Better Address Book ?

[chelsel]

I gave Address Book a try, but I'm coming from Outlook on Windows and in my opinion (remember, my opinion) it's superior to Address Book... the built-in app seems like one of those apps you do in a Learn How to Program class... ie, way too simplistic... and plain looking...

Of course, the advantage of the built-in application is the cross application integration... but is there a better contact manager and interface?

Thanks!

 

[Mac In School]

Your question is too vague, imo.

What features are you seeking that you're not getting from Address Book?

 

[chelsel]

The thing that bugs me MOST of all is how incomplete fields 'disappear' moving from contact to contact... it makes it damn impossible for your eye to automatically jump to a specific part of a contact card to look for a piece of information.

I also detest the way the labels are marked 'home, work, other' etc. What's wrong with Work E-mail, Work Address, etc? I shouldn't have to look at the contents of the item to tell what the item is... this is especially irksome since the fields bounce around if you have incomplete data...

I also shouldn't have to enter a special editing mode for my contacts... I should be in edit mode ALWAYS... and if I make a change then it should ask me if I want to save my changes... like opening a document with TextEdit and making a change...

Fixing these things would make me happy enough to keep using the product.

 

[Mac In School]

You just sound angry.

Go back to Windows. We don't need your kind.

I'm joking!... Kinda.

Listen, bro. It's a different program on a different operating system. If having something exactly like Windows/Outlook is that important to you, perhaps you shouldn't have switched.

Or maybe you should jump through the hoops of buying/installing parallels/Windows and using Outlook. I mean, you wouldn't switch from Photoshop to Fireworks and complain that Fireworks is different from Photoshop, right?

For every complaint you have, a strong argument can be made as to why the way OS X does it is a better way to do it.

I was skeptical about OS X's Outlook equivalent (Mail, Address Book and iCal) too when I first started. It was just soooooo damn simple that I figured there was no way it could possibly do everything I'd want it to. After a few weeks, I got used to it, and now I can't go back to Outlook. There are just too many options that I wasn't using. Despite using it since its first release, I had trouble locating things that were buried deep in sub-menus and tabs.

 

[chelsel]

I guess I'm "angry" because I thought Address Book would be better 🙂

the default response to "go back to Windows" is really unnecessary and I'm sure Apple shareholders would disagree with you!

What I am looking for is a recommendation for a more robust contact manager. I have evaluated Address Book and it does not meet my needs. As I previously stated, in my opinion it is an antiquated design.

If you're telling me that a professional robust solution is only available on Windows then I believe you are doing a disservice to the Macintosh community.

Thanks for any real recommendations for alternate contact managers.

Thanks!

 

[pengu]

The thing that bugs me MOST of all is how incomplete fields 'disappear' moving from contact to contact... it makes it damn impossible for your eye to automatically jump to a specific part of a contact card to look for a piece of information.

have a look at the "Add Field" sub menu under the Contact menu. its impossible to fit them all on screen. and you can have multiples of practically everything, so its impossible for all your contact cards to show the same layout.

 

[chelsel]

how about just a way to make the fields stop disappearing on me... it makes it very difficult to see that a piece of information is missing... if I see an 'empty field' I immediately know that I need to complete some missing data... but if I don't even see an empty field I'm just left with holes in my info

 

[Mac In School]

Try Entourage 2004

In the meantime, remember that you'll catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

 

[pengu]

um. see above. Apple are a great company, but they can't do magic.

 

[mkrishnan]

If you like the way Microsoft manages contacts, why don't you just use Entourage? I don't mean that as inflammatory...I mean it seriously. At least try it out and see if you like it (it's hard for me to say, since I don't think the things you're unhappy with are evidence so much of Address Book "not being better" as they are design choices. I don't think the people who made it made unused fields hide because they're amateurs, for instance).

Other ones you might try include...

Now Contact
Daylite
SOHO

Here also is an article about plugins that extend / change Address Book functionality.

FWIW, I came from using Outlook (primarily 98 and 2000) extensively before I got my first Mac (in 2003). I see ups and downs with Address Book. The biggest up is that Outlook just didn't suit my multitasking. I kept accidentally clicking over to the Address Book and interrupting a search or losing my place or something like that. On the other hand, I used Outlook primarily in a business environment (which is why there are some 570 people in my address book), and now that I'm in a PhD program for at least a while, my needs are mostly just to manage my contacts outside my cellphone.

Anyway, good luck. 🙂

 

[bboyredcel]

when you open addressbook, click a contact... then click edit. you can now press the arrow keys up and down to scroll through all of your contacts.

when you do this all of the default fields will appear on all contacts, even if the information is missing.

to add a custom field click "Card" from the menubar and mouse down to "Add Field" and choose the field you would like to add. When you do this you are adding that custom (additional info) field to that contact only so it will not appear on any other cards as a populate-able (word?) option. If you want this new field to appear on all of your contacts click "AddressBook" from the menubar, then go to "Preferences" and then "Template" and choose that field from the "Add Field" dropdown.

Hope this helps.

I find that Windows users are so used to doing things the hard way that when you put something easy in front of them they get confused by its simplicity.