Directory
Now we come to some more useful functionality, a directory of contact information. And this is one feature upon which I'd like to improve, so you're very welcome to
offer your suggestions on it. Basically, any known user of VanCleve.com can add and modify records in a global database of people (and businesses)--contact information, in other words. And of course each user has a personal record in this database attached to his or her username. This is useful, in the first place, because it is Web-based, so it amounts to having your address book with you wherever you're online. There are commands for searching for contacts, which hopefully will make that a trivial thing to do. And because it all happens within the Terminal interface, it should be much faster than waiting for a whole page to load.
While the Directory is designed to be global, to avoid redundant contact records, each user can maintain a personal "contact list", a list of people in the Directory which that user considers personal contacts. By this means, the details of any record in the Directory need only be updated once for all, but users can still work within their own personal subset. (Now tell me that doesn't make more sense than everyone maintaining their own, separate address book.) You can enter "list contacts" to display your own list.
I'd like to see this become a robust and full-scale universal directory application, with users trusted to keep certain records current and enough people using the system to create a significant database. The ultimate goal is a single, authoritative, worldwide directory, that most everyone would use: the Ebay of "white pages" sites, if you like. But then, I've never really understood the privacy issues involved, especially since there isn't much of privacy left these days, anyway. But at least in a small-scale ideology, if a user of this Directory could convince her friends to adopt it, then she would be in contact with her friend's friends as well as her own, and so on. So enter a few records, and remember where to find them next time you're at work or a Cybercafý and want to email a friend but can't remember the address.
If you like the interface enough to use it in place of Microsoft Lookout--I mean, Outlook--then you should know about
this URL. Instead of a Web page, it will return a CSV file containing all your contacts in the Directory. CVS stands for "comma-separated values", and it is a standard data format which Microsoft Outrage--damn! I mean, Outlook--can import into its own address book, should you decide to return to using that.
find person
You can look up a record in the Directory with this command. It will ask you to enter part or all of the name of the person (or business) you seek, or alternately, you can type that in right after the command, as "find person jack". It will search the Directory for all records matching your input, without regard to case, and display all known information for that record. If you enter only a few letters or a first name, you may see a list of matching names and be asked to identify the correct one. Do this either by entering the displayed ID for the record or by entering the name more completely. This command will finish by displaying a prompt for an integer. This is actually a menu allowing you to display specific information for the selected Directory entry or to edit it, if you are authorized. Enter the digit "0" to see the available operations, or just press <enter> to cancel. (The menu options are not output automatically, to leave room in the window for the contact data.)
view person
view person is exactly like find person, except it will terminate immediately, without the menu. If you just want to view the data, this is the simplest way.
list everyone
This command is rather silly. It lists every person and business in the database, the whole damn global list. If this Directory ever gets too large, I'll probably remove this command.
create person
Use create person to add a new record to the Directory. After entering the person's (or business') name, this will check the database for any existing match, in order to avoid the creation of duplicates. When the basic information is entered (some of which is optional), pressing <enter> will commit the new record, entering "c" will cancel the operation, and entering "e" will allow further editing of the new record, such as the addition of email addresses, etc. Note that with this latter option, the new Directory entry will be created immediately, not after you are finished adding data. Only entering "c" will cancel the new entry.
edit person
This command is actually used, piggyback-style, by the create person command, where there is a menu option for editing the newly created person. With it, you can change any of the basic, singular information for a record (provided you are authorized to edit it). And you can modify those data which are multiple, such as email addresses and phone numbers, of which there can be more than one. Such data are indexed by name. You might add one email address called "home" and another called "work", for example. To remove such an item, choose the menu option to "Edit or remove" it, type in the name, and press <enter> when prompted for the value.
delete person
This command will delete a record from the Directory, provided you have authority to do so. Records you have created are generally yours to delete. Note that unlike other "person" commands, you cannot add the name of the person (or business) to this command: just enter "delete person" and follow the prompts.
add contact
This command allows you to identify a Directory entry and add it to your personal list of contacts.
remove contact
Remove a Directory entry from your contact list with this command. If you wish to remove all entries from your list, see clear contacts.
list contacts
This command displays the names for every record in your contact list. These names can be passed on to a command like view person to display the details of each record.
clear contacts
Respect this command, as it will remove all records from your contact list. It will not actually delete them from the Directory. You can add them again using add contact, but if your list was extensive, this would take some time.