[Opensync-users] Question on mapping fields between objects

[Cameron M. <cam...@ak...>]

Hi.

I'd like to get some synchronisation happening between my phone and my
computer, at least, but I have a question first.  My phone (SE T68i)
stores very limited information in its contacts.  It has fields for
Name, Home, Work, Mobile, Fax, Other and E-mail.  Quite often, I will
have phone numbers that don't fit into this scheme nicely, and I end up
squeezing, for example, a person's second mobile number into the Other
field.  In a different contact, I might use the Other field for some
other purpose, like their work's switchboard number.  Anyway, the point
is that I use this Other field on the phone in a variety of ways,
depending on the contact, while on my computer I have my contacts stored
in an XML file of my own devising where there is no such ambiguity.

Is it possible to have complex mapping rules with opensync such that if
I have a second mobile number in my XML file for a contact, that number
will go in to the Other field on my phone?  And if I originally enter a
number into the Other field on the phone then it shouldn't be assumed
that it is a second mobile number necessarily, and gets turned into a
generic "other" number in my XML file (to be later corrected by me by
hand if necessary)?

Another issue is that in my XML contacts file I specify the person's
family and given names, as well as a display name.  I want my phone to
have an entry called "Dad" rather than my father's full name, while in
my file I will have some markup like

  <contact>
    <name>
      <family-name>McCormack</family-name>
      <given-name>Alex</given-name>
    </name>
    <display-name>Dad</display-name>
    <!-- ... -->
  </contact>

Since on the phone it appears as a single Name field, I want to copy the
display name (and use that for identity checking purposes) to the phone
if one exists, otherwise it should copy the given name, a space, then
the family name.  If the contact is being copied from the phone to the
XML file, and it doesn't exist in the file yet, then it can default to
guessing that I entered it as given name, space, family name.  Some of
the people in my contacts file though have names where the family name
comes first, such as Chinese names.  Though it may be inconsistent for
searching on my phone, I want to have those listed as family name,
space, given name.  The fact that the name should be displayed with
family name first is specified with an attribute in my XML file.

Hopefully I can do this with opensync.  If not I might have to upgrade
my phone. ;-)  Of course I don't expect support to be added for my
bespoke XML file format, just that it is possible for me to write a
plugin that supports the complex field mapping that I would like.

Thanks,

Cameron

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