Hi Jean-Philippe,
thanks for your patch, but unfortunately I cannot add it to the official release :-/
This feature was discussed multiple times, and there are reasons why we don't want it:
1.) FN only duplicates the data in N (which is required attribute and contains the structured representation of data) 2.) there is no guarantee of "referential integrity" between N and FN; e.g. you can create something like: N:Doe;John;;Dr.; FN:Mr. Peter Parker 3.) most of users don't want to write the name multiple times (into the N and then into the FN attribute), and will be confused why there are 2 fields for the same information 4.) we want to be 100% compatible with Apple clients, and Apple uses only the N attribute
For backward compatibility we added support for the globalContactStoreFN option, where you can "format" the content of the FN attribute (this attribute is write-only for "older" clients which use the FN instead of N).
I fully understand your situation and maybe there will be more users who find your patch useful, but the real and good solution is to update all your contacts with fixed N attribute.
If you use DAViCal, it requires only a simple PLPGSQL script which extracts the FN attribute, then format it (e.g. using a simple capturing regex match), remove the current N attribute, then add it back e.g. before the "END:VCARD" line and call the write_sync_change function (with correct parameters). It is much better approach than using unstructured data; personally I used it multiple times to fix common errors in our database (which currently contains 18807 contacts).
Cheers,
JM
On 23 Mar 2016, at 19:42, Jean-Philippe Garcia Ballester jean-philippe@demo-tic.org wrote:
Hello all,
The “Formatted Name” field of contacts is not used. Our problem is that we have a very big addressbook, and all contacts only have Formatted Name (no Last Name nor First Name).
Attached is a patch that adds a field named “Display Name”, as most carddav clients call it, that is displayed in the contact window and editable. It is also used by default in the contact list.
Warning: it has not been extensively tested (and only with Davical as a server), but it seems to work well.
It would be very interesting for us if it could be tested by more people and eventually included in an official release.
Best regards,
-- Jean-Philippe Garcia Ballester Demo-TIC<0001-Add-DisplayName-field.patch>