🏎 Best practices

This page contains best practices when using the API to ensure the best UX possible.

Performance considerations

Only request the ContactColumns you need

For every ContactColumn requested via the ContactStore#fetchContacts() function, the loading time will increase. This is because Contact Store will perform multiple database queries for every column requested. It is adviced to only request the ContactColumns you need at any given point.

Keep in mind that some information about a contact is provided without a need for a ContactColumn.

If you are building a list of contacts and you need to display their names, use Contact#displayName instead of requesting for the ContactColumn.Names column. For the same scenario, use the Contact.thumbnailUri instead of querying for the ContactColumn.Image column, if you do no need a high-res version of the contact image.

Use a Predicate to quickly resolve phone numbers

Instead of fetching all contacts' phone numbers and try to find the contact containing a phone number yourself, use the PhoneLookup predicate.

This predicate will try to return the contacts containing the given phone number.

Internally, Contact Store utilises a high performant query provided by Android, which makes it ideal for such scenarios.

UX considerations

Use the displayName property when showing the name on the UI

Each contact fetched from the store comes with their displayName property populated. You do not need the Names column to retrieve this information.

The displayName might be populated after other properties that are contained in a contact (such as their phone number, if they do not have a name). There is also a high chance that this is the way other apps to represent a contact's name as well.

Use extensions functions to format phone numbers and postal addresses

Instead of displaying the raw value of phone numbers and postal address to your UI, prefer using the extension functions found in FormattedStrings.kt. This will convert your properties into formats best suited for UI purposes.