2.0 beta middle name oddity

[Mark D]

Hey everybody - I downloaded the 2.0 beta (331) and did an initial
sync just like the readme suggested, preserving address book data and
replacing google information. Everything seemed to work pretty well,
except I've noticed some odd things with my middle name field.

I first noticed it when I synced to my iPhone...all of a sudden, all
of my contacts had a larger space between the first and last name
fields. Sure enough, all of the contacts on my iPhone had a new
"middle name" field attached to them.

Checking out my address book, the address book also showed similar
behavior - a slightly larger space between the first and last name.
Except when I try to "edit" the address book entry, no middle name
field appears. If I try to add the field to the address book card
(Card > Add field), "middle name" is grayed out. But again, no middle
name field appears anywhere in the card entry that I can change. If I
create a new contact, I can add/remove the middle name field willy
nilly.

Any ideas on why this is happening? I just did a test, creating a
brand new user in address book with no middle name field, then after
the first sync, it's exhibiting the behavior above (unable to add/
remove/edit middle name field and small extra space showing up between
first & last name).

Thanks!

[Larry Hendricks]

Hi Mark,

Spanning Sync is adding an empty field for the middle name when it
shouldn't be. This problem will be fixed soon, although you'll
probably have to restore from a backup to flush out the bad data.

Thanks
--
Larry Hendricks
la...@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[Peter Putzer]

Actually, that's easily fixable by the use of AppleScript.

on is_invalid_name(the_name)
return (the_name contains " ") or (length of the_name is 0)
end is_invalid_name

on report_invalid_name(name, the_name)
display dialog name & " has an invalid middle name." & return &
"Middle Name: " & the_name
end report_invalid_name

tell application "Address Book"
set invalid_names to 0
repeat with this_person in (get selection)
if the middle name of this_person exists then
if my is_invalid_name(get the middle name of this_person) then
set invalid_names to invalid_names + 1
--my report_invalid_name(get the name of this_person, get the
middle name of this_person)
delete middle name of this_person
end if
end if

end repeat
display dialog "Checked middle names. " & invalid_names & " were
invalid."
end tell

On 26 Mai, 19:57, Larry Hendricks <larh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> Spanning Sync is adding an empty field for the middle name when it
> shouldn't be. This problem will be fixed soon, although you'll
> probably have to restore from a backup to flush out the bad data.
>
> Thanks
> --
> Larry Hendricks

> la...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[Carlo Zottmann]

Thanks Peter, that worked like a charm! :)

Hey, would it be possible to add the name of the group of an OSX AB
contact to the note field, so I can easily find and group related
people in the GMail contact list? I think it'd be a nice workaround
until the GMail API allows for passing group information...

Thanks,
C.

[Carlo Zottmann]

Nevermind, looks like the note field isn't copied to the GMail
contact. Hmm.

[Carlo Zottmann]

Correction. :p It is synchronised, but the GMail contacts search
doesn't have it indexed. Splendid.

C.

[cwood]

Interesting. I'll report it to Google. Thanks!

-c