Contact matching in Call List

[bbstrikesagain]

MPE uses a different algorithm than K800i, so call list in phone and MPE don't always display the same names.

I'll try to explain by example:

• All familly members have their "mobile" numbers stored in contacts.
  For convenience they also have "home" numbers, stored as +44161...
  
  A contact called Home has "home" number stored as 0161...

Any (non-international) call from Home is matched by phone to the Home entry, because the exact match 0161 is considered better than a +44161 match

But MPE matches the call from Home as a call from the first family member in the alphabet, even though it's not an exact number match (+44 instead of 0)

I'm not sure, but I think MPE 1.7.4 gave the same results as the phone, but 1.7.5 certainly doesn't.

Can it be fixed so exact matches are used in preference to inexact (international) matches?

[FJ]

I don't understand the your problem. What is the sense to save the contacts twice ?

[bbstrikesagain]

I don't understand the your problem. What is the sense to save the contacts twice ?

Each contact is saved only once, but some contats may include several numbers. Also, some numbers occur more than once, for several contacts. For example, several contacts might share a common home, or common work number. So which contact name should the phone display for incoming calls?

Consider my wife. She get's her own contact entry in my phone, with her own name. Normally I ring her on her default "mobile" number, but if she's not there then I flick across to her "home" number, or "work" number using just one or two key press on an SE phone. These numbers are all stored under a single contact entry, so it's easy to use. Well done SE.

Similarly for my sons. These contacts have contact pictures too, so they flash up when making or receiving calls.

But, if I want to ring home, and I don't know or care who's there, I usually use a separate contact entry named "Home".

• Why? My phone displays the contact picture for Home when making or receiving calls from the Home contact, and correctly displays Home in the call list.
  
  How? Because only "Home" has the exact match 0161456... The other contacts are lower priority match as far as the phone is concerned, since as I stored international +44161456... numbers for the other people's home numbers. The is SE being rather clever.

Unfortunately MPE isn't quite so smart: it gives no preference to the exact match, so a family member's name (first by the alphabet) appears in the call list, instead of "Home".

I suppose I could fix this example by renaming Home as @Home, but this inconsistency could occur for other cases (work numbers) or other users.

I think that, ideally, MPE should produce call list that displays the same names as the SE phone, so I wanted to highlight this difference.

This is much easier to explain with a few screen grabs, I hope these work:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kayandbre ... 4319706354
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kayandbre ... 9287358626
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/kayandbre ... 1370495714

[FJ]

Hmm
Everytime when MPE does search a name he has to enumerate all contacts. For your wish MPE would have to check all contacts twice. This sounds not bad but if you have about 10000 SMS in MPE this can make a bad performance.

[bbstrikesagain]

I guess the phone looks up numbers by checking all contacts, but a single pass through the contacts is enough. An International to National (+## to 0) match would be a provisional match, used only if no exact match is found. Easy?

Of course I'm only guessing at the SE algorithm, but I like the way it works...

[bbstrikesagain]

...most PC's have more processing power than my K800i???

[FJ]

...most PC's have more processing power than my K800i???

Yes, but the K800 is not able to archive thousands of calls and messages

[bbstrikesagain]

Yes, but the K800 is not able to archive thousands of calls and messages

1350 contacts, 1020 messages... Isn't a PC a 100 times more powerful? Maybe the phone uses an efficient single pass, with both eyes open.

[bbstrikesagain]

Any more thoughts?

Don't you agree that MPE and phone should display the same names in the call and message lists, if the contacts are fully synchronised?

[FJ]

I have still problems to understand the sense of it.
For outgoing calls it makes no diffrence to dial +44161... or 0161...
For incoming calls or SMS you have no control if the provider sends the number including country-code or not

[bbstrikesagain]

Here in the UK, all incoming calls regular from UK landlines come with 0... and not +44... So, they match best to the contact with 0... even if there are others with +44... When someone in my house calls me I see a picture of my house. When someone at work calls me I see a picture of my work. Easy.

But in MPE it says it was me that called me, because it matches +44 to 0, even though there is a perfect match elsewhere. If I delete the +44 home numbers from the other family members contacts, then I can't just use the joystick on the phone to try their alternate numbers.

It's not essential, but it would be ideal if MPE worked like the phone, displaying exact match instead of a random inexact match.

For texts it's a bit more haphazard, they usually come from mobile phones and usually do have +44... but it doesn't matter because there is only one contact for any mobile phone number.