On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 11:25:28AM -0500, Tim Gray wrote: > On Dec 10, 2011 at 02:55 PM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > >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. > > This isn't going to be very useful to you since you are using Linux > and I'm on OS X, but it might give you some ideas. I use the OS X > built in Address Book app. It's got a goofy GUI, but now that Apple > has released iCloud (for free!), my contacts sync wirelessly > automatically between my phone, my computer, and Apple's iCloud web > mail (not that I use that). The syncing between my phone and > computer are the big features for me. It is also nice that it keeps > track of physical addresses, phone numbers, IM names, etc - all of > which my phone can utilize I might add. Lastly, lot's of apps on OS > X tap into the Address Book database, so having my contacts in there > makes using OS X generally a nicer experience. > If I found something that could synchronize my (any) phone as well then I'd be *very* happy! :-)
> I also use lbdb in mutt. There's a helper that queries the OS X > address book, so I can run a query by hitting ^T and search the > address book. I have lbdb setup to also scrape addresses from > outgoing messages and store them. So when I run the ^T query, not > only does it search the OS X address book, but it also checks the > outgoing address list. One could also run searches against LDAP if > you desired. > lbdb is good to know about, thank you. It means that I can choose almost any program for my address book and can link it to mutt. > I also use a simple mutt alias file for my most commonly used > addresses where I want to define a nickname to use. Like 'mom' or > 'mike'. I have many Mike's I correspond with, including both my > brother and my boss. You can imagine I send completely different > types of correspondences to those two, so I want to make sure I have > no mix ups. I've defined 'mike' as my brother and 'boss' as my > boss. > > The last bit of glue I use is a python script that dumps the OS X > address book into mutt alias format. This happens nightly via a > cron job. I do this so I can quickly use tab completion when typing > in addresses and also to access the groups I have defined in the OS > X address book. This way I can define hooks in mutt based on those > groups. > > It all sounds much more complicated than it actually is in use. > When getting a new contact, I enter it in my phone if on the road, > or add it to the Address Book app. When composing emails, I start > typing who I want to address an email to and hit tab. If that alias > doesn't come up either from my commonly used alias file or from the > Address Book dump alias file, I hit ^T and query lbdb. No, doesn't sound very complex, what I need is the equivalent of that Address Book program you're using. -- Chris Green
