1741718 - Explore searching the `Notes` field of contacts for recipient autocomplete and AB quick search by default (maybe optionally with pref)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, enhancement)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: Sample notes field of a contact

Every contact has a Notes field. Unfortunately, this isn't searchable anywhere, not even in the actual address book. Having data which cannot be searched is unfortunate and wasteful. Depending on scenario, there may be significant unique information in the notes field which could be exploited for retrieving the contact between many others.

We should explore an option if the Notes field of contacts can be searched for retrieving them in recipient autocomplete and address book. If I have notes for Ryan's contact, like "TB Community manager, donations, council", I should be able to type "Ryan TB donations" and get results while autocompleting.

• Can we include Notes by default? (guess yes; implementing that is as easy as changing the existing pref mail.addr_book.quicksearchquery.format[.phonetic])
• Should including Notes in recipient autocomplete / AB quick search be optional? (guess yes, so that those who put sermons into notes can avoid lots of false positives)
• Performance considerations?

The same can actually be said for some other fields like Custom 1-4 etc.
Maybe we should allow the user to choose from a checklist which fields to search?

At the very least, we must make such fields searchable anywhere at all, e.g. in Advanced AB search, see bug 184483.