address book : Java Glossary

An electronic address book, aka contact manager is a program to keep track of names, address, phone numbers, email addresses, websites, cell numbers, birthdays etc. I still use an ancient program called DayTimer Addressbook 2000, but they have discontinued it and it deteriorates further with every Windows release. I decided to look for an alternative.

The feature of prime importance is the ability to import and export data in some documented human-readable text format such as CSV (Comma-Separated Value) or XML (extensible Markup Language). That way I can import my DayTimer addresses without having to rekey them and I will be free to switch programs in future.

Possible Candidates

• Elwood EZ Home and Office Address Book 10.0 Last revised/verified: 2017-08-03 : trialware .
  • You can backup/restore your database, or export/import it in CSV format.
  • It stores data in traditional separate fields.
  • It has check boxes to put people on your birthday card or Christmas card lists.
  • You can attach pictures.
  • You can extract lists to print phone books or address labels.
  • You can print various types of Avery label, including your return address, images etc.
  • Oddly, it also lets you enter household monthly budgets, recipes, to do lists… The website shows it making colourful return address labels, though I did not see that it the program, just big address labels with your return address on them.
  • I am quite impressed. It worked smoothly and intuitively. It did something rather old fashioned by wise. When you key something you have to OK the changes when you are done. If you discover part way through you have messed things up, you have done no damage.
  • The import is quite easy. You give it a CSV file with field labels in the initial comment line. It asks you which of its field names is closest to each field name in the CSV file. I had trouble with only one field, the person’s job title, which it ignored. You then have to categorise each entry individually as family/friend/shopping etc. Getting a clean CSV file for it to import was a evening’s work, however. Daytimer, my old address book software, did a grossly incompetent job of exporting.
  • This is the one I bought.
  • Free updates for life.
  • It has a retro garish look, as if it were originally written for Windows 3.1.
  • You can’t set the font and colour separately for each line of the address label.
  • It insists in installing itself on your C: drive. It puts your data in "C:\Elwood Software\" and your programs in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Elwood Software\". It uses Microsoft’s Jet/Access mini database to store the data in binary.

  • It could do with a cosmetic makeover with a subtler colour scheme and more modern-looking and larger icons. Perhaps they need to implement skins as XML files containing lists of colours and filenames of icons for various purposes. This would allow sophisticated users to do their own localisation. Or for something fancier do it the way Opera/Firefox or Java look and feel does. That way people can keep the familiar retro look if they please and can compose their own look.

    A simple skin would be a zip file containing some png icon files with standard names. Any missing pngs would revert to the basic set. There would be a CSV file called colors.csv. It would contain pairs of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) rrggbb hex colour numbers e.g. #660066 as used in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the function name. Again, any missing entries would revert to the basic set. The name of the zip is the name of the skin. To install, you unzip to a directory skin\xxxx.

    Ideally you could also configure fonts. I am getting on in years and like my fonts a little bigger than young folk do. Further, I have collected some specially legible fonts such as Tiresias and Pragmata Pro that make it easy to tell similar letters apart.

  • When you order, there is a second screen to specify a shipping address that looks very much like the first. I mistook it for rejecting and erasing the data from the first screen.
  • No PayPal, but you can mail them a US dollar cheque.

• Addresses 3 : trialware .
  • Works in five languages.
  • It has an elegant spare look.
  • It allows you to assign pictures or icons and see them on a big board.
  • You can import but not export your data in CSV format.
  • All fields are free format. You can thus enter dates in any form you please, but then there is no verification and no ensured consistency.
  • It lumps given and surname in one field and City, State and postal code in one free-form field.
  • It contains some slightly strange English e.g. configurate.
  • It can print simple labels that are all the same size and font.
• Windows Address Book aka Windows Contacts used to come bundled with Windows. Now it is an extra cost add-on.
• The free Address Book by Klaus Roemer of Ktech. His home website free Address Book by Klaus Roemer of Ktech. His home website http://www4.webng.com/krtech is off the air and I can’t find where to download version 6.0.7 or later.

Google Search

Using Google to look for such a program is proving remarkably difficult. Why?

• There is confusion between paper address books and electronic address books.
• Mostly obsolete versions of software are posted on download sites.
• Download sites, more often than not, install crapware along with the desired program. When I detect them doing this, I immediately abort the install.
• Vendors use the keywords address book as bait for completely unrelated programs even when they have no address book software to sell.