Discussions of development and use of the Sup email client
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From: Robert Winkler <robert.winkler.mail@gmail.com>
To: Iain Parris <ipv2.lst@parris.org>
Cc: supmua <supmua@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sup] Managing Contacts
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 13:37:24 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1595009536-sup-8144@rob-Lenovo-Y720-15IKB> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1594927065-sup-8296@ceres>

Dear Iain,

thanks a lot indeed again! I tried the different versions:

- Integrating Google Contacts works after some trouble with the OAuth authorization. Although using Google Contacts is comfortable, I have a love-hate relationship with Google. Most of Googles products work great, but I am also concerned about privacy and monopolies. Additional problems: The formatting of names is not uniform (e.g. "Dr. Duck (Ducktales)", vs. "Dra Minnie Mouse") and one needs to be online for using the Contacts.
- Abook is a really neat and simple ncurses program. I exported the contacts of my LDAP server in LDIF format an importing it into Abook was a one-liner. The TAB completion works fine, just in the 'C' menu, not the name, but the shortened email address is displayed. Maybe a little bug? The only real disadvantage: The address book is not synced with the LDAP server. Nevertheless, I can use my manually maintained 100+ contacts.
- Unfortunately, it seems that you cannot use both, Google Contacts and Abook at the same time (when using both configurations, only the second was displayed).
- The sup contacts.txt seems practical, but I don't want to start an additional contacts database. 

Conclusions: For now, I use the Abook address book. For the future, I need to invent a practical solution to keep Abook and the LDAP server synchronized.

Best regards, 

Robert 

Excerpts from Iain Parris's message of 2020-07-16 20:46:00 +0100:
> Hi Robert,
> 
> Excerpts from Robert Winkler's message of 2020-07-16 08:15:56 -0700:
> > Hi, I already got extensive contact lists (>1,000) in various formats and 
> > run a manually maintained list on an LDAP server for the really important 
> > contacts.
> > 
> > How can I easily use or import contacts for the To: CC: and BCC: fields?
> 
> General contacts usage is:
> 
>     - Global keybinding "C" - list contacts.
> 
>     - To specify a recipient (To/Cc/Bcc): when prompted to enter the
>       recipient (e.g., after pressing "c" for "compose"), start typing,
>       then press "tab" for suggestions.
> 
>     - In thread-view-mode, press "i" to be prompted to add to Sup's
>       contacts list, with an optional alias.
> 
> The contacts are sourced from file ~/.sup/contacts.txt, and from calling
> the "extra-contact-addresses" hook.
> 
> So you have two main options.
> 
> (1) ~/.sup/contacts.txt
> 
>     - Sup's built-in contacts file is ~/.sup/contacts.txt
> 
>     - This is written/read when Sup stops/starts, so make sure to quit
>       Sup before editing it manually.
> 
>     - File format is one contact per line, with an optional alias.
> 
>     - Each line is in format like:
> 
>           alias: Person Name <person.email@example.com>
> 
>     - "alias" is optional, and if omitted, then the line will look like:
> 
>           : Another Person <person2@example.com>
> 
>     - If you converted your contacts into this style, then you could
>       create your own contacts.txt file, and Sup would use it.
> 
> (2) extra-contact-addresses hook
> 
>     - This hook takes no input, and returns an array of email address
>       strings that Sup is then aware of for tab-completion.
> 
>     - So you could alternatively write this hook to call any external
>       program, and return in the format expected by Sup.
> 
>     - Two examples with "goobook" (for Google Account contacts) and
>       "abook" (a general contact manager program that runs in the
>       terminal) are here:
>       <https://github.com/sup-heliotrope/sup/wiki/External-contacts-search>.
> 
>     - So if (for example) you chose "abook", then you could use any
>       method to import your contacts into "abook", and then use the Sup
>       hook to make Sup aware of abook's contacts.
> 
>     - abook is able to import ldif, so may be a natural choice. Further
>       reading on abook:
>       <https://hund0b1.gitlab.io/2018/06/25/abook-a-ncurses-adress-book-program.html>.
> 
> For other general information about Sup's contact lists, see also:
> <https://sup-heliotrope.github.io/community/sup-talk/msg00965.html>.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Iain
> 


  reply	other threads:[~2020-07-18  6:48 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-07-16 15:15 Robert Winkler
2020-07-16 19:46 ` [sup] " Iain Parris
2020-07-17 18:37   ` Robert Winkler [this message]
2020-09-03 13:50   ` Robert Winkler
2020-09-03 20:01     ` Iain Parris
2020-09-07 13:18       ` Robert Winkler
2020-09-08 21:20         ` Iain Parris
2020-09-09 14:35           ` Robert Winkler

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