SeattleUser
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I often find it useful to arrange selected phonebook entries in outline form so I can browse through those entries using either the PhoneBook view or a notepad view. For example, by creating a phonebook entry for ABC Company, by creating a phonebook entry for each ABC Company department as a subitem of the ABC Company phonebook entry, and by creating a phonebook entry for each individual in a department as a subitem of the relevant department's phonebook entry, I could make it easy to browse through and find any and all phonebook entries relating to the ABC Company and its various departments simply by going to the ABC Company phonebook entry either in Ecco's PhoneBook view or in a notepad view. As illustrated in the small attached PNG file displayed at the bottom of this post, the phonebook entries for each department and each individual at ABC Company would all be right there as subitems without my needing to do any searching, filtering, or anything else.
(Of course, one can use assignments to selected Ecco folders--including but not limited to the "Company" folder--to "tag," retrieve, view, and browse groups of related phonebook entries without organizing those entries into any type of outline form as items and subitems. So consider the outline approach described here to be complementary to the use of folder assignments, searching, and filtering as a means of making related phonebook entries viewable and browsable as a group.)
Creating and organizing phonebook entries in a browsable outline is impossible if one relies exclusively on Ecco's PhoneBook > New Name function for creating phonebook entries, but it's fairly easy using other means as part of the following three-step process. The first step is to create an outline with all the names that will eventually become phonebook entries arranged the way you want. You could do this either in the PhoneBook view or a notepad view. If working in the PhoneBook view, you would use the PhoneBook > New Name function to create a phonebook entry serving as the top-level item in the outline--such as "ABC Company" (to draw from the example I provided above)--and would then create subitems and sub-subitems containing the names for the various additional phonebook entries you are wanting to be part of the outline. If working in a notepad view, the process would be substantially the same as if you were working in the PhoneBook view, except that your creation of the outline containing each name initially wouldn't need to involve creating any actual phonebook entry.
Regardless of whether you perform the first step within the PhoneBook view or within a notepad, the second step is to add to the Ecco PhoneBook folder each item, subitem, and sub-subitem that you want to make into a phonebook entry. This can be done through any of the methods Ecco makes available for adding items or subitems to a folder. Those methods include using the folder window (which is the best for this purpose because it allows adding multiple selected items and subitems through a single drag-and-drop operation), using forms, and using columns. (In the Ecco Help file, see "Adding Items with the Folder Window," "Adding Items by Form," and various parts of "Columns and Values" including especially "Using Columns.")
The third step is to add phone numbers and other data to each item, subitem, and sub-subitem that you will have made into a phonebook entry by the end of step 2. The easiest way to perform step 3 is from within the PhoneBook view. Simply open the highest-level phonebook entry (such as "ABC Company") within the PhoneBook view and use your preferred PhoneBook data form for adding the new data to that entry. Then use your keyboard's arrow keys to go to each of the subitems and sub-subitems that are phonebook entries, and proceed to add phone numbers and other data to those entries. (If needed, see the PhoneBook-related portions of the Ecco help file.)
Keep in mind that anytime you are in a notepad or even in the Calendar view and have the cursor positioned in an item or subitem that has already been added to the PhoneBook folder, you can instantly open that item or subitem as a phonebook entry displayed in the PhoneBook view simply by switching to the PhoneBook view; when the PhoneBook view opens, it will be displaying the phonebook entry that was previously selected in the notepad.
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Organizing Selected PhoneBook Entries into a Browsable Outline (Popularity: 4201 )
