I find that in development, in my contacts, ABRecordCopyCompositeName returns NULL for a few records, but when I view my contact list normally, I don't see any missing names.
What's a standard alternative label to use if ABRecordCopyCompositeName returns a NULL? Also, what causes the NULL values to exist in the first place?
(EDIT: title corrected)
Strangely:
The count at the bottom of the "Contacts" iPhone app states 119 contacts.
I counted all entries - all 119 are there and have names.
[ABAddressBookCopyDefaultSource(addressBook) count] returns 116, not 119.
Counting each entry from ABAddressBook, I get 116, including the 3 null entries.
So, on top of three null entries, I'm missing 3 more.
I'm still looking for a better answer, but until then, here's what I've found:
The NULL records are due to records imported from Exchange. They show as having a name, and if you edit them and save them (through the UI) the name shows up correctly, but until then, I can't seem to get a name out of the record.
The three 'missing' records are still confusing me. I believe they are also imported from Exchange, but just not included in the ABAddressBookCopyDefaultSource request.
My work-around was to not fill out table cells directly from ABAddressBook, but to copy the entries into an array first, so that the counts are correct. As I get further toward release, I may circle back to this routine and change it so that very large address books will not cause memory issues.
Not all contacts have stored firstname and lastname just email or some other field... For some reason apple is sorting based on this.. The empty compositename with email address "example#example.com" will appear below the contact named "Edward"... So it makes sense to create a fallback-thingy: if compositename is empty then look for email-address
Related
I have a drop down list of subjects. Two particular subjects are Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. When I choose Mathematics from the drop down list, records from Additional Mathematics and Mathematics are both displayed. Worse is that records from Additional Mathematics are shown first. Many colleagues made mistakes because of this.
How do I make the drop down list such that when clicked, the exact terms are used instead?
This is a problem that is not necessarily unique to FileMaker. You are searching for a name that is imprecise because it is a match for multiple names. Rather instead you might want to search for a unique key whose subject name is 'Mathematics' as displayed in your drop down. It is the use of that unique key that allows you to perform a precise search, even when the name of one subject is a partial or complete match for another.
This solution requires you to add a unique serial number which is, in your case, to alter the Subjects table and add a field called 'idnumber' or similar. The field type should be Number, and the options should include Auto-Enter-Serial number-Generate and On creation-increment by 1. The trick here lies in making sure no two subjects have the same 'idnumber' even when you aren't paying attention, so set the next value to something greater than the number of subjects that already exist. Then from another layout assign each existing subject a unique idnumber, noting that if there are a great many subjects you could script that step.
I should mention that many recommend a best practice of never changing a production layout, but rather to duplicate the layout and make the required changes to the duplicate. This minimizes the effects of testing your changes etc.
Finally, change your layout in inspector such that the drop down list shows Use values from field: 'idnumber'. Select Also display values from second field: 'Subject' and Show values only from second field. Now your drop down is the same clean selection as before. The field will not look correct yet because it will show a number. To make it look correct you can insert another field, selecting 'Subject'. Place that field over top of the 'idnumber' and send 'idnumber' to the back. Fill the 'Subject' field with the correct background solid color instead of none, and enjoy your new precision search capability! The entire process is handled server side so it should not matter that client access is IWP.
If you're using the selection to do a find, put an "==" before the text you're searching on. This will tell FileMaker to do an exact field contents search, instead of a "contains" search.
I am relatively new to Filemaker programming, but I have come across what I thought was a bug, which I have been tearing my hair out trying to squash, only to find it is more a "feature" than a bug. I have a field set as the key for lookups in a ms sql database which I have created a relationship with. I have it set as a drop down, and it is showing 2 fields (last name and first name). Unfortunately, it only shows 1 person per last name in the sorted list (example, there are 5 people with the last name "Bennett" but only 1 shows). After driving myself nuts trying to find the error, I found the following in the filemaker troubleshooting section:
"
If the value list is defined to display information from two fields, items will not be duplicated for the field on which the value list is sorted. For example, if the value list displays information from the Company field and the Name field, and if the values are sorted by the Company field, only one person from each company will appear in the value list."
As I read it, I can't do what I need to do with a value list (display EVERY last name from the sql file) so what other options do I have? I have experimented with creating a portal which DOES show a list of ALL the last names and first names, but I don't know/understand enough to know what logic/functionality I need so if I click one of the people in the portal list it will do the same thing as if I clicked it in a dropdown value list, which is to then do the lookups and populate the rest of the fields in this database from the information in the record in the sql database. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, and I appreciate any help any of you can offer. Thank you!
There might be some things that cause this;
You cannot create a link based on a calculation that needs to be calculated each time (Filemaker does not know what to do with this, logical in a way)
Based on what you do I would personally link the two tables based on an lets say company ID instead of a name, as a one to many join. This will definitely eliminate the 'feature' filemaker has of showing unique names only in the joined table. On database level I would join on ID, on Value list I would select the ID as first field and the (calculated) name as second field, than showing only the second field (option in the value list definition popup) for your selection list.
Hope this helps.
According to the documentation, there is a Business Rule for Vendor and Employee that says
The name, first name, or last name field should not be blank.
Considering that NAME is required for create, the question is ¿Does this mean that ALL three properties have to have a value on Create?
We understood that, so we ran some tests. Creating a record with the three properties populated has no problem. The issue comes when we try so insert a null value for GivenName and FamilyName (first name and last name).
Quickbooks seems to take the NULL values as valid, and when inserting the record is not returning any error. The problem is that the record that was inserted never shows in the QBD UI, but is seems like it persists somewhere, because if we try to insert it again we get a "duplicate name" error.
Not sure if this is an issue or an expected behaviour... Any hints??
Thanks
QuickBooks for windows has some legacy behavior to be aware of. The First, Last and Name combines for a unique identifier accross Customers, Vendors and Employees. So you should fill in ALL the information you have. Any attempts to insert a record with the same F or L name, will fail if there is a Customer, Vendor or Employee with the same F & L.
Second, you mentioned that the record doesn't show in QuickBooks for Windows?
Did it sync successfully? Did you check the error state of the record you inserted?
Did you look at the sync logs to see if it failed to sync?
Lastly, you need to check all three objects for a user with the same F & L name if you are getting a duplicate error. Normally you would check to see if the customer/vendor/employee exists firsts so you can update the existing or determine if it is in fact a new record.
hope that helps
Jarred
Given that an ABRecordID can change between cloud syncs and under other circumstances out of my control, how can I maintain a long-term reference to an IOS address book record?
Apple provides the following guidance:
"The recommended way to keep a long-term reference to a particular record is to store the first and last name, or a hash of the first and last name, in addition to the identifier. When you look up a record by ID, compare the record’s name to your stored name. If they don’t match, use the stored name to find the record, and store the new ID for the record."
But I don't understand this guidance. If the address book can have duplicate names in it AND since users can modify the name in a record how could this advice work?
For example, if the user modifies the name of an address book record my routine will fail to find it by ABRecordID so if I think search by the name hash I stored couldn't I find a duplicate name instead of the new ABRecordID for that specific record I previously referenced?
In the end, what is the BEST way to get a long-term reference to an IOS AddressBook record? And if the above advice really does work what am I missing?
The most robust (yet not completely failsafe) approach would be to come up with a priority ranking of ABRecord fields and store as much from that list as is available, along with the ABRecordID, into your own (hashed) private record format. When retrieving a private record (or at another convenient time), you can verify that the private record matches the ABRecord and work through a series of fallback checks to ensure it's accurate.
Example priority ranking:
ABRecordID
FirstName
LastName
PhoneNumber
ZipCode
When retrieving a record you can first match the ABRecordID. If that returns no results, you can do a search for FirstName + LastName. You can then match those results against PhoneNumber... etc. In this way you could potentially distinguish between 2 Bob Smiths, as they may have different phone numbers (or one may not have a phone number). Of course, depending on how long your priority list is, the more robust this mechanism will be.
The last resort would be prompting the user to distinguish between 2 Bob Smiths with brand new ABRecordID's whose records are otherwise identical -- after all, such an inconvenient prompt would be far more friendly than allowing the User to contact the wrong Bob Smith (and as I said, would be a last resort).
This solution for AB may involve some synchronization issues, however.
This is a familiar problem for anyone who has worked with the iOS Media Player. Specifically MPMediaItems in the User's Music Library have a property MPMediaItemPropertyPersistentID which the docs describe as:
The value is not guaranteed to persist across a sync/unsync/sync cycle.
In other words, the PersistentID is not guaranteed to be persistent. Solutions for this include doing similar fallback checks on MediaItem properties.
The RecordID only get changed either on delete or reset, when this is done all the new record(s) will have new createdProperty and modifiedProperty as well.
While I am reading the address book for the first time, I will save all entries of the record along with RecordID in my database.
I will save the last time the contacts synced from contacts to my database(name it something: lastSyncedTime) and store it some where.
I am done with syncing the contacts for the first time, now do the following for syncing anytime in future.
while Iterating through all records,
check createdTime(kABPersonCreationDateProperty) vs lastSyncedTime. If createdTime > lastSyncedTime, store the recordID in a "newRecords" NSArray.
If !(step 1) then check modifiedDate(kABPersonModificationDateProperty) vs lastSyncedTime. If modifiedDate > lastSyncedTime, then store the recordID in a "modifiedRecords" NSArray.
if !(1) && !(2) store all recordID in a "unModifiedRecords".
Now I will read all the contacts from my local database,
I will delete all local database records that are not find either in "modifiedRecords" or in "unModifiedRecords".
I will update all "modifiedRecords" in the local database.
I will create new records for all records in "newRecords".
Update the lastSyncedTime accordingly.
The documentation is communicating to you that you can't count on ABRecordID as a permanent identifier.
Consider this scenario: The user has a record for "Bob Smith". The user then deletes his "Bob Smith" record and then imports his contacts from his computer (creating a new ID) through iTunes sync.
So if you want to keep a permanent reference to an existing contact, you can keep a reference to the name and id as a hint that it is the same record you used before- but there is no real permanent reference.
If you keep a permanent reference to an address book contact, you must always be ready to deal with the fact that it may not be the same contact you used before.
Refer :
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/ContactData/Conceptual/AddressBookProgrammingGuideforiPhone/Chapters/DirectInteraction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007744-CH6-SW2
Clearly tells you how to handle it.
In many of my apps, it requires associating some data with a contact in addressbook. What I used to do is save the record id of an ABPerson and use that id to pull information upon each app launch. However, more and more I find that this approach is wrong because many times a user will use a service like mobileme where the addressbook is wiped and resynced. This causes the record id to change and all associations are lost. The user will have to go through each one and re-link them.
What is a better approach to holding a robust pointer to addressbook entries?
You should store three values: the record ID, the first name, and the last name.
1) In the case that the record ID hasn't changed, you're golden - just use that to locate the proper record.
2) If ABAddressBookGetPersonWithRecordID() does not locate a record for your stored record ID (it returns NULL), then you'll need to search the person records for a match based on the first and last name. You can drop down to using ABAddressBookCopyPeopleWithName() potentially or write your own locating code if you already have an array with all the person records in-memory. Locating the new record is up to you. Once to locate the new record, you can update your data storage with the new record ID.
Ultimately, you end up storing the record ID to use directly incase it doesn't change (if you're lucky) plus storing some keys from the address book entry that are unlikely to change. The name of the person or organization associated with an address book entry is most likely to change. You should, of course, account for the case where you may not find a record with the stored record ID or by searching for the name. This could trivially mean that the record was deleted, or it could mean that the record was renamed. You should handle that case whichever way you decide is best for your specific application.
I know this was last year, however, I thought I might suggest a method I use. The first time I ask the user to pick a contact (in order to associate certain of my app's private data with it) I then grab the record, create my own internal record id (the initials of the app name and a sequence number usually) modify the contact by adding a new ABRelatedName (type of "pref" name of "Other") value of my own internal record id. It looks like this in the .vcf
item3.X-ABRELATEDNAMES;type=pref:BZA101
item3.X-ABLabel:_$!<Other>!$_
That way, I can simply reference that record id when i add more data about the user such as the last time the app user contacted them, etc. Seems to work for me.
Hope that helps someone.
If the address book is indeed being completely wiped and re-loaded, and the only part that doesn't change is the display name, then storing the display name as the link seems like the only option.