Contact Preferences

There are several preferences associated with the management and display of contacts. All these preferences are in the [Contacts] section of menu | Preferences.

ContactSort controls how the list of contacts is sorted. There are six sort options which are always based upon a case-insensitive sort:

• First Name Ascending - displays contacts in ascending alphanumeric order based upon the first name, then the last name, then the company name.
• Last Name Ascending - displays contacts in ascending alphanumeric order by Last Name, then by first name, and then by company name.
• Company Ascending - displays contacts in ascending alphanumeric order by company name, then last name, then first name.
• First Name Descending - displays contacts in descending alphanumeric order based upon the first name, then the last name, then the company name.
• Last Name Descending - displays contacts in descending alphanumeric order by Last Name, then by first name, and then by company name.
• Company Descending - displays contacts in descending alphanumeric order based upon the first name, then the last name, then the company name.

In all six cases, blank items always sort last (i.e. it makes no difference if the sort is ascending or descending - blank items sort after any non-blank items. This means that a sort on company name will always have all entries first that have a non-blank company name (regardless of whether the sort was ascending or descending). The default sort is Last Name Ascending.

DefaultContactsCategory - sets the default category into which newly created contacts are placed. The default value is Unfiled.

ContactsRecentItemsCutoff - specifies how many days are to be included in the Recent Items display (invoked by the [Rec.] button). The default value is 3 (3 days). Note that a long-press on the [Rec.] button overrides the cutoff so that all items with an access date are listed.

ContactPhotoEditSize - specifies the size in pixels for the contact image displayed in the Edit and View Dialogs. The default value is 180 pixels.

ContactPhotoListSize - specifies the size in pixels for the contact image displayed in the contact display list. The default value is 120 pixels.

BackupLocalContacts - specifies how often the contacts database should be backed up. The default value is 1 indicating that it should be backed up every day (2 would mean every 2 days, etc.).

ContactsListDescriptionFont - specifies the typesize to be used for the display of the description field in the main Contacts List display. The default value is Sans Serif-Bold-20.

ContactsListPhoneFont - specifies the typesize to be used for the display of the phone field in the main Contacts List display. The default value is Sans Serif-Bold-16.

ContactsListAddressFont - specifies the typesize to be used for the display of the address field in the main Contacts List display. The default value is Sans Serif-Bold-16.

ContactsViewNoteFont - specifies the typesize to be used for the display of the note field in the View Contact Dialog. The default value is Sans Serif-Plain-14 which is smaller than other type in that dialog,

AlwaysShowCompanyName - specifies whether the company name should be shown in the contact selection list when being sorted by first or last name. The default value is True which displays the company name in smaller type just below the contact's first/last name.

ContactPictureDisplay - specifies whether Contact pictures are either ALWAYS displayed, displayed ONLY IF PRESENT, or are NEVER displayed in the Contact Selection List and also the View dialog. Contact Pictures are always displayed in the Edit dialog.  If there is no contact picture and ALWAYS is selected, then a generic placeholder icon is displayed instead. Associated with the contact picture is also a status line underneath which indicates if the item is deleted, inactive, a favorite, etc.

ContactStartupView - specifies the default startup view for contacts, which can be All, Favorites or Recent (the default is All contacts - you may well want to change this to Favorites, however).

SetNumbersOnlyOnZip - specifies that the Zip (Postal) code field should only contain numbers. The default value is false. If set to true, only numbers are allowed, and the keyboard will be preset for numeric entry when the field is accessed.

SetNumbersOnlyOnPhone - specifies that the phone number should only have digits and other special characters appropriate for a telephone field. If false, then  any character in the phone number field is allowed. If you set this preference false, any non-numeric characters will be stripped from the phone number when used to dial a number. Some users like to put comments after the phone number (and P/D allows it anyway).

HideAddressInContactsList  - specifies that the address field should be hidden in the contacts list display. If you set this to true, you may also want to reduce the pixel size or hide the contact Image, although remember that tapping the contact picture is a convenient way to bring up a contact directly in the Edit Dialog.

SortByCompanyNameIfNameBlank - specifies that if both first and last names, when sorting by first or last name, are blank, the company name should be used instead (if true) and sorted inline. If set to false, then blank entries sort after the last non-blank primary key, so if sorting by first/last name, and only a company name was present, it would sort after all non-blank first/last names. This preference also affects the company name sort in a parallel manner - i.e. if sorting by company name and the company name is blank and this preference is true, the last/first/middle names will be used to sort in line (otherwise, all entries with no company name will sort to either the first or last position depending on the preference below). New Preference in 3.1.08.

BlankPrimaryKeySortsFirst - specifies that if the primary sort key when sorting by first or last name is blank, the contact should sort ahead of all contacts that have an explicit primary sort key. Otherwise, if false, the items will sort after contacts that have an explicit primary sort key. For example, if this preference is set and you have a lot of contacts with only an email field and nothing else, these entries would sort to the top of the list. If set to false, they would all sort to the end of the list. New Preference in 3.1.08.

SkipUniqueContactLabels - if True, specifies that only custom labels that appear two or more times in the contacts database are to be listed as options in the label selection list (deleted or inactive contacts are always ignored when preparing the list of custom contacts labels). Default value is false. The contacts label list is cached in memory. To force it to be reinitialized, select (Add Custom Label) at the end of the list, tap OK and enter a new custom label or tap the Cancel button. This is a new Preference in 3.5.30.

Contact Preferences Shared with Calendar Events

UsePimlicalDateTimePicker - specifies whether the Pimlical Date Picker or the Android Date Picker is used to select a date.

ShowSoftInputKeyboard - this preference controls how the soft keyboard is displayed in the Edit Dialog when the cursor is placed in an editable field. If set to Always, the soft keyboard is always displayed. If set to Sometimes, the soft keyboard is displayed only when creating a new memo, otherwise it will be hidden. If set to Never, the soft keyboard is never displayed on entry to the Edit Dialog. If the soft keyboard is not displayed, tapping in the edit field will pop up the keyboard and display the insert pointer.

ShowCustomFieldsInDialogs - if set to True, the VCard field is displayed in the Edit dialog. This field shows all proprietary vCard statements that are not part of the vCard standard and which are unknown to Pimlical.