Contact Lookup Applet 0.2
Sweet news in the form of Contact Lookup Applet 0.2, which I believe will work for more than 1% of people so I'm announcing it to the hordes. Download it from here.
In case you are a little slow today, this is an applet for your panel which will lookup contacts... specifically in an evolution-data-server addressbook you specify. Yes folks, you'll have to build Evolution from CVS to make this baby work. But it's worth it, trust me. ;-)
There is still a substantial To Do list, but it works well enough -- assuming you type enough to get a single match from the address book, as only the first result is displayed. If you try it and want to make feature requests, please check TODO first. I also recommend running the factory in a terminal the first time you use it, several (read as "all") error conditions are handled with g_warning() and they will disappear to the bit bucket otherwise.
Every time someone asks why I haven't yet put a quality setting in Sound Juicer, God kills a kitten. I've asked him to extend the same practise to feature requests for Contact Lookup Applet which are already in the To Do. Please, think of the kittens.
Some people seem to like screenshots:
NP: Distractions - Zero 7. I forgot to record Mr. Scruff onto a minidisc last night, dammit.
How about extending the functionality with other search targets? Such as files, file contents, documentation, bookmarks, dig-info.
You could switch between modes by using the icon as a panel popupmenu - just like in firebird.
Perhaps I'm on drugs here, but I feel that it's a good thing if looking for things is located in one place, and the less space it occupies the better it is. I don't know about you, but my panel(s) clutter up real fast with applets that I use.
The search button seems like a waste of space. As people are already typing, they could just hit return/enter to complete the search.
It might be nice to visually show the number of targets matching the search string. Perhaps some sort of small meter or change the background color: all matches dark red, one match green.
When there are just a few matches, it might be nice to show them as per typing URLs in web browsers.
This is overboard, but would be nice eventually. Provide a convention for specify a matching method. For example: 'text': exact match, '=~text': near matches. '=)text': sound alike matches. The matching routine should be a library so other applications will share the matching conventions.
ahbritto -- if you check out the GNOME Bounty which inspired this applet you shall see the UI I'm aiming for. Not sure whether to keep the Search button, it may just go yes.
