I'd like bbdb to be a one-stop people database.
Here's a rough list of some issues that could be handled better. They
basically fall into two major categories -- external interfaces and
Gnus interfaces -- as these are the two major ways I use bbdb -- with
a couple of off-the-wall suggestions at the end.
* Name
"Charlie Brown, M.D." should sort on Brown, not M.D. (Needs work
on the Pilot side, too, of course.)
* Phone
Perhaps having a list of acceptable phone-number headers would be a
good idea? (home, work, mobile, pager, fax, data, other) Keeping
this standard will make it easier to write external interfaces.
* Email addresses
I know this is probably controversial, but what about using a
similar list of acceptable headers, with some method of keying the
'main' one? Some folks I correspond with have separate work and
home email addresses, and woe to me if I send to the wrong one.
* Addresses
This probably won't surprise you, but another list of acceptable
headers might be nice here, if only to again keep things standard.
* Notes
I wouldn't mind having a private section for notes here -- there's
some things I wouldn't necessarily want stored in my pilot in a
public record that may happen to be in a notes section, and this
would mean the entire record would have to be private, which is a
pain. (It's fine to say that this is a weakness in the pilot's
address book -- because it is -- but there is no support here at
all for the concept)
* Export-specific tags
For my hacked version of bbdb-pilot, I've added tags like
"Category" and "Privacy" to records. These should either be
generalized, and the appropriate magic written into the finished
bbdb-pilot.el (and bbdb-pcs.el, etc. etc.) to handle them, or done
specifically for pilots (i.e. "Pilot-Category", "Pilot-Privacy").
Similarly, for my PCS phonebook, I'd like to define specific
BBDB entries for specific phonebook entries (one touch dialing and
the like) as well as exclude certain numbers from being entered
into the phone book (for several reasons -- privacy as well as
complications due to multiple people having the same number for
work, and a few others).
* PGP key information
I'd like to have bbdb-pgp.el functionality rolled into the real
thing. Basically, I'd like to store the user's PGP key ID, their
preference on signed or encrypted email, and that sort of thing.
Since keys are strongly tied towards identities, I'd recommend the
same list of acceptable headers as email address, if that approach
is followed. The goal would be to have the MUA automatically sign
and/or encrypt messages sent to certain email addresses. I don't
think this makes bbdb subject to export restrictions, since it's
not doing any encryption or providing hooks -- it's just telling
the MUA to encrypt if certain flags are set in a particular way.
* Filter/folder information
Someone earlier mentioned a hack that somehow helped Gnus stick
mail in the right folder for a given entry. If this could be
rolled into the distribution, that would be way keen.
Interestingly enough, this is something I hadn't thought of using
for a mailing list. Mixed with the PGP stuff above, it would make
encrypted mail to and from a mailing list work pretty well.
* birthdays/anniversaries
It'd be nice if the MUA (or some other app using bbdb) could let
the owner know when certain days approach. This is also quite
possibly venturing into the realm of calendaring software.
* waypoints and routes
One of the cooler things I play with is my GPS. It'd be lovely to
be able to store waypoints and routes to somewhere in that
somewhere's record. But that might be too off-the-wall.
Thoughts?
Jack.
--
Jack Twilley
jmt at tbe dot net
http colon slash slash www dot tbe dot net slash tilde jmt slash
_______________________________________________
bbdb-info mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/bbdb-info
