Ubuntu phone contacts ordered by firstnames only

Question

After syncing with a CardDAV service (by syncevolution), my contact list is ordered by firstnames instead of lastnames what I prefer.

While both, the phone's contact app details view and the web-based CardDAV service display my contacts with the right field settings (lastname, firstname, asf.) the list view of my Ubuntu Phone's contact app lists all contacts only ordered by firstname. But when I'm adding a new contact directly into the phone, this one is sorted into the list by its lastname, hence differently than all other contacts despite of identical field assignments. This is inconsistent and confusing.

I cannot find any way to change the ordering. What can I do to get all contacts ordered by lastname in the contact app's list view?

Answer 1

I couldn't reproduce what you mention about new contacts being sorted differently, but I added a bug against the contacts app about the last name sorting: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/address-book-app/+bug/1495726

Answer 2

it is quite easy to change the order of contacts at Ubuntu phone when importing with a vCard 3.0 file (e.g. as in How do I sync contacts on Ubuntu Touch?). The phone uses the FN property of each vCard entry to display and order the contact list, so you can reorganize the list before importing with a vCard editor or an easy script, e.g. with Perl and http://search.cpan.org/search?query=vCard%3A%3AAddressBook.

For example, if you have a vCard entry as

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Smith;John;;;
FN:John Smith
REV:2010-02-15T11:13:54Z
UID:582
END:VCARD

this needs to be changed to

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Smith;John;;;
FN:Smith\, John
REV:2010-02-15T11:13:54Z
UID:582
END:VCARD

to be ordered by family name in Ubuntu phone.