I currently use the Evolution Contacts list for contacts, with a Python
script that I have written to extract E-Mail addresses to mutt (via
Ctrl-T etc.).
I'm getting fed up with Evolution's slowness, crap user interface and
non-standard storage format so I'm looking for alternatives, so far I've
had very little luck even though I have cast my net pretty far looking
at everything from abook to full-blown web groupware.
My requirements are:-
Storage of full contact information, i.e. postal address and
telephone numbers as well as E-Mail address.
Standard storage format (e.g. vCard or LDAP) so that it's easy to
access, convert and move around. This isn't *absolutely* necessary,
a program that provides all I want and stores data in some strange
format might be acceptable.
Fast and lightweight, I don't want to have to wait a long time while
the program loads and I want the UI to be fast. This is where
Evolution falls down, on my fairly modern and fast (quad processor,
SATA disks) system it takes 5 seconds or so to simply start up.
Simple, straightforward data entry, search, etc., again Evolution is
bad (IMHO) here, I find the user interface to Contacts confusing and
clumsy.
I've played with abook but it doesn't really quite do it for me, I've
nothing against it being text mode (I'm a mutt user after all) but
entering full contact data really isn't its forté and I do want to keep
all user contact data in one place. I think a small desktop GUI would
be my ideal solution but a web based program (if fast and light) might
be a possibility too.
So, does everyone here use abook, or nothing, or just have all their
E-Mail addresses in mutt aliases, or what? Any suggestions would be
very welcome.
--
Chris Green
