Blackberry style contact search

[mdlissner]

Hi,

Any way to have the Droid search contacts like the Blackberry did.

What I mean is this.

I could type the first two letters of a first name, space, first two letters of the last name and the BB would handle this well. The Droid goes haywire if you put the space in before the complete name is entered. Any suggestions?

 

[fyrman49]

You can. Contacts> Menu> Search> type

 

[mdlissner]

You missed my point. The search does not work with only a few letters of the first name, space, a dew letters of the last name

 

[mclarryjr]

If I hit my search key and enter in 2 letters my contacts come up.

 

[dagostin]

the search works perfectly for me. I have a friend named Chad Rodgers.. From the global search or from contacts -> search, i type in "Ch Ro" and it works. It does NOT work if i type "Ch odger" so appears that it will search fname, lname but you must use the starting characters of those words.

 

[honestlyx21]

Whats the point in typing only the first few letters though? I mean your pressing the same amt of keys to type the entire name.

 

[TheSultan]

There may be some confusion on what the OP means.... If I understood correctly, he/she is looking for a way to do a "live" search. If I'm looking at a list of all of my contacts......

Ed Dong
Jane Doe
John Doe
Rachel Stick
Rob Douche


In a search field, if I type an "R" it automatically shows only the two contacts that start with an "R", then if I type an "O", Rob would be the only one showing....so.BOOM. I searched for my contact. This is not an option on the Droid?

 

[ericks17]

mine does what the OP wants. I just tap the search key and start typing letters of their name or I can also use their initials as well. I.E. if I want John Doe I start typing the letters "jo" or I can type "j" space "d".

 

[dagostin]

my post explains exactly what the droid does and from the OP desciption, this is what they are doing, so it should work

 

[scodoublet]

mine does what the OP wants. I just tap the search key and start typing letters of their name or I can also use their initials as well. I.E. if I want John Doe I start typing the letters "jo" or I can type "j" space "d".

I can't get mine to find a contact when I search by using just the initials or by just the first two letters of the first name and last name.

The phone does do Live search though. Just type the persons first name, or even the first few letters of their first name. Same goes for their last name and it pops up all the contacts that match this as well as some popular internet search terms and apps too.

 

[ikith]

You can actually just start typing without hitting search

 

[scodoublet]

You can actually just start typing without hitting search

This is true! That's usually what I do.

You do have to hit search though if you want to type with the soft keyboard. (you know... so you can put the cursor in a box and actually bring the soft keyboard up.)

 

[mdlissner]

Some more clarification. I have about 3200 contacts in my Droid, so just typing the first couple of letters of a first name typically does not get the remaining list short enough.

On my Blackberry I would put in first two letters of first name, space, first two letters of last name and the algorithm used worked on the blackberry and usually got me down to one or two contacts at most.

If I put a space bettween the letters on the Droid I only get contacts whose first or last name contain all four of the letters in either their first name or last name. I almost never use the hard keyboard, but I will see what happens if I do this with the hard keyboard.

This would be a great enhancement to those who have large databases of contacts in their phone.

 

[tealturboser]

this works sometimes on my phone. I cant get it to do it all the time and cant figure out where it does and doesnt.

But damn dude 3200 contacts? You should look into making some groups

 

[anon(7775)]

Some more clarification. I have about 3200 contacts in my Droid, so just typing the first couple of letters of a first name typically does not get the remaining list short enough.

On my Blackberry I would put in first two letters of first name, space, first two letters of last name and the algorithm used worked on the blackberry and usually got me down to one or two contacts at most.

If I put a space bettween the letters on the Droid I only get contacts whose first or last name contain all four of the letters in either their first name or last name. I almost never use the hard keyboard, but I will see what happens if I do this with the hard keyboard.

This would be a great enhancement to those who have large databases of contacts in their phone.

3200?who the hell are you?P Diddy or somebody

 

[mdlissner]

15 Years of calling on customers will get you a big contact list!

 

[jyew]

same problem for me.

My read on the "Search" solution.. you still have to click the Search to get your list, then click the Contact in the result list, then click dial.

I had BB, so I know EXACTLY what the OP is talking about. He/she wants the results to narrow down as he types more "matchable" info..

I also have the problem that I get paged to these 4 digit hospital numbers. I'd like to just jump right to that number in my contact list, but it won't.. even with search.


Here's what works for me.

DL "aTAKEphONE" from Market or Web
- the version on Market is pay, but there is a FREE version available online. I just don't know the link. you'd have to email yourself the link to download it from the Droid browser, if you want to try the Free demo. It has other neat features, like a short picture bar for speed dial of your fav 5 or 6 people.

This alone, will allow you to do some of what you want, by typing the first few letters, on the numeric keypad, like for "Smith" you can hit 7-6-4
and it should narrow down to all the contacts that have SMI at beginning of last name, or company name, or any other field.

For me, I took it a step further, and added the 4-digit extension to the Contact name.. so "Hospital Pharmacy 7899" will dial (XXX)YYY-7899
but I only need to dial "7899" to dial it. And, if I hit 7-4-2, I'll get a pop-up
selection screen with all the "Pharmacy" numbers I have (eg. Hospital Pharmacy, Clinic Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy, etc..)

Anyways, it's not perfect, and it's not BlackBerry.. but it works for now.
Hope this helps.

EDIT: it doesn't narrow down to company name or other fields. Just the Main Contact Name field. Sorry.

 

[mdlissner]

Thanks for the tip, I have downloaded The trial of takephone. I used it on my kyocera 7135 years ago.

The issue I have with it is that my exchange contacts synced with Touchdown do not seem to be recognized by takephone on my Motorola's Droid.

 

[jyew]

RE-EDIT:
- i looked at the setting in Takephone, and it appears that you can enable it to SEARCH within words, and in the Company field, but they warn it may slow the search a bit. I didn't notice any lag.

@mdlissner, that's odd.. your contacts moved over to the Droid ok? The droid native phone and contact apps finds them ok? If so, then takephone should work. I don't know what "Touchdown" is.

 

[jyew]

15 Years of calling on customers will get you a big contact list!

uh.. 15 years & 3200 contacts to phone, smstxt, email, etc..
Prob should have stuck with BlackBerry!