Kiss: Add Email button in Contacts Search (in addition to Call/SMS)

[uncertainjatan]

Or even an option to turn it ON manually and replace SMS would do.

Outside the US, most people rarely use text. We have all shifted permanently to IMs like WhatsApp/Messenger/Telegram. But everyone in the world still use Email so having an option to directly mail a contact from the search results would be really great.

[nmitsou]

Yes SMS is not used as much. But how many of your contacts have a filled email field? I am asking because in my case, emails and contacts are rarely connected.

[uncertainjatan]

Oh, in my case, every email is connected to a contact! In fact, there are
contacts that only have Email IDs. So to me, it would be quite a useful
feature.

Nowadays, every Contacts app (including AOSP ones) have a Merge Contacts
feature, so I suppose anyone who wants to use the feature for their
contacts, will be able to use it with ease.

It can be an optional setting that is OFF by default, I don't mind.

On 26-Apr-2017 8:55 PM, "nmitsou" [e-mail] wrote:

Yes SMS is not used as much. But how many of your contacts have a filled
email field? I am asking because in my case, emails and contacts are rarely
connected.

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[ntninja]

Right now we show one result per contact-phone-number, iirc. So right now the "contact" provider is actually a "phone-contact" provider that exposes a very phone-related interface.
As such I think it would probably make more sense to actually have a separate "email-contact" provider that would, of course, share as much code as possible with the current contact provider but be otherwise completely separate.

I like the idea, but I probably won't have a lot of time to work on this anytime soon. If anybody wants to do this, I'll probably be your reviewer through. :slightly_smiling_face:

[nmitsou]

Thinking of the implementation, would you prefer a "email-contact" provider or to update the existing "phone-contact" provider to a "phone-email-contact" provider?

[uncertainjatan]

Either way is fine. I just want an email button in the search :)

[ntninja]

I've thought about this again and changed my stance on this: Maybe it does make more sense to convert our existing phone-contact provider to a generic contact provider. Pressing the phone button on a contact with more than one phone number would then open a popup menu asking you which number you'd like to use (displaying whether the number is marked as mobile, work, etc.), similarly for the messaging button and sending SMS (or using other services utilizing PTSN-numbers).

E-Mail could then be displayed as an alternative messaging address next to the phone number when the contact's messaging button is pressed.

What are your thoughts on this?

[uncertainjatan]

For people who use email but not SMS, (like most here outside of US) this means going to unnecessary two steps to email someone. In my opinion, it hampers usability. I would prefer if Email is a separate option altogether or if I can remap the message button to be email by default in an optimal setting.

[ntninja]

Maybe we could do something like the Android system for the popup:

1. Display a list of choices (with icons) in a popup
2. Tapping a choice selects it and enables two buttons: Always & Open (in that order)
3. Pressing Open launches the selected option and remembers it so that it is pre-selected next time
4. Pressing Always launches the selected option and remembers it so that it will used without displaying any popup next time
5. Tapping the selected choice again behaves like pressing Open

There would obviously no popup at all if there is only one applicable choice. Do you think that would be user-friendly enough?

Rationale for this: I'd really like to avoid cluttering KISS options with yet another option ("Message contacts using email" or similar) that nobody will realize could even exist.

[uncertainjatan]

Yes that seems perfect. You are brilliant! I just have one query now. In your proposal, if a contact has multiple Email IDs, will they be displayed as two separate options? I think yes as I understand this but wanted to confirm.

[ntninja]

You are brilliant!

Thanks! Actually I've observed the described behaviour in some other app (was it Firefox?) and thought it may be a good match for our use case. :slightly_smiling_face:

In your proposal, if a contact has multiple Email IDs, will they be displayed as two separate options?

Yes, each phone number and email address of the contact would be one entry consisting of a the actual address/number and its scope (home, mobile, work, …) if it is set. For phone numbers we also already have some magic baked into KISS to detect whether a number is mobile or not, so that would be used as well.

…

The main problem with all of this is of course that I only described how I believe this could be handled, but somebody (read: likely not me if you want this to land anytime soon) also has to implement it.

[ildar]

At least search contacts by email field would be a good enhancement to start.

BTW search doesn't search in all phone numbers, is this a bug?

[Neamar]

@ildar if you set a number as "favorite" or "default" for a contact, other numbers will be ignored for this contact. Otherwise it's a bug, feel free to open a new issue!

[Neamar]

I'm going to close this in favor of #1045 :)