125294 - Should "Name" be an "or" search of "first name","last name", and "display name", or just "display name"?

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 125197

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Address Book & Contacts, defect)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Should "Name" be an "or" search of "first name","last name", and "display 
name", or just "display name"?

currently, it's just searches display name.

note, if we make this and or search, how will that behave when the user is 
doing an "and" search?  I'm not sure if the search back end can mix "ors" 
and "ands" in a single search.

I'll check and see what 4.x did.

Comment 1

[jglick]

Is this separate from bug 125197? We have Quick Search in Address Book Window 
and Advanced AB Search dialog.

for Quick Search in AB Window:
I would say an OR search of FN, LN and DN.
If I type Name = "Collins" I should get back both "Phil Collins" and "Collins 
Smith". But If i type in "Phil Collins" I should get "Phil Collins", "Philis 
Collins" etc.

For Advanced Search Dialog:
We should probably do the same thing. Or we could break out "First Name", "Last 
Name" and "Display Name" as attributes.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

WFM?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Tony, WF you?

Comment 4

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

I approach this from a pragmatic standpoint:

In my address books, "Display Name" is always the default, "First Name" "Last Name" (with a space between them in both are present) but I also use Nickname (which in practice is not searched) and of course Email (which is searched by my default settings). I notice that my Address Book Search Box displays "Name or Email Contains". OK, let's type "leh" (without the quotes) into the box (for my "Bugzilla" address book). What comes up? You (probably) guessed it:
- Display Name: Wayne Mery
- Nickname: Wayne Mery
- Email: [e-mail]

Hm, that doesn't say much. Let's pick another one from the CC box of this bug: mny
- Display Name: Karsten Düsterloh
- Nickname: mnyromyr
- Email: [e-mail]

Well, what's the conclusion? For me, "name or email" (meaning Display Name or Email) is quite practical. There are only a few cases where the name which comes first to my mind wouldn't be found ("Mossop" maybe, which is a Nickname but neither a FirstName_LastName nor an email address) -- then I have to remember his real name.

I don't feel the need for searching for several words as distinct parts, or for a regular expression. What I search for is a string, usually a part of the name which comes first to my mind (or second, if the first try gives a null result).

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Is seamonkey behaviour different from TB?

Contrary to comment 0, in TB, we *are* searching all fields (FN, LN, DN, email) separately in an OR-search.

I don't understand what this bug wants, and the summary is also not clear.

Comment 6

[Nuno Silva [:njsg]]

Re: comment 5: this is the current behaviour in SeaMonkey too (at least for "Any Name" in an "or" search), I think introduced in bug 125197, I guess back when this bug was filled it didn't happen that way. Comparing with 125197, it looks like the two are duplicates.