Updates to Contacts Mini-App
This is a bit more forward thinking and I don't expect most of these changes to be implemented until Phase 4, but here's a bit of feedback about the Contacts mini-app. Would love to hear what others think about the Contacts mini-app, how they might use it, and what changes they'd like to see.
I've been trying to use contacts over the past two days, and there are three big limitations for me:
A lack of blocks
The lack of blocks makes it hard to link to parts of the contact within other pages. When in grad school, I used Anytype to record notes from a number of textbooks, and would list the authors as people listing their works on the profile page. I would then link my notes to those books. I have to make the book an object instead of just linking to the block because I'm unable to link to a block within the contact page. I could see wanting to list todos in a contact then link those todos elsewhere. Without blocks that's not possible.
- The unclear UI for collapsing the 3 columns
There is a toggle to open the contacts directory sidebar, but it disappears once that directory is open. I didn't realize I could collapse that column until I tried it once. Also, there's no way to collapse the property column or the details column for a contact. Having a clear UI to be able to open or collapse them would be helpful for a myriad of reasons.
- Being unable to modify the default person/organization templates
As I already mentioned in point 1, I've used anytype to take book notes and have authors listed as people. There's a particular template that I used in Anytype that I'd like to bring over to Anytwo. Currently the mini-app doesn't allow me to change the new contact dialog. I'm assuming that will change, but wanted to emphasize that change is needed. On first pass, an intuitive UI beyond more dialog boxes is that you'd be create a template for a collection using the profile type. Every collection with a profile template would be pulled into the contacts mini-app. You could then hide any collections you didn't want to see. I'm sure there are better ways to do that though.
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Just want to say that I'm with you, Jesse.
The whole contact management is not useful in the current state.
I believe it should be the next big thing for the devs as soon as editor and Collections are (more or less) finish.
At the same time, I believe that there will be no need anymore for a separate contact management.
Because, if Collections and editor are REALLY finish, they should be flexible enough to serve also for this purpose.
Therefore, I didn't upvote your request yet, but I see your point and I'm with you in general.
First let's see how Collections and editor further develop.
If there still remains need for special contact management functions, I will vote for this request.