Enhancement request: Load vcf batch to user-selected Group in Contacts

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It would be great if the import of a .vcf batch would load to a given 
group in Android Contacts.  This would allow the user to segregate these 
contacts from others for display.  It also would allow user to use Android 
settings to control sync of this group to Gmail.

My primary use of this app would be to load ~600 private contacts that I 
do NOT want to sync with GMail, to comply with policy of my organization 
that forbids upload of its contact data to third-party servers.  This is 
the primary value your app would add for institutional/corporate users. 
(Otherwise, if I did want them synced to Gmail, the Gmail web interface is 
superior to this app.)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by boomerbubba@gmail.com on 4 Aug 2009 at 4:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sounds like a good idea. Not sure when I'll have time to work on it, but I'll 
add it
to the list (patches are welcome).

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 5 Aug 2009 at 3:57

• Changed state: Accepted
• Added labels: Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Type-Defect

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks.  It occurs to me that to make this process effective, there also would 
need 
to be a function on the Android app to globally delete contacts assigned to a 
given 
Group before a batch import.  That would accommodate deletes in the user's 
source 
database.  It might also be useful to turn off automatic Gmail sync of contacts 
during the batch import.

Wish I could volunteer to help, but I have no experience developing on the 
Android, 
and you would not want my Java code :-)

Original comment by boomerbubba@gmail.com on 5 Aug 2009 at 10:36

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue 22 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 17 Sep 2009 at 6:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Support added in new Beta version. Please test.

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 12 Oct 2009 at 6:49

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks.  I tested beta and can report the following:

1) The good news is that vCardIO beta does tag the newly imported records in 
the 
selected group.

2) A major problem for me, which may be a Google bug not yours, is that 
although I 
load these contacts into a group that has been deselected for sync in the main 
Contacts app, the contacts sync anyway and upload to Google Gmail Contacts.  
That is 
the exact behaviour I am trying to avoid.

I tried several combinations, including first going to Settings and disabling 
Contacts sync entirely before running the vCardIO import.  (That might speed 
things 
up anyway.)  But after the import, when I toggle that global setting back on, 
the 
contacts in the group upload to Google.  In all these cases, the group remained 
deselected for sync in the main Contacts app menu.

3) Another issue for me is that if all the above worked as intended, I still 
would 
need the ability (on the phone, not Google) to globally delete all contacts in 
a 
selected group before I reload the batch of vCard records.  This would cover 
deletes 
that not longer exist in my master.

4) A minor annoyance in the vCardIO interface, when the physical keyboard is 
enabled 
in horizontal mode, the user cannot scroll down to select the contact groups 
before 
the import.  The workaround is to close the keyboard and scroll in vertical 
mode.

Original comment by boomerbubba@gmail.com on 13 Oct 2009 at 9:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Great app!  However, the behavior listed by boomerbubba's comment 5 at #2 is
precisely what I'm encountering.  I am using an HTC Hero with newest beta 
version of
vcardio, and I have an additional major import issue that I'm running into as 
well. 
Both are below.

Problem One: Pictures
1) I exported the contacts to my SD card minutes ago, using the latest beta of 
vcardio
2) I deleted all my contacts (ouch!)
3) I tried to import my contacts, but it failed on a picture

I know this is the case because a contact was imported without a picture, 
therefore
the picture (which was not imported) is very likely the issue.  The curious 
thing is
that I used your program to export it, so the encoding should be acceptable to
vcardio, right?

Pictures aren't critical, but importing is.  I was pretty excited to see that 
the
pictures were exportable and importable -- that rocks.  If it can do the 
picture,
great.  Some worked.  But if the code could gracefully fail by skipping the bad
images, and continuing with the rest of the import, that would be slick.

Problem Two: Contact Groups not Supported
1) The import of any contact on the HTC Hero wants to add the contact as a 
"Google"
contact by default
2) On my phone, I manually created a contact that was a "Phone" contact, and a
contact that was a "Google" contact
3) However, when I export these contacts using vcardio, they are identical in 
that
there is no type specified for either -- the words "Google" and "Phone" are not
present, nor is any other identifying information

So the deeper issue of how the underlying contact information is pulled from 
Android
is the issue:  How can the program determine which contacts are "Google" and 
which
are "Phone" type?  And how can this information be stored in VCF format to 
allow it
to be imported?

We realize that this may not be possible for vcardio to achieve, and may be 
related
to Android, either by defect or design.  It is defective design in that you 
can't
edit the contact type once a contact has been saved, but we're trying to work 
around
this by export/import.

Original comment by postmast...@gmail.com on 13 Oct 2009 at 9:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@boomerbubba: are you importing _only_ to the group you want? Contacts can be in
multiple groups at the same time (vCardIO will add imported contacts to _all_ 
the
checked groups --- make sure the group "Contacts" is not checked). If that 
isn't the
problem, I'm not sure what I can do -- the sync settings are not well documented
(some aren't at all).

@postmaster5000: could you send me (or attach) the file that failed to import? I
agree that failing on a contact should be done gracefully -- I'll try to see 
what
went wrong.

As for your second problem --- I'm not sure what you mean by a "Google" vs 
"Phone"
contact. I don't have a Hero; could it be using a group scheme that's different 
from
the stock "cupcake" or "donut"? If you can send me or attach a copy of your
"contacts.db" database, that would be very helpful (you'll need a rooted phone 
for
this -- the database is in
/data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db).

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 14 Oct 2009 at 5:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

issue 24 that I’ we raised 2 days ago is related to the comment of 
"postmaster5000" -
Problem Two.

On HTC Hero contacts have 2 distinct attributes: 
-   contact_type with 3 possible values: ["Google","Phone","SIM"] and 
-   contact_group : list with all the groups where the contact belongs

If I define manually a contact, I can set contact_type = "Google" or "Phone", 
but if
I export them in .vcf (using vcardio) and the reimport, it became automatically 
as
"Google"

regards,
Adrian

Original comment by adrian.b...@gmail.com on 14 Oct 2009 at 10:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@ducktayp:  It's possible that these issues are specific to the Hero.  After 
using
vcardio on my Hero, adding or removing photos for each contact has become 
extremely
unreliable.  For example, I am completely unable to remove a particular 
contact's
photo now -- it is always present, no matter what I try.  This is either a 
result of
differences with the Hero's contact storage (or image storage), or the Hero 
itself
(and nothing at all to do with vcardio).  Or maybe it has something to do with 
the
fact that I had to manually edit my .VCF file and remove all the PHOTO... data 
so
that I could get my contact list imported (since images were causing crashes).

To make things even more exciting, I am unaware of a way to root a Sprint Hero, 
and
am therefore unable to access the contacts.db file, so I'm of little help here.

Original comment by postmast...@gmail.com on 16 Oct 2009 at 3:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have just confirmed that syncing contacts from Gmail (as opposed to importing 
the
same list from vcardio) results in correctly-functioning contact images.  I can 
now
remove photos and change them as expected, with no issues.  I don't know if any 
other
HTC Hero users are encountering image problems after importing from vcardio, or 
if
this is not an issue unless you a) fail to import photos and then b) manually 
remove
the photo data from the VCF file, (which is what I had to do to successfully 
import,
as detailed above).  Hope this information helps somehow.

Original comment by postmast...@gmail.com on 16 Oct 2009 at 3:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@postmaster5000: are you running 1.5 or 1.6? There were reports that previous 
issues
with photo importing were fixed in donut (1.6). I'm not sure what the status is 
for
the Hero. Also, when you say the import "failed", do you mean it "forced 
close"? In
any case, it would be helpful if you could attach a VCF file that fails.

About the contact type, please move the discussion to issue 24; it does seem to 
be
something Hero-specific that I can't debug myself.

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 17 Oct 2009 at 3:36

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm running into the same problem as postmaster500 (or at least, I assume 
that...).
I've just one picture in my vcf (from OSX) and it was precisely in the contact 
where
the import stopped (force close). The import works fine without the picture.

BUT
I also can't import all my (650) vcards in one step (force close). I selected 
all
from A-F (134 contacts) and that worked (the picture mentioned above was in this
subset and I deleted it in a text editor when the first try failed).
Maybe it has something to do with file sizes?

Especially for Mac users vcardIO is very valuable workaround, at least untill 
serious
syncing with the Mac (as with all other phones) will be available! I will now 
try the
new beta.

Johannes

on a Android-1.5-Hero, rooted

Original comment by spamgang...@googlemail.com on 17 Oct 2009 at 12:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Finally, it worked (with the beta)! The pictures are definitely the problem.

In my tests I forgot about the one attached by OSX automatically to the vcard 
about
myself...

So, it's not a problem with filesize but with pictures.

OS X offers the possiblity to skip pictures when exporting. Handy ( :

Original comment by spamgang...@googlemail.com on 17 Oct 2009 at 5:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@spamgangster: it would be really helpful if you could send me a vcf file that 
causes
a force close (or attach it here). Even better would be a _small_ vcf file 
(e.g.,
with one contact in it). Since I'm not seeing this bug with myself, I can't 
debug it.

Original comment by duckt...@gmail.com on 17 Oct 2009 at 10:44