Address Book Auto-complete Values?

I don't know where Address Book keeps these autofill files, but would certainly like to know how to disable this feature. The autofill feature has been a real pain in the old kazoo when it automatically adds a zip code to OH for Ohio - and makes it necessary to erase it before going on. Other states with similar results. It also autofills middle names if I have ever entered them - again a pain. (Insert Mary, for example, and autofill inserts Jane - whether this Mary is Mary Jane or not.) I spent at least one half hour on the phone with an Apple tech (Indian accent which made me feel concern about the quality of the advice I was receiving, particularly after being placed on hold while the tech "Consulted with a product speciallist" four times during the call - and was finally told "Autofill can not be disabled". I didn't believe the first tech, so tried again - another call and another Apple tech - was told the same thing and there was no indication that this would ever change. The inference was that Apple is proud of the efficiency with which autofill is applied in Address Book and the disable feature would never be applied. Like the author of the original message in this thread, I would be pleased with a solution. Sydbowlingdacor.net

On 23-Sep-04, at 3:17 PM, sydbowling wrote:

> I don't know where Address Book keeps these autofill files, but would
> certainly like to know how to disable this feature. The autofill
> feature has been a real pain in the old kazoo when it automatically
> adds a zip code to OH for Ohio - and makes it necessary to erase it
> before going on. Other states with similar results. It also autofills
> middle names if I have ever entered them - again a pain. (Insert Mary,
> for example, and autofill inserts Jane - whether this Mary is Mary
> Jane or not.) I spent at least one half hour on the phone with an
> Apple tech (Indian accent which made me feel concern about the quality
> of the advice I was receiving, particularly after being placed on hold
> while the tech "Consulted with a product speciallist" four times
> during the call - and was finally told "Autofill can not be disabled".
> I didn't believe the first tech, so tried again - another call and
> another Apple tech - was told the same thing and there was no
> indication that this would ever change. The inference was that Apple
> is proud of the efficiency with which autofill is applied in Address
> Book and the disable feature would never be applied.
> Like the author of the original message in this thread, I would be
> pleased with a solution.
> Sydbowlingdacor.

Rather than provide a means to disable Auto-complete, Apple needs to
make it less aggressive, so it merely suggests what it believes to be
right and allows the user to easily override it.

My version of Safari (1.2) has the same problem whenever I try to edit
a URL by hand. I prefer Windows Internet Explorer in this regard. It
offers a scrolling drop down list and only highlights what it thinks is
the likely choice. Once I start typing a URL it doesn't recognize, it
gives up and lets me be.

robert mcgonegal

----- Original Message -----
From: sydbowling <sydbowlingdacor.net>
Subject: Re: Address Book Auto-complete Values?

> The autofill feature has been a real pain in the old kazoo when it automatically adds a
> zip code to OH for Ohio

I've never had autofill fill a separate field

>It also autofills middle names if I have ever entered them - again a
pain. (Insert Mary, for example, and autofill inserts Jane - whether
this Mary is Mary Jane or not.)

iBid.

(you do know that Middle Name is a separate field from first name, right?)

> like the author of the original message in this thread, I would be pleased with a solution.

Me too.

--
 ::::== <http://2blog.kreme.com> ==::::

> > The autofill feature has been a real pain in the old kazoo when
>it automatically adds a
>> zip code to OH for Ohio

I suspect that Address Book does not "store autofill values"
anywhere, but rather looks through your entire address book each time
you type a character. So the problem would be that somewhere you have
an entry that has "OH 43081" in the state field instead of "OH" in
the state field and "43081" in the zip code field. Search your Book
for the offending entry and fix it, and that particular problem
should go away.

I still think autofill is a feature that users should *always* be
able to turn off.

--Ron

On 9/24/2004 8:00, "robertm-listrmdesign.com" <listrmdesign.com> wrote:

> My version of Safari (1.2) has the same problem whenever I try to edit
> a URL by hand.

An early Safari version was much worse...it would "correct" the
capitalization of a URL to what it knew. If you typed it wrong first, you
were pretty much out of luck.

  --John

On 25/9/2004 3:00 AM, "robertm-listrmdesign.com" <listrmdesign.com> spake
thus:

> My version of Safari (1.2) has the same problem whenever I try to edit
> a URL by hand. I prefer Windows Internet Explorer in this regard. It
> offers a scrolling drop down list and only highlights what it thinks is
> the likely choice. Once I start typing a URL it doesn't recognize, it
> gives up and lets me be.

I'm confused. This appears to be the exact behaviour that Safari exhibits on
my machine, i.e., identical to IE. I have version 1.2.3, but it's always
behaved like that as far as I can remember.

--
=Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
mailto:nstangerinfoscience.otago.ac.nz

>> Windows Internet Explorer in this regard. It offers a scrolling drop
>> down
>> list and only highlights what it thinks is the likely choice. Once I
>> start
>> typing a URL it doesn't recognize, it gives up and lets me be.
>
> This appears to be the exact behaviour that Safari exhibits on my
> machine

The key difference is that, if IE knows about, say,
"http://www.apple.com/macosx", it will still offer
"http://www.apple.com" in the drop-down list. Safari will auto-complete
to the former URL, instead, so you are forced to manually edit the URL
if you want to go to the latter one. Very annoying and, IMHO, a real
usability bug.

Jochen.

This same problem manifests itself with Zip Codes - if I want to type a five-digit zip code and have a previous addressee with a five-four-digit zip code, the auto-completion plonks in one of the five-four-digit codes, requiring me to:

a) notice that it has done so (I am not a touch-typist, so I don't always look at the screen!)

b) press the Delete key

I suspect I probably have several incorrect zip code entries in my Address Book as a result of this behavior. Short of deleting all five-four-digit zip code entries, though, it would be a pain to try to fix this.

I am also caught out by the 'middle name' problem - if one entry exists for "Jane & George" then every time I add another "Jane", it assumes I want "Jane & George".

I would love to be able to turn the auto-completion off.

On 29/9/2004 1:36 AM, "Jochen Wolters" <jochenpolytropia.com> spake thus:

> The key difference is that, if IE knows about, say,
> "http://www.apple.com/macosx", it will still offer
> "http://www.apple.com" in the drop-down list. Safari will auto-complete
> to the former URL, instead, so you are forced to manually edit the URL
> if you want to go to the latter one. Very annoying and, IMHO, a real
> usability bug.

True, and in fact I hadn't realised that IE was this clever (a hallmark of
good usability design.

After a little experimentation, IE can clearly extract the "root" URL of
a site from any URL that it happens to "know" about (via history, bookmarks,
etc.), and display that in the list in addition to the URLs that it does
have on file. Nice.

IE also intelligently defaults to the URL most similar to what you've typed
so far. Further experimentation with Safari leaves me puzzled as to its
rules for selecting URLs in the popup list. Safari certainly only lists URLs
that it "knows" about; maybe it selects the most recently/frequently
accessed URL (just guessing here)?

--
Nigel Stanger, mailto:nstangerinfoscience.otago.ac.nz
Dept. of Information Science, http://divcom.otago.ac.nz/infosci/
University of Otago, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND. XNS: =Nigel Stanger

This auto-completion feature is not helpful at all in Address Book as you usually wants to add NEW information and not old. It also slows down the operation of using Address Book considerably. It is really sloppy of Apple not to at least provide an option to disable this feature.

Jerry (who also has customers also frustrated over this issue, and the Safari one too)

I have the same problem with Address Book. For example, when I type the city, I start with Sac - and it inserts "SACRAMENTO" or "Sacramennto". Both are wrong. Has anyone figured out a way way to edit the auto-complete field values?



[Unless someone has learned more, the general consensus was that it was merely auto-filling based on existing incorrect data in the file. Search and see if you have such bad entries, and if so, remove them, relaunch, and test again. -Adam]



If Simson Garfinkel's SBOOk had pictures, then I'd be using it over Address Book in a heartbeat.

On Sep 22, 2005, at 9:29 AM, lt wrote:

> I have the same problem with Address Book. For example, when I type
> the city, I start with Sac - and it inserts "SACRAMENTO" or
> "Sacramennto". Both are wrong. Has anyone figured out a way way to
> edit the auto-complete field values?
>
> [Unless someone has learned more, the general consensus was that it
> was merely auto-filling based on existing incorrect data in the
> file. Search and see if you have such bad entries, and if so,
> remove them, relaunch, and test again. -Adam]

Something that might be wonky in the Tiger address book. The auto
complete used to work when I typed "roni," the nickname and part of
the address of my friend Veronica (which I've got in the "Name"
field, but now I've got to type in "Vero" before it shows up. Not a
big problem, but I've been typing in "roni" for about 10 years now
and old habits die hard.

It seems silly that this would be changed.

Marilyn