citycreek

Aha! I edited one of my favorites and found the change was indeed in effect for the "People" HTC Hero widget (which should be called the "Favorites" widget because it only shows Favorites). I had removed the widget because of the problem you mention: trying to scroll through contacts results in inadvertent phone calls.

If instead I open the "People" app, go to Favorites, and tap the edited contact, the first phone number I entered remains shown as the default action regardless of how many ways I've tried to change it. So the information on this screen is wrong. As far as I can tell, the default action only applies to the widget, so it doesn't matter what the contact information screen says. And, if I don't use the widget, it doesn't matter what the default action is anyway.

Changing the default action to a text message or e-mail is a good idea.

That is one of my biggest frustrations with the HTC Hero--trying to scroll through a list without accidentally instead tapping an entry. In some applications the worst that happens is that you have to hit the back key to go back one screen, but in others you end up making a phone call or deleting a list entry or making some other unintentional change to your data.