[missing-sync-palmos-talk] MS5 and Contacts categories... what a mess

[J-F Boquillard]

Hi,

I have a few complains about the new Contacts conduit introduced in
Missing Sync 5....
After a bad first synchronization, I needed to make a complete
overwrite of my contacts in order to get the new fields (birthday,
etc..) synchronized.
Then I discovered a behaviour that is only mentioned in an article (id
2563) of the knowledge base and not in the documentation: the
categories on the palm are mapped to groups on the mac!
This is a very bad choice. For me, a group is not a category... Let me
explain why.
First, I use my Address book as a central database which contains:
- my contacts (which are only partially synchronized with the palm)
- my email addresses (only name and email...)
- my phone numbers (synchronized with my mobile)
I also have a few groups:
- a group of contacts to synchronize to the palm (and my iPod)
- a group of contacts/telephone numbers to synchronize to the mobile
- a number of email lists (about 10)
Almost every contact is included in at least one group, but none of
these groups as a meaning as a category of people.

After the first synchronization with MS5's conduit, all my groups
(plus one hidden group named "contacts with phone number" probably
created when I checked the option "synchronize only contacts with
phone numbers" for my mobile in iSync options) where send to the palm
as categories... Worse, contacts where affected one of these groups as
category... but, as stated by the KB article, there is no way to
predict how they are affected!!

This is a serious step backward when compared to Apple's iSync conduit
which correctly synchronized palm's category... even if they where not
displayed in the address book!

One last thing, there is still no support for palm's personalized fields...

Now I'll ask two questions to Markspace:
1. Is there a chance the behaviour of that conduit will change to
match Apple's conduit behaviour or something like that?
2. If answer is no, is there a way to get back to Apple's iSync
conduit for contacts?

Regards,
Jef