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New Features

Version 5.2.4

  • Face lifting. The command bar in the edit window is moved to the top.
  • Font name of edit boxes, categories and contact list can be configurated.

Version 5.2.3

  • Create iCalendar file which may generate birthday reminders in any calendar program running on PC, Web or PDA. The new function is located in [Main menu -> Output -> Export to Birthday Reminder].
  • Some minor face lifts to the program UI.

Version 5.2.2

  • Improve synchronizing for organizational contacts, along with SyncML Client for Open Contacts v1.0.3.

Version 5.2.1

  • Bug fixing. On Vista, when creating shortcut for default Contacts directory, the program crashes. Fixed.

Version 5.2

  • Improve the way of change log management. From this version, you may use Open Contacts along with SyncML Client for Open Contacts to synchronize contact information with smart phones, PDA and other Web base address books.

Version 5.1.1

  • The Initials Grid window is changed to a drop-down window in the Contact List window.
  • Some face lifts to GUI.

Version 5.1

  • Advanced postal address management for mail merge.
  • The drop down count of dynamic fields is adjustable from 8 to 36. With higher value, all predefined fields may be listed, so you will not need to scroll up and down to pick up one. This is configured in the Options.
  • When inputting birthday, it is acceptable to define month and day only without year. The format is MM-DD. In the Search Birthday window, the age of a contact won't be calculated if no year is defined.
  • When pasting multiple lines of text with predefined labels to create multiple fields, now the program can use only characters at the right end of the last TAB character if any.
  • Support advanced management of postal addresses. While each section of a record may have one postal address, you may appoint the postal address of one of the sections to be the postal address. In addition, if you prefer using a company's address, you may set the postal address to be the company's.
  • For the Quick View window, you may view postal address only after setting the Quick View style sheet to be "Postal address".
  • When inputting names of contacts, you may choose to have fields "Given name", "middle name" and "Surname" only while hiding the full name field, as you may prefer not to use automatic full name analysis. And for tolerating duplicated names, you may still amend the full name.
  • When exporting to XML with options, all categories (rather than categories of selected contacts) will be exported as well if option "Settings" is checked. Then when importing from such XML to another database, all categories will be restored.
  • Add the Communication template for the Quick View window. You may change the template of the Quick View through the Options-View. This template groups data fields of electronic communication by Email, phone, and instant messenger.

Version 5.0

  • Support change log which is dynamically generated. Thus, synchronization with Plaxo server and SyncML server has become possible. Open Contacts Plaxo Sync was developed. A companion program for SyncML server like Funambol will be coming soon.

Version 4.1.10

  • Quick search contacts modified between period.
  • Quick search contacts created between period.
  • Quick search contacts without category assigned. This function replaces two similar functions which were available in the Searches menu.

Version 4.1.8

  • In Batch Processing, you may convert all date fields into ISO date format (yyyy-mm-dd). This is handy for importing from CSV files which contain date in other date formats.

Version 4.1.7

  • Import from Windows Vista Contact files.
  • Add hCard.xsl in the Templates directory for transforming selected contact info to HTML with hCard tags.

Version 4.1.6

  • In Batch Processing, you may change field name of selected contacts.

Version 4.1.5

  • When exporting to XML, a new option is provided to export linked local photo to the XML file as embedded BASE64 data.
  • When import from XML with embedded BASE64 data, the data will be imported as a linked local file stored in the default Files directory.

Version 4.1.3

  • Add convenient ways of creating new address book for the same user or new users. A shortcut is created on the desktop for you to create new working directory of address book. In the Tools menu, you may run function "Create Address Book". You may create for current user, or all users.

Version 4.1.2

  • When exporting to XML, you may have an options to export settings, including predefined fields, predefine sections, layout profiles, and most settings in the Options window. Thus, you may exported almost everything in the GDB database into XML. When importing such XML file, existing settings in the database will be overwritten. This feature may be used as an alternative of backing up database. 

Version 4.1

  • In addition to built-in actions upon contact data, you as computer literate can develop custom actions using Web URL query, EXE program, Windows scripts or DLL programs. Please check the Developer pages for details.

Version 4.0

  • Importing from MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and vCard becomes customizable through XML templates. With the basic templates provided, you may modify the XML files to change the mappings. Basically you can import almost all fields of the sources.
  • Be compatible with "Start PortableApps".
  • Batch processing of changing section names of selected contacts. This feature is useful to maintain consistency of section names.
  • For frequently used fields like City, State and Country, when you key-in data, you will have a dropdown list of historic items.  For example, after you have entered "Chatswood" into field city, next time when you key-in data in this field, and key-in letter "C", you will have "Chatswood" in the dropdown list. In addition, you can make any predefined field to remember a list of historic items. Obviously, some fields like "Phone" and "Email", historic items will not make sense for fast data entry. To enable this feature, you will need to enable this function in the Options window, and enable desired fields to have such feature in the Define Predefined Fields window.
  • When exporting selected contacts to XML, you will have more options. This will make the XML more informative in order to transform the XML to other data format using XSLT.
  • Support the concept of Myself in database. You may define one of the contacts to be yourself. When exporting to XML, "Myself" may be exported as well in a separated section.
  • If you have multiple address book databases to use, you may define a alias for each of these database, so you can be sure which database you are using. The alias is defined in the Database tab of the Options window.
  • Export data to XML with categories and linked contacts. And you can export both people and and companies in the same XML if you select contacts in a search window. Thus, this can be used for merging contact info to another address book database.
  • From imported XML, recovery categories and linked contacts.
  • Import from LDIF files exported from address book of Mozilla/Netscape/Thunderbird. Previous method of importing CSV is obsolete.
  • Import from LDIF files exported from other data sources. You will then need to define your own mappings saved in XML.
  • Share most settings with Contacts Express, so you may switch between Open Contacts and Contacts Express if installed.
  • The commands in the contact list window are presented as dropdown menu.

Version 3.9

  • Support importing vCard file with multiple vCards contained.
  • When pasting multiple lines of text to date fields, you may create a set of predefined labels (field names) along. This is handy when you paste lines of signature of someone's Email which often contains name, email address and phone number etc.
  • When searching for birthday, the age is counted against the end of the period, this year optionally. Previously the program count the age against today always.
  • Functions of importing are integrated into a window with options, in order to reduce dialogs of questions.
  • When importing a vCard, if the ORG value is equal to the Formatted Name value, the vCard will be imported into companies.
  • Improve the UI of the Search Birthday function, so people born on 29 Feb or other leap days will be taken care of. This also improve the performance of Birthday Reminder.
  • Improve the importing of MS Outlook, contact items without name but company name will be imported into companies.
  • Introduce compact UI to the main section. Optionally, you may hide the labels of name fields, so you will still have large space for editing names, while the Edit Contact window is small.
  • Support Birthday Reminder.
  • When importing from CSV, if the CSV fields contain no full name field, but surname and given name, the full name will be composed with these names.

Version 3.8

  • In quick search window, when starting typing the second character of keyword, the window will start showing results, with names and field values matched.
  • When defining categories for selected contacts, in the popup categories tree, those categories shared by all selected will be checked and bold, and those shared by some will be bold only.
  • In presenting selected contacts in HTML format, the memo fields will have line breaks.
  • In the Contact List window, quick search by name is supported. When inputting a character, contacts with initial matching the character will come up; when inputting more than one character, contacts containing the characters will come up. This feature may be enabled through the Options window.
  • Confirmation before deleting a category.
  • After changing a contact name, the new name will replace the old one, rather than be added to the end of the contact list.
  • Support default phone number prefix. You might have a lot phone numbers of local contacts without country/code. When traveling, you might need to dial extra area codes. You may use function "Call after modifying number" to compensate such change. In addition, this feature is handy for you to dial via Skype which requires country code all the time.
  • Highlight current field of the Edit Contact window.
  • Auto save. When a contact is modified and you want to quit the program or load another contact, the contact will be saved automatically. If you want to discard the changes, press Ctrl+Z.

Version 3.7

  • The basic info part of the contact edit window can adjust. the edit boxes when resizing the window.
  • Support the Geo field with latitude and longitude. The map service can be activated with this field. This feature is handy when you get friends living in the bush where the streets get no name.
  • Support relationships between people, and support multiple relationships between 2 contacts optionally.
  • Confirmation on exiting current session of modifying contact data.
  • Export selected contacts to vCard saved as a file or multiple files. You may optionally export multiple contacts into one vCard file.
  • When importing from MS Outlook, contacts in subfolders will be handled as well.

Version 3.6

  • Support Quick View in Google Desktop Open Contacts Plug-in.
  • Support Gmail and Gmail Notifier through Shell Mail function.
  • Search any field in the standard search window or the quick search window. In the standard search window, if a field value is defined without field name, the program will search any field with that value.
  • Support multiple users on the same computer using their own database, or sharing the same database.
  • Remember locations of  the Quick View window and the Photo Viewer.
  • You may decide whether to show  the Quick View window and the Photo Viewer at startup.
  • After deleting contacts in a contact list, the contact list will refresh and will keep current positions of items.
  • When linking an organization to a contact, you may define the name of the relationship, such as manager, CEO, director or owner etc.
  • Main menu replaces the top buttons with drop-down menus.
  • Through commands in the Searches menu, you may list contacts without category defined.

Version 3.5

  • Options to remember which category is accessed last time, and whether the access is recursive. This is handy if you want to access contacts of a category at startup.
  • For portable application, you may set a flag (DisableCOM) in the INI file to tell the program not to publish COM interfaces to the host machine.
  • In a contact Edit window, you may paste multiple lines of text to create new fields. This is handy when you copy/past multi-line address or other contact info from a text viewer like NotePad or Web browser.
  • Introduce field action types: "person" and "org". The field value of a field associated with action "person" will be assumed to be an individual contact in the database, and the action will be to locate and edit/view the contact. Likewise for action "org". This is handy for fields like "Assistant" who could also be a contact in the database.
  • When importing from MS Outlook, names in the Contacts field will also be imported
  • Quick search for phone fields, email fields and address fields.
  • The built-in Image Viewer was modal. Now it is a floating window, so you don't need to close it before navigating to next contact. And, if the next contact contains photos, the viewer will be updated with photos. In addition, if Quick View window is present, the Image Viewer will also be updated when clicking on next contact.
  • In the Quick View window with advanced style sheet,  you may edit current shown contact by clicking on the Edit link.
  • Default files folder. To centralize files with Open Contacts or better support portable applications, it will be handy to put files associated with contacts into a central location. When you drag a file from the default files folder to a contact's file/image field, the field value will be the relative path of the actual file path.
  • Export contacts or phones to HTML file or Internet Explorer. In addition, you can export with custom XSL in order to have your own custom HTML output.
  • In the Quick View window with advanced style sheet, you can view the associated categories of the contact. When clicking on a category link, either the People list or the Companies will refresh showing contacts of the category.

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