Add Merge contact capability

[eMerzh]

Sometimes when you have multiple contacts from multiple places you have contacts in double or triple... It would be nice if we can provide, as google does, a "merge contact" option....

you select X contacts , then it open a new contact form with every fields from the older contacts ... then other are deleted.

[RandolfCarter]

:+1: I also would like this very much! Ideally combined with an automatic finding of probably duplicate contacts...

[Finkregh]

a drag/drop function would be also quite nice... (take one contact, drop on top of another, choose stuff if there are conflicts)

[tanghus]

I'll start with making the code checking for duplicates on import simply based on the UID and the status of REV.

• Add a field uid to oc_contacts_cards and add index.
• Create update script to populate it for existing contacts.
• When adding contacts (though import or CardDAV) check for duplicate existing cards (add new method).
• If REV for the new vCard is newer than the existing add any properties that isn't in the existing contact (add new method).

Am I missing anything?

[eMerzh]

Hi @tanghus awesome to see that this feature is planned :)

just small question , do you also plan to have smth to merge contacts that are not previously detected as related like :

i have "Robert Nesta Marley" in my contact, i also have "Bob Marley" ... but i realyze that those are the same guy ... i want to quickly "merge" the infos from both (Robert has 1 email but no phone while Bob has 1email and a phone number)

[chrisisbd]

It would help a lot when merging contacts manually if one could sort on Family/Last name, then in the above example at least "Robert Nesta Marley" would be next to "Bob Marley" and you could see that you have a duplicate.

[tanghus]

My plan is first to do dupe detection in the backend (for import and CardDAV add) solely based on UID. After that I want to add something like what @eMerzh describes, where you can manually select which contacts to merge, get them displayed as a list where you can select which contact to merge into, and finally open the resulting contact, so the user can select any properties to remove. The client-side merging should also check for duplicate properties like BobMarley@Zion.net being the same as bobmarley@zion.net.

I'll try to add some mockups for this for discussion.

I would also like to add a "Suggest duplicate contacts" function, but that is in the not near future ;)

The OC 6 milestone is not cast in stone. I depends very much of when it will be released.

[chrisisbd]

So when you get a duplicate UID what are you going to do? Offer both to the user to choose or check the REV: date and use the newer one?

Would this also apply to duplicate UIDs detected when a client synchronises (or is that what you mean by CardDav add)?

[tanghus]

So when you get a duplicate UID what are you going to do?

Use the REV. I haven't decided what to do if one or neither contacts a REV.

And yes, sync is CardDAV. This would be an initial sync with existing contacts on the client.

[caco3]

In a next step, it would be great to have an auto mege function. Due all my tests with different clients, I have have almost every contact twice, without a visible difference. My Nokia N9 phone has a nace feature called auto merge where tose contacts can be merged without user interaction. somethig like that would be great. Maybe the user could select, what has to mach:

• UID
• Name

Something like this could be a start: http://code.google.com/p/nodupe/

[tanghus]

Teaser ;) b4d45cb755be1a1a2c57fb0f7a3d4ae81a352cab

[Finkregh]

why was this closed w/o notice? has it been implemented completely?

[eMerzh]

@Finkregh no no, it was moved to the contact app repo

[Finkregh]

augh, i'm having another coffee... W)

[tigrino]

So, was anything implemented for merging of contacts so far?

[tanghus]

If you had read this issue closely, you would have know ;) https://github.com/owncloud/contacts/issues/66