On Mon, Sep 26 2011, Roland Winkler wrote:
> On Mon Sep 26 2011 Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>> Why not have separate minibuffer prompts for surname and given name?
>>
>> Many of my records are for Chinese people. Right now I can't be bothered
>> separating out the characters for surname and given name, and usually
>> they all get lumped into whatever default bbdb picks for names with no
>> spaces. Separate prompts for surname and given name would solve this
>> (and the surname prompt could say " or organization name", something
>> like that).
>>
>> Or, if a syntax for splitting is introduced, perhaps it could indicate
>> which side is the surname and which the given name, to make it easier to
>> create records for cultures where surname comes first. I'm not bothered
>> that the resulting name is displayed "backwards" (given name first), but
>> it would be great if entry were made easier.
>>
>> My random suggestion: use "{" or "}" for the separator. The surname is
>> the part that's "inside" the bracket. So:
>>
>> Eric{Abrahamsen
>> }
>> {Lucky Star Buffet Restaurant
>> Bartók}Béla
>>
>> On second thought, if you did it this way, BBDB could "learn" from the
>> parsing the proper display order of the name, and store that as a
>> boolean with the name itself. Parsing would be a little more
>> complicated, but this would provide for much more flexible
>> customization.
>
> Nice thoughts, thank you!
>
> Being a lazy person when it comes to typing, I'd prefer for myself
> to have one prompt for the full name. But this could be made
> customizable, such that one can also get two prompts for first and
> last name. And if the customizable default for entering names was
> "full-name", the bracket separator could be used for more
> flexibility.
>
> Controlling the display order via the bracket scheme is also a neat
> idea. The flag could also be used if first and last name are entered
> separately. What would be a convenient way to control the value of
> this flag when entering the name in the latter way?
Glad the idea seems plausible!
How to set name ordering if the names are split into two prompts is a
tricky one. The last thing you want is a new prompt for every record,
when you've already got two prompts for the name component…
Right now the only thing I can think of is: ask people to enter a prefix
character on the element that should be displayed first. Set a default (say,
`bbdb-name-display-order') such that users who don't care about this
feature never know it exists. Users who do care (and are entering a
record contrary to their default) can put a bracket character of either
sort anywhere in the field that comes first (to allow for forgetting how
it works).
It's kind of hacky, but it's the only thing I can think of now that
doesn't require an extra prompt.
E
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