Managing Addressbook
From Ekiga
Contents |
Managing my contacts with the Address Book
The Address Book is a feature which allows you to find users to call and/or to save locally your list of
persons that you call on a regular basis. It respectively loads the list of users from the LDAP directory
and will store locally their addresses and associated speed dials (if any).
Basics of the Address Book
To open the Address Book, select Tools → Address Book or push the "Address Book" button on the main window and the Ekiga Addressbook window should appear.
To your left there will be a list dialog showing the Servers you have added to the list as well as a list of local Address Books. The defaults are the Ekiga white pages, the contacts near you (LAN), and the personal address book from Novell Evolution (http://www.novell.com/products/evolution).
- Ekiga is able to use several types of address books, allowing to search for remote contacts, and bookmark local contacts. The most common address book type is the LDAP directory where you can find information about registered users. Ekiga is able to browse any LDAP directory and use a specific attribute as calling URL.
For example, you could have an LDAP directory in your company, with a specific attribute containing the local extensions of all your colleagues. Ekiga is able to use such an LDAP directory. Simply select in File → New Address Book, and choose remote LDAP as type.
- Ekiga is also able to detect other Ekiga users on the LAN using the Bonjour technology popularized by Apple (tm).
That supposes you have a local mDNSResponder daemon running on your computer.
- Finally, Ekiga is able to bookmark contacts in the local address book, shared with the Novell Evolution (http://www.novell.com/products/evolution) suite.
FIXME: Avahi, here we talk about "Bonjour", elsewhere we talk about "Rendez-Vous"...
How to search users ?
To refresh the list of users for a specific address book, simply click the Find button. It will search for all users in that address book. Or you can double-click on the Address Book name to get the same result.
You can contact people by double clicking on their highlighted field. You can also Drag-and-Drop to call a specific party by selecting the highlighted field and dragging it into the Main Window.
In certain cases you will want to search specifically for a person name, his or her call URL, or his location in the Ekiga white pages. The address book window allows you to apply filters when searching for contacts.
- The Ekiga white pages will allow you to look for users in your region. It returns a limited number of results corresponding to your search.
Online/Offline Status
After a search in the Withe pages, if the user is associated to a red icon, it means that he is online. If he is associated to a greyed out icon, it means he is offline. You can then add him to your personal address book to call him later.
Adding an Address Book
To add an address book, select File → New Address Book. A dialog will appear. You then select the type of address book you want to add.
The type can be:
- Local
- Remote LDAP
Enter the server name. Enter the name, the various parameters and select ’OK’ and the new address book should now appear in the address books list.
- If you do not know what parameters to use for a remote LDAP address book, please ask them to your administrator.
The address book parameters can be changed at any time by selecting File → Properties when the address book is highlighted.
It can also be deleted by selecting File → Delete.
Managing remote and local contacts
Add a new contact to your local Address Books
To add a contact to one of your local address books, simply select the address book you wish to add the contact and select Contact → New Contact. The option of adding a New Contact will appear and you may now enter his name and VoIP URL as well as other settings. After complete select ’OK’ and now your contact has been added.
- You can only add contacts to local address books.
The contact parameters can be changed at any time by selecting File → Properties when the contact is highlighted.
He can also be deleted by selecting File → Delete.
Add a contact from an Address Book (White Pages, remote LDAP, local Address Books)
You can also add a contact from the white pages (or any other local or remote address book) by selecting the highlighted contact and dragging him to the specific local address book you wish to add him to or by selecting Contact → Add Contact to Address Book when selecting that contact.
How to group contacts ? (work, family, friends,...)
You can edit the groups your users belong to using the User Properties dialog from the main menu or from the right-click menu, or using drag-and-drop between groups.
FIXME: You can add a contact from the history window. About ILS Addresbooks ? Confusing about managing Adressbooks/contacts...
