Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !)

[wally]

@lduboeuf Pardon my miscommunication! I only thought the predictions were bad when I didn't understand that the T9 element was happening, and they seemed to come out of nowhere and not relate to anything. A laugh solely at my own ignorance

But I don't get any predictions based on phone number, whether I use the region prefix or not. All predictions that I see are T9 based.
Once I have entered the full phone number of a contact in the dialer, it displays the contact name. But that's clearly a different feature, as the contact name does not appear in a box like it does with predictions.
I can type all but the final digit, with or without regional code, without seeing a prediction based on phone number.
I thought it might relate to parentheses in phone numbers as displayed in Contacts, which is a regional custom here, but I've found contacts without parentheses and these don't come up either.
I've also just tried adding a nice Ciderie de Bretagne as a contact, rebooting, and dialing the number, both with and without the 33 - still no prediction based on number.

Oneplus Nord N10, 20.04 OTA 11, Canada.

In any case, i love this T9 feature. Thank you!!

[lduboeuf]

@wally said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

@lduboeuf Pardon my miscommunication! I only thought the predictions were bad when I didn't understand that the T9 element was happening, and they seemed to come out of nowhere and not relate to anything. A laugh solely at my own ignorance

But I don't get any predictions based on phone number, whether I use the region prefix or not. All predictions that I see are T9 based.
Once I have entered the full phone number of a contact in the dialer, it displays the contact name. But that's clearly a different feature, as the contact name does not appear in a box like it does with predictions.
I can type all but the final digit, with or without regional code, without seeing a prediction based on phone number.
I thought it might relate to parentheses in phone numbers as displayed in Contacts, which is a regional custom here, but I've found contacts without parentheses and these don't come up either.
I've also just tried adding a nice Ciderie de Bretagne as a contact, rebooting, and dialing the number, both with and without the 33 - still no prediction based on number.

Oneplus Nord N10, 20.04 OTA 11, Canada.

In any case, i love this T9 feature. Thank you!!

ok, i will need to look at it then, because it works for me by either using a prefix '+33' or start with 06 or 07

[gpatel-fr]

@wally said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

20.04 OTA 11

under 24.04.1 I get

dpkg -l | grep dialer-app
ii  lomiri-dialer-app                             2.0.0+0~20250814161446.20+ubports~dev~1.gbp4bba62

I don't have access to a phone running Focal tp check it, but under

http://repo.ubports.com/dists/focal/main/binary-amd64/Packages

I see

Package: dialer-app
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Installed-Size: 1750
Maintainer: UBports Developers <devs@ubports.com>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1.0.0+0~20241101095734.1+ubports20.04~1.gbpe21919

so are we speaking of the same thing ?

[wally]

@gpatel-fr said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

Version: 1.0.0+0~20241101095734.1+ubports20.04~1.gbpe21919

I do get this exact output for version number as output to the grep command you gave. But my assumption, based on Lionel not mentioning the version, and based on the fact that I do see suggestions based on contact name, is that this was all introduced before 24.04.

@lduboeuf Your development time is valuable! Maybe let me ask around a bit first on Matrix/Telegram for other people to test and make sure it's not just me before you go spending time digging into it.
I have now tested on a broken old Oneplus 5 too, and it's the same for me there- perfect predictions based on T9 spelling contact names, but no predictions based on phone number.

[gpatel-fr]

@wally said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

this was all introduced before 24.04.

from the code history, it seems that this is correct, you should have this feature.
FWIW it's based on 3 digits when searching for local numbers, and 2 digits after the '+' for international numbers.

[wally]

@lduboeuf Aha! I've gotten somewhere. In short, it relates to what language my system is set to.

I was suspecting some sort of regional dialing syntax issue. I tried changing my location in System Settings, to no effect. Then I tried changing my language to Français (France), and sure enough, up comes the cidrerie after dialing +33029, or also after dialing 029.
Attempting to dial Canadian numbers while set to Français (France) didn't yield any predictions regardless of syntax.

It only then occurred to me that my language is normally set to English (UK), not English (Canada). Setting it to English (Canada), I CAN get certain contacts to be predicted, but only if I start by dialing +1, and only then for contacts that happen to have the number saved starting with +1. My Contacts seem to have a wide variety of snytaxes, some starting in +1, others simply with 1, others without the regional code at all. Also some using parentheses, some not. Perhaps this relates to a Contact list that has been exported from one device to another and from 16.04 to 20.04, with different contacts being added at different times. The contact list has always been within UT.

I have never dialed a plus sign, living here. Using Google Maps, if I set my VPN to Canada, I see (555) 555-5555, where if set to, for example, France and searching a Canadian business I see +1 555-555-5555.
So in short, even with my language set to Canadian English, I wouldn't have stumbled across any predictions based on phone numbers. It only works for numbers stored with a +, and only if I type the + when dialing.

If it weren't too complicated a change, perhaps if the numeric prediction search dropped all special characters like + and (, it would work more internationally? But I have no idea how feasible this is.
The predictions based on contact name are probably useful to a lot more people anyway, and I don't want to create more work for you. Just trying to be helpful in the small ways that I can by testing and reporting.

[lduboeuf]

@wally said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

@lduboeuf Aha! I've gotten somewhere. In short, it relates to what language my system is set to.

I was suspecting some sort of regional dialing syntax issue. I tried changing my location in System Settings, to no effect. Then I tried changing my language to Français (France), and sure enough, up comes the cidrerie after dialing +33029, or also after dialing 029.
Attempting to dial Canadian numbers while set to Français (France) didn't yield any predictions regardless of syntax.

It only then occurred to me that my language is normally set to English (UK), not English (Canada). Setting it to English (Canada), I CAN get certain contacts to be predicted, but only if I start by dialing +1, and only then for contacts that happen to have the number saved starting with +1. My Contacts seem to have a wide variety of snytaxes, some starting in +1, others simply with 1, others without the regional code at all. Also some using parentheses, some not. Perhaps this relates to a Contact list that has been exported from one device to another and from 16.04 to 20.04, with different contacts being added at different times. The contact list has always been within UT.

I have never dialed a plus sign, living here. Using Google Maps, if I set my VPN to Canada, I see (555) 555-5555, where if set to, for example, France and searching a Canadian business I see +1 555-555-5555.
So in short, even with my language set to Canadian English, I wouldn't have stumbled across any predictions based on phone numbers. It only works for numbers stored with a +, and only if I type the + when dialing.

If it weren't too complicated a change, perhaps if the numeric prediction search dropped all special characters like + and (, it would work more internationally? But I have no idea how feasible this is.
The predictions based on contact name are probably useful to a lot more people anyway, and I don't want to create more work for you. Just trying to be helpful in the small ways that I can by testing and reporting.

Thanks for the feedback, will look at it one day. But i'm surprised prefixes change with language and not timezone

[gpatel-fr]

@wally

what's the return of

locale -k LC_TELEPHONE

for your phone ?
I get:
tel_int_fmt="+%c %a %l"
tel_dom_fmt="%a %l"

[wally]

@lduboeuf It does seem odd. I thought to try it because language settings also change 12 vs 24 hr clock (which is why I set myself to UK English in the first place). The results of locale -k LC_TELEPHONE change too, as per below.
If you do come back to this, my testing has been pretty thorough and I'm confident of what I stated, for Focal at least. Tested on both Oneplus Nord N10 20.04 OTA 11 and Oneplus 5, 20.04 (2025-W21). The only difference between the two was in what syntax would trigger predictions of phone number in France, when set to Français (France).. something about whether the 0 was included after the 33. I assume that was just a change in code over time, since my Oneplus 5 is 6+ months out of date.

@gpatel-fr It depends on language setting.
I get five lines of output, and am including the first four, as they all vary. Fourth just shows international dialing prefix changing as I change languages. Fifth always said "telephone-codeset="UTF-8"

While set to English (UK), which were my normal settings:
tel_int_fmt="+%c %a %l"
tel_dom_fmt="%A %l"
int_select="00"
int_prefix="44"

When I change language to Français (France):
tel_int_fmt="+%c %a %l"
tel_dom_fmt="%a %l"
int_select="00"
int_prefix="33"

English (Canada), and identically Français (Canada):
tel_int_fmt=""+%c %a %l"
tel_dom_fmt=""
int_select="011"
int_prefix="1"

English (USA)
tel_int_fmt="+%c (%a) %l"
tel_dom_fmt="(%a) %l"
int_select="11"
int_prefix="1"

Things like the capital A under English (UK), and the empty field under Canadian language settings aren't errors, I've checked and double checked this
(but I'd love to know how to copy and paste from UT Terminal )
All this should be replicable, but of course changing the language triggers a reboot, so it takes some time.

[gpatel-fr]

@wally said in Tip: call a contact with one hand (secret UT key !):

It depends on language setting

I looked under /usr/share/i18n/locales, localization of phone numbers using this data seems the stuff of nightmares. Just for an example, sr_RS gives for int_select '99' while Wikipedia states that it was changed to '00' in 2008. This does not look like a well maintained database.

I just have a question about international numbers: at some point you say that you compose a number with a leading '+' : how in the world do you manage this with the dialer app ? If this comes from your contacts list, where the '+' preceding a phone number can indeed be displayed in the dialer (I checked), is the phone carrier somehow interpreting this '+' as meaning an international call ? Because in France this does not work. The real prefix (00) has to be used.