Addressing Address Books For Linux - page 5

1, 2, 3, 4... Contact

The JPilot program has been around for quite a while and has a very fast, but basic address book. JPilot's main claim to fame is that it will sync with Palm Pilots, thus the name. Readers may recall my past LinuxToday article entitled "No Excuses - Sync Your Visor/Palm to Linux" from 09/19/2002. JPilot has a list style user interface with names and addresses in the left center view. The extreme left side of the user interface has sync and quit buttons, along with a tool bar for other personal information manager functions. The right side is reserved for the contact data field text boxes. Searching is JPilot is very basic with a search text box at the bottom of the name/address list.

Key JPilot Features - version 0.99

Simple list style user interface

Personal information manager tasks integrated into left tool bar

Synchronization with Palm Pilot

Very loading and simple to use interface.

JPilot can be started in a number of ways:

• From a menu item on your KDE or Gnome, etc. startup menu
• From an icon on your desktop
• From the command line: jpilot

Running Jpilot, you'll see the file, view and plug-in buttons at the top. Along the left side is the personal information management task bar. The task bar has buttons for a date book, the address book, a to-do list and a note pad.

Entering new contacts can be accomplished by clicking the "New Record" button at the top right. You will immediately be put into the first field (Last Name) below the "Add Record" button. Just start typing in your data and use the tab key to move to the next field. When you are done entering your contact data, make sure you push the "Add Record" button, otherwise your data will go poof and you'll have to re-enter.

JPilot doesn't support importing or exporting data, so it may be of limited use in highly integrated desktop applications.

For lightweight Linux systems (read: antique hardware), that require a fast, less demanding address book application, JPilot is a reasonable choice. The fact that it will interface with Palm Pilots put it in this review.