[TFW] [imp] Re: [turba] Users having difficulty with address book

Eric Rostetter eric.rostetter@physics.utexas.edu
Thu, 9 May 2002 14:53:22 -0500


Quoting Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu>:

> I recently upgraded a major site from imp-2.x to imp-3.0+turba-1.0, and
> I have had several reports from users that they "can't find their
> addresses" or that their "address book is blank".  All of their
> information is still there after the upgrade, and once I explain how to
> do a blank search, they are able to find everything OK.

Had the exact same problem.  I don't recommend IMP 3.0 for this reason.
Always recommend IMP RELENG_3 CVS (or later) instead.

> I did an
> upgrade to imp-3.1RC2+turba-1.1RC2 on a test machine and found that the
> problems still exist, both in the contact list itself and the new popup
> contact list (which the users are anxiously waiting for).

I've not had any user complaints with IMP 3.1.  They seem to be able
to figure it out.
 
> By default, I think both the contact list and the popup contact list
> should show a list of *all* the user's contacts, with the search fields
> available to locate a specific address if needed.  

The problem with this has been discussed before on the lists.

This won't work for the (provided) bigfoot, netcenter, etc  directories.
You can't just print all the thousands of entries.  The directories 
services probably won't let you, and certainly wouldn't want you to.
And if you could/would, it would be very slow, and not at all useful.
Might drain the network/machine resources, or timeout, etc.

You might suggest something like "return the first X entries" but
even then not all directories are going to allow it, and it would
probably confuse the users more.

You might suggest only doing this for "My Addressbook" but then that
has problems too, and who says one of your users won't build a very
large addressbook?

So, the only real solution I can come up with is to include something
on the screen near that says how to return all the entries.
 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Edward Glowacki			glowack2@msu.edu
> Michigan State University	
> "...a partial solution to the right problem is better than a complete
> solution to the wrong one." (http://uiweb.com/issues/issue14.htm)

-- 
Eric Rostetter
eric.rostetter@physics.utexas.edu

Hey Rocky!  Watch me pull a rabbit from my hat!

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