Setting up and using the contacts bar on the Nokia N97

Nokia's brought touchscreen operation to its range of music-centric mobiles for the first time, with the heavily featured N97 debuting a fresh new take on Nokia's S60 smartphone system.

It's easy to find your way around the menu system with a bit of finger swiping, tapping and dragging. Its straightforward system also offers a neat way of keeping in touch with your favourite, most used contacts by presenting them onscreen in a Contacts bar on the top of the home screen.

Up to four contacts can be set-up to sit on the screen, represented by thumbnail images near the top of the display. A quick tap of these pulls up a range of communications options and updates - so with another press you can quickly call or text your contact. You can also view a log history of recent messages and calls to or from that contact listed under the Contacts bar.

In addition, it's possible to assign up to two web feeds to each contact, so you can get regular updates from friends' blogs or social networking sites shown in the panel.

Here, we show you how to set up and use this very useful touch-operated feature...

Setting up the Contacts bar

1. In the home screen (Figure 1) press the Contacts Bar icon (the head-and-shoulders shaped symbol in a grey box) towards the top left of the display.
2. Press the panel: Add contact to Home Screen (Figure 2).
3. Another screen appears with info about the Contacts bar (Figure 3). Press Continue.
4. You can choose whether to add an existing contact from your Contacts, or tap in completely new details (Figure 4). To select from your Contacts, press the Select from Contacts panel.
5. Your existing contacts appear in alphabetical order (Figure 5). You can scroll down these using your finger or stylus to swipe through the list, or drag down the scroll bar on the left for speedier run-through.
6. Alternatively, you can search by typing in a letter. Press the bar at the bottom with the magnifying glass next to it. A grid of letters appears (Figure 6). Press the letter you require. The list is narrowed down, with a selection of next-letter options for your existing contacts (Figure 7).
7. Whichever method you use to find a contact, when you see the contact you want, press it. If there is no image attached to it already, you will be asked whether you want to add an image from your gallery or whether you want to take a new image (Figure 8). To choose a picture already on the phone, press the Select from gallery panel.
8. A panel appears displaying images on your phone, which you can scroll through until you find the one you want to add (Figure 9).
9. When you see the image you want, press it and it will be added to your contact (Figure 10). You can choose to edit your contact details before saving (see below), change the image or add a Web feed. Or if you're happy to, you can leave it as it is.
10. Press Finish to add your contact to your Contacts Bar. In a few moments you will be returned to the home screen with your contact displayed (Figure 11).

Up to four contacts can be added to your Contacts Bar. To add further contacts to your Contacts Bar, simply repeat the procedure above.

Editing contacts before saving
A selection of additional options are available to amend your contact before saving (Figure 10).

1. To edit the details of your contact, press the Edit details panel. Press Option. To add more details to the contact entry, press Add detail (Figure 12).
2. A list of details appears (Figure 13). Press any of these you want to amend, and type new details - names, phone numbers and so on - in to the required fields.
3. You can change the picture too you've added too. Press Change image. In a similar way to that described above, you can select a photo from your phone's image gallery or take a new image to add to your contact.

Adding a web feed to contacts
You can get regular online updates via web feeds on the Nokia N97, and up to two can be assigned to each of your contacts - so you can get updates from a friend's blog or social networking service or just a regular website news feed if your prefer.

1. In the Contacts Ber set-up screen (Figure 10) press the Add web feed panel.
2. Information on this option appears (Figure 14). Press Add web feed.
3. On the screen that appears (Figure 15) you can type in the name of the feed (in this example Know Your Mobile) by pressing the Title panel and then using the virtual numberpad to type in the name (Figure 16). Press the green tick confirm button in the corner to return to the previous screen.
4. Press the http://www. panel under Web address. In a similar way as above, use the numberpad to type in the address of the web feed you want to add (Figure 17). Press the green tick confirm button to return.
5. Press Done. You will be asked to select a connection for your web feed (Figure 18). Press the one you want to use. The phone will start connecting.
6. You will be returned back to the Contacts Bar setup screen (Figure 10). Press Finish. You will be returned to the home screen with your contact added (Figure 11).

Using the Contacts bar
Once you've added your favourite contacts to the Contacts bar, with a quick press of a contact you can get quick and easy communication options and updates for that contact (Figure 19).

• These include icons for making a one-button voice call, opening a new message, editing contact details, and refreshing the web feed. In addition, for each of the contacts a log of recent incoming and outgoing calls and messages to and from that contact are displayed in a list. You can press these to get more details of the call or message.
• If you want to, you can easily remove a contact from your Contacts bar. Press the contacts editing button in the Contacts bar editing options (represented by three horizontal lines). Press the Remove from Contacts Bar panel (Figure 20). Press Yes to confirm (Figure 21).
• You will be returned to the home screen, with an option to add another contact to the Contacts Bar (Figure 22). Press this panel to add a new contact, and follow the procedures outlined above.