Contact Editor

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Overview

The Contact Editor enables the complete details of a contact to be viewed or modified. This includes contact information, notes, and links to other items or files. In the Ultimate version, custom user-defined data can be entered. The currently displayed contact can be modified by selecting from a "Go To" drop-down list of contacts on the window's toolbar.

The Contact Editor window.

Toolbar

The Contact Editor window provides a number of buttons on its toolbar.

From left to right, the buttons perform the following actions:

Contact Info

The Contact Info tab provides a number of inputs. These are described below.

Full Name

The contact's full name can be typed in the text box. In most cases, the contact's first, middle, and last names will be parsed from the entered text. If you need to specify a title or suffix, click the drop-down button. This enables each component of the contact's full name to be individually entered. A drop-down list if provided for title and suffix values, or you can type your own value in the input field. Changes made on the drop-down will be reflected in the contact's full name text box.

Clicking the Full Name button will cause a drop-down to appear where individual components of the contact's full name can be entered.

File As

This field is the value used for filing the contact information. Each contact must have a unique "File As" value. The File As value will typically be in the format of "Last Name, First Name", for easier sorting in the Contact List. However, you can select a different File As value from the drop-down list. The list of available entries for the File As field comes from the contact's full name.

The "File As" field uniquely identifies the contact.

Group/folder

The Group/folder field can be used to group contacts. A drop-down list groups is populated with currently used group names. If the desired group name is not present in the drop-down list, you can use the keyboard to type a new group name. The Contact List also defaults to grouping contacts by this value.

The Category/Group field can be used to group similar contacts and send email/SMS reminders to entire groups.

Category

In addition to groups, contacts can also be associated with one or more categories. The list of categories is the same used by events, notes, and tasks. The Contact List includes a "Category" column that can be grouped, filtered, and sorted.

Private Contact

When contact data sharing has been enabled via the Sharing Options, or when syncing with Google Contacts has been enabled, the "Private contact" box can be used to prevent a contact from syncing. The contact's information will be stored privately on your local computer.

Picture

A picture can be added to the Contact Editor by clicking the empty picture area and selecting the Add Picture command.

A picture can be added for the contact by clicking the empty picture area.

A file browser will be displayed where a picture can be selected. The picture will be automatically scaled to fit within the available space in the Contact Editor window. After adding a picture, you can remove or change the picture by clicking it again.

Click a previously added picture to change or remove the picture.

Clicking the Change Picture command will enable a different picture to be selected. Clicking the Remove Picture command will revert the Contact Editor to showing an empty contact picture.

Contact Data - Adding or Removing Values

The Phone, Mailing Addresses, Email, URL, and Birthday/Anniversary areas of the Contact Editor support entry of any number of values. These areas will dynamically grow depending on how many values have been entered. If the areas become too large to fit in the Contact Editor window, a vertical scrollbar will appear.

To add a new value, use the "Click to add" button on the last row.

A drop-down list of default value types will appear. You can select an item from the drop-down list or enter your own custom label.

To remove a previously added value, select or click its row. A red X button will appear on the right side of the row. Click the X button to remove the row. A row can also be deleted by clearing out its value.

Contact Data - Action Buttons

When a value is selected, it might have an additional "action button", depending on its value type.

SMS Delivery

The "SMS Delivery" fields are only shown when the SMS/Voice options are configured to use your mobile carrier instead of the web-based SMS service.

When using your own mobile carrier for SMS reminders, the contact's mobile phone number and mobile carrier should be specified. This data is used to automatically generate a mobile send-to address, which is the address text message reminders will be sent to. This also requires the contact's mobile carrier to offer an email-to-SMS gateway, which is a service offered by most mobile carriers in the United States, and is usually included in the service plan. However, some international mobile carriers don't provide email-to-SMS gateways, or charge extra to activate this service. If you're not sure, please check with your mobile carrier.

The contact's mobile carrier, phone number, and send-to address are used when sending text message reminders.

You can also use the web-based SMS service, which doesn't require entry of each contact's mobile carrier and doesn't require the mobile carrier to provide an email-to-SMS gateway. In that case, the only information needed is the contact's mobile phone number.

A cell phone button is provided on the right-side of the "Mobile phone #" field. Clicking this button will initiate a new text message to the contact, via the Send a Text Message window.

Notes

The Notes tab enables free-form entry of notes for your contact. The notes can consist of anything you'd like, and can also include pictures or links.

Notes can be entered for your contacts.

Custom Data (Ultimate Version Only)

VueMinder Ultimate provides the ability to define custom data fields for contacts. Custom fields are integrated with the other contact data fields on the "Contact Info" tab of the Contact Editor. Custom data can also be imported or exported, and will sync over a local network. See the Custom Data documenation for more information.

Files

The Files tab can be used to attach (link) files and folders to the contact. File links can also be inserted into the Notes text, but the Files tab provides a number of different viewing modes, such as "List", "Details", and "Icons", and is more suitable when attaching a large number of files to a contact.

Adding a File or Folder

To add a file or folder, click the "Add File" or "Add Folder" button. Files and folders can also be dragged-and-dropped onto the Files tab.

Removing a File or Folder

Selected files and folders can be removed by clicking the Remove button. Multiple files can be selected and removed at the same time by dragging the selection rectangle around the desired files or holding the Ctrl key while clicking the files. You can also press the Delete key or right-click the file and select "Remove" from the popup menu. You'll be prompted to confirm removal of the file. Removing a file from a contact does not delete the actual file, it just removes the link.

Opening a File or Folder

To open file, select the file by clicking it, and then click the Open button. If multiple files are selected when the Open button is clicked, all selected files will be opened. Files can also be opened by double-clicking or right-clicking and selecting the "Open" command from the popup menu.

Changing the View

The View button enables selection of different view types. These are very similar to the view types provided in Windows Explorer. The default view type is "Icons". To select a different view, click the View button and then select the desired view type from the drop-down menu. Below is an example of the "Details" view. In this view, items can also be sorted by clicking the column header.

The Links tab provides the ability to define 2-way links between events, tasks, notes, and contacts. For example, tasks and events could be linked to an associated contact. When a link is established, it becomes 2-directional - meaning the association between the items can be viewed or removed from either item's editor window, via the "Links" tab. The tab can present all associated links in a single view, providing instant access to the details you need, such as an associated contact's phone number and address.

The "Links" tab shows currently defined links and enables the addition of links to other events, tasks, notes, and contacts. Links can also be removed. Each link is shown within a panel when the View option is set to "Tiles". If there are many links, the View option can be set to "List", enabling more links to be seen at one time.

Opening Links

To open an associated item, click its name in the Tile view, or double-click its row in the List view. This will open the linked item in a separate editor window. Any changes made to the linked item will be dynamically refreshed in the Links tabs.

Adding Links

To link an item with another item, click the appropriate "Link Existing" or "Link New" button at the top of the Links tab. When linking to an existing item, the Add a Link window will appear, containing a list that can be searched or filtered, and columns can be shown or hidden by right-clicking the column header. To select an item for linking, click its row. Multiple items can be selected by holding the Ctrl or Shift keys while clicking rows. When finished, click the OK button to link to the selected item(s).

Removing Links

To remove a linked item when viewing items by Tile, click the "X" in the upper-right corner of the item's tile. If viewing by List, click the linked item's row to select it, and then press the Delete key or click the red X button at the top of the Links tab. A message will display asking to confirm removal of the link. When the link is removed, it will also be removed from the associated item, since links are bi-directional.  

 

Contact Us

If you have questions that aren't answered here, you can reach our support team at support@vueminder.com. If you're using VueMinder Ultimate you'll have our top priority. Otherwise, we'll reply as soon as all VueMinder Ultimate requests have been completed (and always within 1 business day).

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