Contacts v. 1.0
Manage your contacts with Desktop Sidebar


Developed by yyy
Original idea by: omerr

Released on: June 1st 2005

Compatible: Desktop Sidebar build 90 and Windows XP. Wasn't tested on previous builds and Windows versions but it might work on them too. Might not work well without IE 5.5 or above.

Description
The Contacts panel allows you to manage your contacts. You can add groups of contacts like 'Family', 'Friends' and etc. You can see more information about the contacts in the details window. You can also customize the panel in many ways so it will show the information the way you want to see it.

New Features of v. 1.0

• Add/Remove/Edit groups and contacts.
• Show contacts information in the details window.
• Customize the way the panel shows the information.
• Wrap text.
• Auto-pin details window.
• Editable HTML styled details window.
• Open you E-mail client automatically after clicking a contact's E-mail address.
• Show a map of the contact's address automatically after clicking his/her address (using www.mapquest.com)

Known bugs

Notice that DS might crash if you launch the details window to often !!!
This is a DS bug, AFAIK, and may be fixed next build. Meanwhile try to launch the details window as less as possible and use the custom view feature to show the information inside the panel.
Sorry for this

Dear user,
Thank you very much for using my panel - enjoy it! Notice that many efforts have been put into this panel to make it work smoothly and flawlessly. If you happen to find a bug, please click the 'More information...' link and report me about it. You can also use this link to ask for requests. Notice that reporting and asking for requests requires registering first.

BTW, this panel is a freeware open source panel which means you can use it, modify it or distrobute it completely free. You can find the source code within the panel's download file. The panel was developed under SharpDevelop in C#.

Screenshot


Enjoy

Download

Wow. Definitely wow.

Thanks

whoa! that is sweet!

sorry for the double post....is this for the contest yyy? you should put [DSContest] somewhere in the title.

Thanks eitaneko
No it's not for the contest. Thanks anyway

Excellent work yyy . You've obviously put a lot of work into it - well done

...but why don't you want to put it in the contest?

Thanks KeithI It was one of my most complicated panels, yes. The idea wasn't mine, though.

I just don't see a need for such contest - there are many people who create skins and plugins for fun anyway. And I don't develop my panels for a prize but for others to enjoy and learn how to create their own panels and contribute to DS development.

Neither do I, but a prize wouldn't hurt anybody.

Ok - I don't blame anybody I'm sure we all want to help.

The point is that only two panels are currently for the contest. Both are GoMa's. If you release this as a contest panel, it'll scare GoMa and make him work on other panels. I might get scared too, so I'll develop more panels. And therefore only the users win.

I installed this panel. I then uninstalled it. Now, whenever I open Sidebar I get an error box that says Contacts Unspecified error. I tried repairing the Sidebar installation, but that didn't help. Any ideas?

joemaclaw - Sorry to know you uninstalled my panel How did you uninstall the panel? You can't uninstall DS panels - maybe you removed it. Anyway, just go to:
"C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Desktop Sidebar\plugins" and delete the folder called "Contacts" while Desktop Sidebar isn't loaded. Then restart Desktop Sidebar and the problem should be gone.

Prism - that's an interesting though But I don't think we need to compete each other for that.

Thanks. I reinstalled the panel, and got a message that it could not be installed while still running, and asked if I wanted to terminate it. That did the trick.

One of my fav!
Two thumbs up!

Jeff-K

great work yyy!

although it would be nice to be able to make subgroups in a group,
i don't think thats very complicated to implement

and one little question: why switch the OK and Cancel button?
its a bit against the intuition for me

I agree with vuystie. Subgroups would be very nice.
Thanks for your wonderful work on this panel!

Wow - thanks Jeff-K, vuystie and GoMa I'm really happy to see you enjoy the panel

About sub directories - I'll think of that although I still haven't started working on a new version for this panel.

I know about the buttons order thing - I have never had a problem with that but it shouldn't be hard to change

Again - thank you very muich for using the panel

Good work ,yyy !

Great panel. One question though. Is it Outlook compatible? All of my contact info is in outlook. Is there a way to import it to this panel? Also, are they synched i.e. if I add a contact in outlook, it is automatically added to this panel's contact list, and vice versa? Thanks yyy.

NC

Thank you very much joejoe and NC2Chi Enjoy the panel

Actually, I was thinking of importing contacts from Outlook or IM clients. Maybe in the next build if I decide to release it. BTW, I also thought of creating a Birthday reminder feature so the panel will prompt you a few days before someone's birthday.
Thanks for the suggestion anyway

That's a great idea... the panel looks great, but is useless to me without Outlook integration. In fact I installed it and kept trying to figure out how to get it to pick up the Outlook contacts. Still looks great though...

Thank you very much for using my panel chamberc Enjoy it. If I get some free time I'll try to add Outlook support for you.

I don't think you should 'import' from outlook in the way of copying,
because when changes are made in outlook the panel won't be updated
and its redundant information to save
isn't it possible to just show the outlook contacts among with the rest?

Communicating with Outlook isn't exactly fast. I wouldn't mind using an import tool if that meant pulling up contact info was speedy.

I thought of this:
1) You'll be able to import 1 or more contacts at once to any group, however the data won't synchronize after the import with Outlook.
2) You'll be able to add a special group which will contain your Outlook contacts and will auto-sychronize with Outlook so you can always see the upated data.

Option number 1 is eas and I might add it soon.
Option number 2 might be added. However, it will require some more work.

In addition, I though I might also allow integrating the panel with other programs like ICQ, MSN or even other Mail clients. It all dependes on my free time and the users demands.

option 2 would be the best I think

I want to add both but it'll take some time...

Well, the idea is great but as is, I don't see myself retyping everything from my Outlooks & MSN contacts. So Option #2 is the best for me and MSN autosynchronize also.

Can I push it a bit further ? At work, the university contact list is on a exchange server. Can you add that too ?

When I wrote import I ment that you will be able to choose the program from which you want to import contacts and then choose the contacts which you want to import. After you click the OK button all of the contacts, including their data, such as: name, addresses, emails and etc. will be automatically imported from the program to the panel - no need to type anything.

What's an exchange server? Is that a program? I can't build a panel which interacts with a program or a data base which I can't have

Yeah, it is - manages e-mail, calendars, etc., "a collaborative software server" from Microsoft.
You need to get contact information from the GAL (global address list). I've tried doing it for the Outlook Contacts panel but didn't find a way.

I think the birthday reminder feature would be terrific.

Ok, thanks for the information I'll check it. Now I just have to find some time to work on this panel.

EDIT:
BTW, this isn't a free software, AFAIK, and I don't have it so I can't integrate with the Exchange server. If somebody wants to do it so he/she can use the source code which comes with the panel. Maybe you can import the data to Outlook and then to the panel.

Looks good, have set notifications so that I can use the moment it is Outlook compatible.

It might take some time - I'm not sure if I'm going to do it and even if I do it'll take me some time. But thanks a lot for using my panel

i don't know if you have time for this yyy but it would be nice to be able to send mail to a selected contact or group of contacts using the standard mailcliënt
it would make the panel more usefull I think

You can already do that - click on the E-mail address which appears in the details window of a contact and you can send an E-mail using your mail client.
I'll see what I can do about sending E-mails to a group of contacts.

oh nice, thx

the ability to import from gmail would be cool to, and hotmail as well for those that use hotmail.

(if you want i can send you an invite to gmail i can send you one, pm me if u want it)

I have a Gmail account - thanks anyway But unfortunately, trying to get Gmail or Hotmail accounts can be really complicated, I think. I have no idea how or if it's possible to get the Gmail contacts, and I think it'll be too complicated to get the Hotmail contacts. Sorry again and thanks for the suggestion

Hotmail, Yahoo!, Outlook Express, Outlook, orkut, AOL, and others export CSV files for their contacts. I haven't found this function in Gmail yet - they only give you instructions how to IMPORT contacts... Oh, well.
GMail Help has instructions for how to export CSV files from various apps (I think you need to be logged in).
A CSV file is very easy to parse. It's organized in rows which contain comma delimited data.

That's what I mean by complicated - I saw an example in the Code Project's site which shows how to do it with Hotmail accounts and it didn't seem so easy. Maybe it's not that hard, but I've decided not to add to many new features for this panel meanwhile as I want to work on a new panel as soon as I have more time. I hope I'll be able to add the Outlook support but not much more than this. Maybe later...

Dear yyy

This is absolutely great... I really hope you intend to keep up the good work. It's an excellent effort and I'm sure a lot of people out there agree!!!

I'm pretty sure we're going to use this at my office. I have just started a web development business and we're constantly looking for tools like this one in order to make the most of our communication.

Anyway, thanks a bunch once again. If things turn out sensibly here over the first year with this tool in the heart of our business we won't forget to appreciate your efforts if you would accept donations.

Cheers!:)

/Mazzer

Wow - thanks a lot And thanks for using my panel - I'm happy to see you like it

However, I must admit that there are better DS contacts panels (which work with Outlook) like these 2 panels:

http://www.desktopsidebar.com/forums/index...?showtopic=5147
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/forums/index...?showtopic=5147

Unfortunately, I'm not going to continue developing this panel as I'm busy with other projects - sorry You really don't have to donate (I also don't accept donations) - this is just a first release of this panel and it might have some bugs. Reading your feedback is the most important thing for me as panels developer

Thanks again

I tried installing the downloaded file twice, and got both of these error messages - in no particular order:


Windows cannot find 'C:\Program Files \Desktop Sidebar\Contacts.DSPACKAGE'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.


Cannot install package: C:\Program Files \Desktop Sidebar\Contacts.DSPACKAGE
Error: End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on the last disk(s) of this archive.
UnZip DLL: cannot find zipfile directory in C:\Program Files \Desktop Sidebar\Contacts.DSPACKAGE, and cannot find C:\Program Files \Desktop Sidebar\Contacts.DSPACKAGE.zip, period.

What version of DS are you using? There should be a file association created for DSPACKAGE files to open using dsidebar.exe made from your installation.

Hold down the Shift button and right mouse click on the DSPACKAGE file. Choose Open With. If you don't have dsidebar listed there, navigate to C:/program files/desktop sidebar and select dsidebar.exe and make sure you set it to always open with.

Just tried that - it didn't work The association was already there.

Properties says I'm using file version 1.4.75.0 or 1.04.75.0.

Thanks for helping!

Try to download and install b. 94: http://www.desktopsidebar.com/files/sidebarb94.msi

What is your ZIP program of choice? Because the second error message would occur ONLY if you have saved the file locally and had a ZIP program like WinRAR or 7ZIP to handle all archive files.

I have and use a registered copy of WinZip.

I did this and it still didn't work for your Contacts package, BUT I was finally able to install and use Contact Search - so I'll just stick with it for now.

Thanks for letting me know about the update! I can already see a difference with package installation.