# The &kab; Handbook

Mirko
Boehm

    mirko@kde.org

Pam
Roberts

    pam.roberts@btinternet.com

2001
Mirko Boehm, Pam Roberts
&FDLNotice;
2001-07-08
2.00.00

&kab; (KDE Addressbook) is a simple address book for &kde;. This document describes version 2.0.

KDE
Kab
kdeutils
address book

## Introduction

&kab; is an address book for use with &kde;2 that lets you save names, postal, email, talk and www addresses, telephone numbers, important dates and other information in a card index form.

## Using &kab;

### Entering Data

You can import address book data from the KDE 1 version of &kab; or from &Netscape; by using the File Import menu option.

You can also add individual entries by choosing the Edit Add Entry... option, which brings up the following dialog box:

Here's another screenshot of &kab;
&kab; in edit view mode

This view is used to add or change the details for a card. It has four main tab pages; Person, Telephone, Address and Birthday.

The Person tab page is where you enter the person's name and Email and Talk addresses and any associated URLs. Whatever you enter in the Formatted name: text box will appear as the entry's name in the entry navigation list, the Toolbar Drop Down list and at the top left of the card. If you do not enter anything in the Formatted name: text box then &kab; will automatically generate a formatted name such as Holmes, Sherlock.

The Telephone tab page is, obviously, where you enter the telephone number(s).

The Addresses tab page lets you enter one or more addresses for this entry.

1. For each address you want to enter, click on the Add button. It will display a drop down list containing the address types you have set up with the Edit Configure this file... option. Choose one and it will appear in the Address type text box where you can edit it if required.

2. Then fill in the address details.

3. Pressing the Organisation... button brings up another dialog box where you can enter details of any organisation that the person works for and his position within it. However, the current version of &kab; does not display this information in the Business Card view.

The Birthday tab page is where you select a significant date to appear at the top right of the card view. It will only appear if you have checked the I know this person's birthday: box.

You will probably need to experiment with your entries in the Person and Addresses tab pages to get the kind of result you want in the Card view.

There are two other tab pages in this dialog box which may be useful in some circumstances:

The Comment page. Any text you enter here will not appear in the Business Card view but will be included when you print out the card details.

The User fields page. This lets you add information to the database file with user defined fields and data. This data is not shown in the Business Card view, nor is it printed out, but could be read by another program.

### Viewing Data

&kab; has two basic views, Business Card and Editing. You can switch between them with the View menu. The screenshot below shows the Business Card view.

Here's a screenshot of &kab;
&kab; in card view mode

This view lets you search for an entry in &kab;'s database and see the information held for that entry.

To select a particular entry you can pick it from the Drop Down box in the Toolbar or the entry navigation list, or you can step through the entries using the large Toolbar arrows or with your keyboard arrow keys.

You can also search the database for a particular entry by using the Edit Search entries... option or by entering an email adress, first name or last name into the text box at the top of the entry navigation list.

At the top of the main card area you can see the name as it appears in the Toolbar Drop Down box list, and possibly an important date such as the person's Birthday.

An address will be shown in the middle of the card. &kab; lets you enter more than one address, for - say - Home, Work and Holiday Dacha. The Drop Down box above the address then lets you select which of these is displayed.

The bottom of the card shows email addresses, URLs and telephone numbers. Left click on the email address to send an email, on the URL to open a browser window. If you have entered more than one email address or URL, then only one will be displayed on the card followed by [..] and when you click on it a little dialog box will appear so that you can choose the address you want.

The File menu has options allowing you to create and use more than one database, import your old KDE 1 or &Netscape; address book, or print one or all entries.

## Command Reference

### The Menubar

#### The File Menu

Ctrl N File Create new database

  Use this if you want to create another &kab; address book database so that you can keep separate address books for, say, business and personal contacts.

Ctrl O File Open...

  Open a &kab; database. This menu choice is used to open a new address book that you have created.

File Open default database

  Opens the default &kab; database.

Ctrl S File Save

  Save the current &kab; database.

File Import KDE 1 address book

  Lets you import an address book generated by version 1 of &kab;, changing its format to that used by version 2, and saving it with a different name. Doing this does not destroy the original address book.

File Import Netscape address book

  Lets you import an address book generated by &Netscape;.

Ctrl T File Print Print entry

  To print out all details of the current entry.

Ctrl E File Print Print entries

  To print out all details of all entries in the database.

Ctrl Q File Quit

  Quits &kab;.

#### The Edit Menu

Ctrl A Edit Add entry...

  Add a new entry to the address book. This does the same as using the Toolbar New entry icon.

Ctrl E Edit Edit entry...

  If you are in Business card view you can use this menu item (or the Toolbar Edit entry icon) when you want to edit the current entry, rather than changing to Editing view with the View Editing menu choice.

Ctrl R Edit Remove entry

  Remove the current entry from the database.

Ctrl M Edit Send an email.

  Does the same as left clicking on the email: line at the bottom of the Business card.

Ctrl B Edit Browse

  Open a browser with the URL stored for the current &kab; entry.

Ctrl F Edit Search entries

  Search the database for a particular entry.

Edit Enable all messages

  There are some messages that might be accidentally disabled by the user, such as one at start up informing him how to import his old KDE 1 addressbook. Selecting this menu item makes all such messages reappear.

Edit Configure this file...

  Lets you configure some parameters of the current address book. At present the User fields tab page does not function, but the Address types tab page can be used to set up default address Address type values.

Edit Preferences for the KDE address book...

  Allows you to set up some general &kab; settings.

#### The View Menu

View Business card

  Show the normal card index view.

View Editing

  Change the main &kab; window to allow the entry to be edited.

View Show main toolbar

  Show or hide the main toolbar.

View Show entry navigation toolbar

  Show or hide the toolbar used to navigate through your database.

View Show entry navigation list

  Show or hide the entry list at the left side of &kab;'s window..

#### The Help Menu

F1 Help Contents

  View this manual.

Help Report Bug...

  Use this to report any bugs you may find with &kab;.

Help About &kghostview;

  Use this to see the version number of &kab; as well as brief information about the program author, copyright and license agreement.

Help About KDE

  To view brief information about the K Desktop Environment.

## Questions and Answers

Where does &kab; store the address book?

The default address book database is stored at `~/.kde/share/apps/kab/addressbook.kab`, any new databases that you have created will be stored wherever you put them.

What configuration files does &kab; use?

The file `~/.kde/share/apps/kab/kab.config` holds your &kab; preferences and the command strings for mail and talk.

`~/.kde/share/config/kabrc` holds general &kab; appearance parameters and a list of the most recently visited address books.

Don't modify these files unless you really know what you are doing (and have made a back up).

## Credits and License

&kab;

Program copyright 1996-2001 Mirko Boehm mirko@kde.org

Documentation copyright 2001

- Mirko Boehm mirko@kde.org

- Pam Roberts pam.roberts@btinternet.com

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

&kab; is part of the kdeutils package which is an essential part of the &kde; 2 project.

For details of &kde; visit http://www.kde.org.

Source code for &kab; can be found in the kdeutils package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main ftp site of the &kde; project.

&documentation.index;