DreamConnect Hints & Tips

Staying Connected


We have provided some ideas on how to get the most out of DreamConnect. Visit this page regularly for updates.

Tips on using Smart Find.

Hints

Basic User Interface

DreamConnect is designed as a Contacts replacement. Keep that in mind whenever you use DreamConnect, and you'll find that many of the functions of Contacts, work the same way in DreamConnect.

Switching to and running DreamConnect

DreamConnect grabs the Contacts icon while it's running, so you can switch to it by tapping the Contacts icon. But it can't do that while it is not running, so what's an easy way to get it running?

Try tapping on the Extras icon, typing Ctrl+Enter to bring up the "Extras bar settings" dialog, and then choosing "Contacts icon" for the value of the "Icon position above" and "DreamConnect" as the "Preferred program". Then tap "OK".

Now you can start (or switch to) DreamConnect by holding down Ctrl and tapping the Contacts icon.

Note: if for some reason you want to go back to Contacts while running DreamConnect, you can do that by holding down Shift and tapping the Contacts button.

Tips

The tips below focus on the additional features of DreamConnect so that you can get the most out of these powerful enhancements.

Tips on Quick Jump

Choose the sort order to suit your most common search style

Quick Jump works on the first characters in the contact labels. Keeping this in mind, you should sort your contact list with the detail that you most commonly search for listed at the beginning.

So, if you usually look up people based on their first name, use a sort order such as "First Name, Last Name, Company".

Use the delete key to "jump back"

One difference between Contacts and DreamConnect is the use of the Delete or backspace key. In Contacts it deletes the current contact. In DreamConnect it deletes the last character in the Quick Jump text.

Quick Jump shows the first contact that matches the Quick Jump text. So, if you delete the last character of the Quick Jump text, it will move back to show the first contact that matches the shortened text.

This can be an easy way to jump around your contacts.

Use navigation to cancel Quick Jump

The Quick Jump text is cancelled as soon as you use any other mechanism to navigate around the contacts list. That includes the navigation keys for the contacts list (up, down, PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, but not left or right which navigate between the contacts list and card view, not inside the contacts list).

Also navigating with the pen (tapping on a new contact) will cancel the Quick Jump.

Use Escape to cancel Quick Jump

As in Contacts, the Escape key cancels all of the "find" behaviour, and places you back at the beginning of the full list of contacts.

In DreamConnect, Escape cancels the Quick Jump as well. (It also cancels the Simple Find, but does not cancel the category.)

Tips on Simple Find

Choose the sort order to find additional fields

When you change the sort order, DreamConnect constructs the contact labels from the details in the sort order. Simple Find then works on the contact labels.

This means that any details included in the sort order are available to Simple Find. So if you want to do a find on phone numbers, just choose a sort order that includes the type of phone number that you want to find.

Use Escape to cancel Simple Find

As in Contacts, the Escape key cancels all of the "find" behaviour, and places you back at the beginning of the full list of contacts.

Tips on Smart Find

Displaying all contacts belonging to a list of categories

You can list all contacts in any chosen list of categories by using Smart Find, and specifying a sequence of rules for the categories. Follow these steps:

  1. Make sure the current category is set to Any
  2. Open Smart Find (Ctrl+F or Edit > Smart find...)
  3. Set the Detail field to Categories
  4. Set the match type field to contains
  5. Set the category field to the first category you want to match against
  6. Tap Add rule (or type Ctrl+A) and change the logic operator from and to or
  7. Repeat steps 3 to 5 with the new rule's fields, filling in the next category
  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for as many extra categories as you want
  9. Tap Find or press Enter

This tip works well with the tip on saving and reusing smart find rules below.

Displaying all contacts not in a list of categories

This tip is the reverse of the tip above, and shows how easy it is to reverse the results of a search.

Follow the steps in the tip above, but change the match type field to does not contain, and leave the logic operator between rules as and.

When you want to invert a smart find set of rules, simply change the match types to their opposite, and change all ands to ors and all ors to ands.

Saving and reusing Smart Find rules

DreamConnect converts the Smart Find rules into text form, and saves them into the Find field.

After doing a Smart Find you can copy the rule with these steps:

  1. Change focus to the Find field (either tap on it, or type Tab)
  2. Select all the text in the field (Ctrl+A)
  3. Copy the text (Ctrl+C)

Now you can save the rule's text in Jotter, or somewhere else. When you want to reapply the rule simply go to the Find field, paste the text (Ctrl+V), and hit Enter.

You can even use a macro program (such as Macro5) to quickly apply the search at any time.

Tips on Categories

Use Attach Category to initialise your contacts with categories

The biggest task you face with categories is assigning all your current contacts to a category. Using the Attach Category button is the quickest way to do this.

A good tip is to change the Category view to "None", and then to start at your first contact, going through attaching the most relevant category to it (usually one of Work or Personal).

You will find that using this technique automatically removes the modified contact from view, and selects the next contact in the list. Why? Because the contact you just attached a category no longer has a category list of "None", so it no longer shows in the current view.

Tips on Printing

Copy and paste to print

To print your contacts, copy the contact details in DreamConnect and paste into Word. You will find that the contact card's format is maintained, however icons may not be printed accurately.

Printing the icons properly

The icons displayed in the contact card are characters in a special "Phones" font that is installed on your machine along with DreamConnect. That's why they display properly when you cut and paste from DreamConnect to Word, Jotter, Agenda, Sheet, or any other EPOC program that can handle Rich Text.

However, since they are characters in a special font, your printer won't know how to display them and will simply print the characters in an ordinary font. You can get your "Printer via PC" and PsiWin to print these characters properly by following the procedure below. You only need to do this once.

  1. Download the Phones.ttf font. This is a Windows TrueType version of the Phones font on your PDA.
  2. Install the Phones.ttf font in your Windows font directory. (From the Windows Control Panel open the Fonts folder, and drop the Phones.ttf file into it.)
  3. Make sure PsiWin is started and connected.
  4. Right click on the Psiwin status icon - the wiggly line on the bottom right of your screen - and choose Properties.
  5. From the Print Options tab (see below), add the Phones font into the list of fonts to enable for printing (the default EPOC fonts are already selected), then Install the driver. NOTE: these instruction apply to Psiwin 2.3.3.

Now printing from EPOC Word via the PC will print the icons properly. As a bonus, the icons will even work in documents converted from EPOC Word to Microsoft Word on your PC!

Glossary

Term Description
Labels The text used to represent each contact in the contacts list box on the left of the display.