Aggregate duplicate contact cards into a single entry in the frontend

[tplobo]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When a contact exists in multiple address books (e.g., a local card and a system/read-only card), duplicate contact cards appear in the app, causing confusion and a cluttered contact list.

Describe the solution you'd like

On the frontend, duplicate contact cards for the same person should be automatically aggregated and displayed as a single unified contact entry. The underlying separate cards would remain intact on the backend. When a user edits the aggregated contact, changes should be written only to the writable card (i.e., the non-system address book card), leaving the read-only system card untouched.

Related
nextcloud/server#4643

Original ticket text

Describe the bug

I am using the Contacts app to organize different groups of people involved in a project, and I need to invite a few external users as guests to allow them to contribute to it. Doing so bypasses contacts already defined in my contact book and instead creates duplicate (read-only) contacts. I am unable to merge custom and read-only contacts, and cannot edit the guest-user contact to use it as the main contact with contact groups and other information. I am forced to have two contacts in the book.

Potential follow-up of #1772.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a contact with an external email address (creates custom contact).
2. Try to share a folder in the Files app using the same external email address (it does not list your new contact).
3. Instead, invite that person as a guest user using the same external email address (creates guest contact).

OR

1. Share a folder in the Files app using an external email address, by inviting that person as a guest user (creates guest contact).
2. Create a contact with the same external email address (creates custom contact).

Expected behavior

I expected to have a single contact per external email address.

Actual behavior

In either case listed above, one can go to Contacts and see the duplicates. The guest contact has an "compound" email like "external@address.domain@my-server.domain", is "read-only" and cannot be merged.

Contact version

31.0.14 Enterprise

Operating system

No response

PHP engine version

None

Web server

None

Database

None

Additional info

No response

[hamza221]

Try to share a folder in the Files app using the same external email address (it does not list your new contact).

If you look for the contact in external shares in files you should be able to find it

I'm sorry I'm not fully sure I understand the issue here, You're allowed to have multiple contacts with the same email address. I don't see a reason for blocking that.
Maybe what could be added, is adding a feature to automatically suggest merge contacts.

But in the use case you shared I don't see an issue, creating a custom contact with email address and then inviting them as guest, should end up in 2 separate cards.

[tplobo]

hi @hamza221, thanks for the reply!

The issue I am highlighting is that the contact associated with the guest account is a different contact than the one where I keep all the rest of that person's information, because the former is read-only and cannot be edited. Why would I want two contact cards for the same person?

Let me give you a generic example. Following the steps above, I end up with two contacts in by addressbook:

1. (automatically created by the guest account feature)
   name: John Doe
   email: john.doe@cool-company.com@my-server.com
   (nothing else, because I cannot edit it)

2. (manually created)
   name: John Doe
   Company: Cool Company
   email: john.doe@cool-company.com
   cel: +99 99 99 99 99
   address: ...

Doesn't that seem counter-intuitive to you? Why can't I have a single contact card with all that person's information?

If you look for the contact in external shares in files you should be able to find it

I insist that this does not work, but there's a nuance here. If I type the email address registered in that person's contact, it just proposes to send an invite to that email address, which is not associated in any way to my pre-existing contact (item 2 in the example above). It does not list that contact. If I send the invite, it creates a new (read-only) contact (item 1 in the example above), and I end up with the duplicates I mention.

But in the use case you shared I don't see an issue, creating a custom contact with email address and then inviting them as guest, should end up in 2 separate cards.

I do not understand this. Why would I want two contacts, if I have the feature of having multiple emails for a single contact? If I want to create groups or teams, I need to add both contacts every time?

[hamza221]

I do not understand this. Why would I want two contacts, if I have the feature of having multiple emails for a single contact? If I want to create groups or teams, I need to add both contacts every time?

I'm sorry for the confusion, by 'should end up in 2 separate cards' I meant it's the expected behaviour right now, but maybe there's a room for improvement.

The logic behind it, is that the readonly card is mirrored from the user's ( guest in this case) profile information that's why you can't edit it. I'm not sure I see an easy fix here for your use case.

Do you have an expected behaviour aside from editing the readonly card ?

[tplobo]

hi and thanks again @hamza221!

OK, I can propose multiple paths that I see alleviating the problem, but I am aware that implementation might be unfeasible due to the code architecture, which is unknown to me. I will list the (to me) most obvious options below:

• Allow editing for the read-only contact so that the information added in the standard contact can be transferred to it, and keep the email address associated with the guest account creation as the only read-only field ("john.doe@cool-company.com@my-server.com" from my example).

• Allow merging a read-only contact with a standard contact, in such a way that the only read-only field is the email address associated with the guest account creation (similar to previous option).

• When clicking "invite guest" for sharing a folder, an email already associated with a standard contact would just use that contact as the destination for the mirroring, instead of creating a new contact in the addressbook. In case the email is shared by multiple contacts, a list could be provided as a sub-selection.

In any case, I think the crux of the issue remains on how to add information of the read-only contact to a standard contact. My first instinct to do so (and not change them directly) would be to create a third contact that mirrors selected parts of each, as in the example below.

1. (automatically created by the guest account feature)
   (as in previous message)

2. (manually created)
   (as in previous message)

3. (automatically created when merging 1 and 2)
   name: (mirrored from 2)
   email: (guest-account-email, mirrored from 1; email does not appear for editing, because editing targets 2)
   email: (real-email, mirrored from 2)
   company: (mirrored from 2)
   cel: (mirrored from 2)
   address: (mirrored from 2)
   ...

This merge action would hide contacts 1 and 2 and only allow 3 to be displayed. Editing actions target the original standard contact (contact 2), which solves the issue of the not touching the guest account email, since it is information mirrored from the contact automatically created (contact 1).

Again, I am aware that I am probably overlooking implementation details, since I am not aware of how the code works. But I think this is sane, at least conceptually.

[hamza221]

Would adding the possibility of choosing a contact when adding a guest user be a solution ?