What's NeXT? Archive

Have We Got Contact?

Contact-management software on the Macintosh has been around for years now, from various competing companies, with various feature sets. But they still function basically as utilities instead of being fully integrated to work with other applications easily and seamlessly. They're fine for what they do, but there's nothing special or exciting about them. With NeXTSTEP, those expectations changed.

SBook 3.1.2 from Sarrus Software is a free-form contact manager for NeXTSTEP and OpenStep that lets you enter or import names, addresses, voice and fax numbers, and email addresses. In addition you can also input other information such as job titles, company departments, etc. Unfortunately, you can't store any graphics, sounds or other types of files. When you first start SBook, you get a new, empty SBook file waiting for you to fill it; at the top are the nice, large icon buttons (for beginners; you can change this via Preferences) that you use for searching, deleting, entering and moving through a list of contacts. On the far right is the export well, which I'll get to later.

Long on Features
As you type or import your entries, SBook uses "artificial intelligence" (pattern recognition) to decide what type of information you're entering, and places one of several small icons next to each type: an envelope for postal addresses, a telephone for voice and fax numbers, and an @ (at sign) for email addresses. Clicking on the email icon automatically launches NeXTmail and presents you with a pre-addressed Compose window. Click on the envelope icon and a window with a bar-coded envelope pops up, waiting for your return address and it's ready to print. For the voice and fax numbers, SBook can use your modem to dial the numbers for you, which is very handy.

For importing existing contact lists from other contact-management programs, SBook recognizes QuickDeX, SpeedDeX, tab-delimited text, and the mail-merge format used by most PC database programs. I borrowed a 10,000 name mailing list from a list rental firm for my testing, and SBook took it all in without a problem. There was no problem recognizing any of the information. SBook does have some trouble with international phone numbers, because they can be in various formats, but you can force it to recognize the number.

Once you've entered your contacts into SBook, you can search for entries individually or in groups as easily as typing a few letters. SBook lets you search by Word, Full Text, or Phonetically. Depending on how you entered your contacts, you can use common characteristics such as company name to find groups of contacts, such as everyone who works for Apple Computer.

Besides the usual contact-management features, SBook lets you print mailing labels using many popular Avery and 3M formats, and envelopes (with FIM and postal bar codes). When you print labels, SBook lets you choose the font and size for that print job; if your choice results in an address that's too long or too tall to fit on the label, SBook will shrink the text to fit, only on the affected labels.

You can also log your activities: time a call, type notes, email them to your associates. Another useful feature of SBook is its ability to print hardcopy address books for your in several different formats, so as your contacts change you won't have to constantly buy a new address book and write them in while crossing out others.

If your friends or business associates have SBook, it's easy to share contacts with each other. Remember the export well I mentioned? You can use it to create new SBook files that you can put in the Workspace, email to someone, or drag and drop into another application. Just select the contacts you want to share, and a "ghost icon" will appear in the export well. Click on this icon and drag it into the Workspace, or an email Compose window and you're set to go. You (or an associate) can then drop it into an open SBook window to add those contacts to their SBook.

A Few Shortcomings
While SBook is very strong on features, there are a few weaknesses. One is that it's not possible to sort entries except alphabetically. This isn't necessarily bad, but it would be helpful to be able to sort by company name, date entered, state, ZIP Codes, Area Codes, even color! You can always create separate SBooks for different types of contacts, but this can be a hassle.

Another minor irritant is when you want to globally change the font and size of your contact information. SBook will not let you choose any font size not listed in the Font panel; but if you choose each entry individually (who has time to do that?), it will allow this. Colored text is supported, but only marginally. You can use the NeXT Colors panel to drag and drop a color onto the text of your choice, or drop the color onto the icon to color all the text associated with it. The problem is that unless you save your changes immediately, your colors disappear as soon as you go to another entry; they aren't retained in memory as in some other programs for the Mac. Even worse, if you want to color all your entries the same, you can't assign colors globally.

Other shortcomings include the Labels panel. Although you have a wide choice of preset label styles to choose from, the pop-down menu doesn't change to show you which one you actually selected: it always says Preset Labels, so you have to rely on memory. And the panel should have a full-size page preview of the labels, instead of a small, scrolling window, along with the ability to force printing to start at a specific row and column so as to avoid wasting labels between print jobs, and to save a print job as a PostScript file for both Mac and PC platforms in case you don't have a printer or need to print off-site sometime.

Finally, SBook really needs a genuine icon for fax numbers. Since it relies on the word ïFax' being in the text somewhere just before or after the phone number, it deserves its own unique icon.

The Verdict
SBook is a tool that is clearly aimed at large corporations, but it's equally useful for those of us with less taxing needs, and it appears to be the only commercial product of its type that is still shipping for NeXTSTEP. What will happen with SBook in terms of the Macintosh and Rhapsody is unclear. Sarrus Software appears to be taking a wait and see approach before committing to porting to Mac OS or Rhapsody.

SBook is very fast, which is a real asset when you're constantly acquiring new contacts, and it has a simple, yet elegant user interface that's not cluttered. Compared to the current trend toward more complex interfaces and ever-smaller, tabbed windows, SBook stands out for its simplicity and is a real joy. Both the printed documentation and on-line Help are excellent, with plenty of screen shots for illustrations. Despite its shortcomings, which should be fixed whether or not SBook is ported to Mac OS or Rhapsody, I would recommend it for anyone who uses NeXTSTEP, with or without their Mac alongside.

Sarrus Software, Inc.
565 Pilgrim Drive
Suite C
Foster City CA 94404
(415) 345-9365

http://www.sarrus.cominfo@sarrus.com