List view

A scrollable list of names is a natural and efficient way to locate and view contacts, hence the word "Skrol" in the app's name.

A cell phone with a group of people on it

Unlike the iPhone’s Contacts app, Skrol displays two lines of information to help you identify desired contacts. The first line contains a person's name, and the second provides additional information, such as position, company name, email, or phone number.

The avatar on the left may contain a person’s photo, a company’s logo, or the first two letters of the last name. Tapping the avatar enables the multiselect mode to perform operations with selected contacts.

The List view works well with address books of any size, but finding names in longer lists by scrolling isn't as efficient. To overcome this handicap, we’ve implemented a predictive alphabet navigation control described in the next section.

Predictive alphabet

An alphabet strip on the right of the list view is best for navigating long lists of names. To get to anyone fast, swipe a finger along the strip, stop on the first letter of the name, and swipe to the left to select a second letter!

This method is illustrated on the left: a swipe up or down to the letter E opens a vertical list of all second letters, then a swipe to the left scrolls the matching record into view.

You may select to show the list starting with the first or last name. This option works for each address book or group individually. This way, a personal address book can start with the first name/last name pair while the much longer Company’s directory — with the last name.

The top and down arrows will advance the list to the beginning and the end. The dimmed letters of the alphabet mean no contacts are starting with that letter.

Swipe actions

After scrolling the list to a desired name, you can tap it to view a person’s folder, long-tap to make a phone call, double-tap to send a text, or swipe right or left to select any other assigned command.

The illustration on the left demonstrates the swipe to the left to make a call and the swipe to the right to send a text message. This way, making a call or sending a message takes only seconds.

If your work pattern differs, you may assign any other command to available taps or swipes. In addition to messaging and calling, these choices include viewing or editing folders, sending emails, adding or removing contacts to/from a group, repeating the last action, and deleting a contact.

This flexibility becomes particularly useful when organizing address books with hundreds of names.

Selecting names (multiselect)

To understand the utility of the multiselect function, consider the following scenarios:

You decided to delete outdated contacts but dread doing it record by the record;
You would like to create a Family group without having to open each folder individually to do so;
You need to email a book recommendation to several friends in one go, but creating a group for this one-time task doesn’t make sense.
You would like to create a list of people you wish to invite to the party and save it for future follow-ups;

To complete any of the above tasks, tap the avatars of the people you wish to include, and use the toolbar at the bottom of the list or the Action menu above the alphabet to complete a desired command or action.

The multiselect command works across multiple address books (All accounts option), except for creating groups.