration.  I've also removed my picture (you're welcome :> ) and the silly default values in the fields.  Now, I'm going to code backup with compression, and extraction.  Next version will also support user-defined fields.

[mouser]

nice.
adding built in backup facilities to a program always is a great idea.