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The Address Book Editor

To edit the address book, open the address book editor. If the book is already present in the address book tree on the left side of the window, you may expand it (and any subgroups it might have) and start editing immediately. If not, you must first add it to the tree by choosing ``New..'' from the ``Book'' submenu or using the corresponding toolbar button.

Generally speaking, there are several ways to perform the same action in the address book editor:

  1. use the menus: the commands for creating and deleting address book entries are in the ``Edit'' menu, the corresponding commands for the address books - in ``Book'' one.
  2. use the toolbar: this may be more convenient because, depending on the current position of the selected item in the tree it will propose to create either an address book or an entry.
  3. use keyboard: <INSERT> key creates a new entry or address book if the current selection is the root of the tree, <DELETE> deletes an item and <Alt-ENTER> brings up the ``Properties'' dialog.
To edit the entry, simply select it in the tree. The data associated to it is spread over several notebook pages - select the one which contains the field you want to change and change it. If you want to undo your changes, simply press ``Cancel'' at any moment - however, this only works while you're editing the entry. As soon as you pass to another one, all previous changes are saved and cannot be undone any more. The changes are saved automatically when you select another entry or close the address book editor - there is no special ``Save'' button.

To quickly move in the address book tree you may use either the ``Find'' or ``Go to'' dialogs (both available in the ``Find'' menu). The first dialog allows you to find the entry by its contents while the second one allows you to quickly go to the entry (in thecurrent address book only) if you know its nickname. In the ``Find'' dialog you have several options to configure the search: it may be either case sensitive or not (should ``mike'' match ``Mike''?) and try to find only the whole string or just the substring of it (should ``mik'' match ``Mike''?). You may also choose among which fields should the search be done. You may choose as many fields as you like (possibly all of them) but you must choose at least one.

After you used the ``Find'' dialog once, you may choose the ``Find next'' menu item to go to the next address book entry matching your search criterium (notice that a message in the status bar will notify you about how many matches, if any, were found). Keep hitting ``Find next'' until the search wraps to the beginning (again, watch the status line for the message) or until you find the entry you're looking for.

You may import your existing address book file by choosing the ``Import book...''entry from the ``Book'' menu - this will open the address book import dialog proposing you to select the


next up previous contents
Next: Support for BBDB Address Up: The Address Database Previous: The native Address Book   Contents
Charlie & 2001-04-19