Group By Contact List

[devans]

I just installed the new Agendus v6. I have my contact list categorized by using the Custom 1 field. In the old version of Act Names - my contact list stayed Grouped by whatever I selected - in this case Custom 1. However with the new version - the grouping of my contact list defaults back to No Grouping when I exit Agendus. Is there a way to maintain my Grouping with Agendus?

[watchguy]

Unfortunatly I've asked for an answer to this from Tech Support and have never gotten an answer. I asked 3 times the first two times I was just blown off and the last time the ticket is still sitting there apparently with nobody looking at it.

I understand a bug is a bug but at least admit that you have a problem and are working on fixing it. I know I really enjoyed it when it worked the way (the correct way since at least V4) it was supposed too.

The program is great, don't take away features please!

[james]

The grouping setting last used in Agendus is no longer retained, this change was made because the contact list can not be left in group mode so it had to be regrouped on each launch. With large databases this would mean a long delay on each launch, even for when you launched the app and didn't go to the contact view. Many users asked us to change this so that the contacts were only grouped when they went to the contact view and selected grouping. This way the delay caused by the time needed to do this would only be experienced when the user was interested in seeing the grouped contact list instead of on every single launch of the application.

[watchguy]

It's nice someone finally answered this, Tech support seems to know NOTHING about it and just ignore it and hope you go away (so it seems to me).

I can understand the speed issue as I noticed it on my old palm 100 but the 125 didn't seem to be a problem. Now the problem is you took a feature away that a lot of us DID like and not only took it away but didn't give anyone any warning that it was gone.

Why couldn't you put it as an option instead of just taking away, options go better in the computer world than just taking things away with no warning.

Just a suggestion and a small gripe.

Thanks for letting us know (finally).

Chuck

[james]

Sorry support didn't get back to you on this before.

This change was implemented back in v5.3 and noted in the what's new list which you can see here http://www.iambic.com/agendus/palmos/whatsnew.asp?b=1&bi=2

Your request for this as a preference has been noted. Thanks for your feedback.

[NatesTreo]

Originally posted by MonsterCrash
The grouping setting last used in Agendus is no longer retained, this change was made because the contact list can not be left in group mode so it had to be regrouped on each launch. With large databases this would mean a long delay on each launch, even for when you launched the app and didn't go to the contact view. Many users asked us to change this so that the contacts were only grouped when they went to the contact view and selected grouping. This way the delay caused by the time needed to do this would only be experienced when the user was interested in seeing the grouped contact list instead of on every single launch of the application.

I stumbled on a way to speed up grouping even though we can't save the grouping between launches. I don't think it is in the manual and if not I would suggest adding it.

With over 2200 records in my Contacts datafile, and about 1400 of those records within the category I need to groupby Custom 4, Agendus can't seem to build the grouping table within a reasonable time, and in fact usually quits trying after about 60 seconds of struggle.

However, I did stumble on a procedure which speeds up the groupby table-building considerably!

I find that if I click on the tab at the top for the three-letter portion of the alphabet BEFORE I select groupby Custom 4, it builds the table much much faster because it only looks for contacts whose Custom 4 contents start with one of those three letters of the alphabet!

Up until that discovery, I had assumed that the three-letter tabs only referred to your primary or "at-rest" sort category, e.g. Last Name, or could only be used for groups after you had grouped the category of your database, but apparently they preserve the narrowing instruction for the groupby command which follows. A pleasant surprise.

These two steps seem to be in backward order, but they do the trick.

In fact, once I am in "grouby" for that three-letter portion of the contacts datafile, I can select a different tab at the top, and again Agendus will speedily (a relative term here of course but about 7 seconds sure beats 60-seconds-to-never) build a grouped table for that newly selected three-letter portion of the database. Not bad for working in a database of about 1400 out of 2200 contacts!

So even though the grouping can't be saved between launches, it can be created much faster if you click on the three-letter tab of the target before grouping.

Regards,

NateS

[james]

Hi,

Yes, filtering by letter tab and/or by category will restrict the set of records to be grouped which makes it finish more quickly.