gContactSync 0.3.0 Beta 1 Available

Posted by Pi in gContactSync on June 13, 2010

I’ve just released the first beta version of 0.3.0. I feel it is ready to be in a beta as there are no known bugs other than some quirks with postal addresses in Google’s API.  For now postal address synchronization is disabled by default, but you can enable it in the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog.

This version adds support for importing friends from Facebook, including photos.  It can also import contacts from Plaxo and usernames/photos from your friends on MySpace.  Right now the import does not attempt to match contacts that it finds with existing contacts and imports from Facebook and MySpace do not include e-mail addresses.

As a recap, here’s a quick list of the features.  Download link at the bottom.

Features:

  • Can synchronize your Google Contacts (external link) (Gmail, Google Apps, etc.) with Mozilla Thunderbird (external link).
  • Supports multiple Google Accounts and Address Books
  • Groups in Google can be synchronized with individual Address Books or mailing lists in one AB
  • Each Address Book can be synchronized with one of the following:
    • All contacts and all groups with mailing lists
    • One specific group
    • All contacts
  • Every synchronized AB can have its own custom settings
  • You can choose to complete synchronize your contacts (so Thunderbird matches Google), to only read changes from Google but never apply TB’s changes, or to only write to Google and never apply changes made remotely.
  • Contact photos are synchronized (only visible in Thunderbird 3 & Seamonkey 2)
  • Supports importing contacts/friends from Facebook, MySpace, and Plaxo, including photos.

Changes from 0.2:

  • The Accounts section of the Preferences dialog has been moved to its own dialog
  • Each Address Book now can have its own preferences (defaulting to their previous value in 0.2) and synchronization settings
  • New fields (“People”) and types for existing fields (many more phone number types)
  • Contact photos are synchronized (only visible in Thunderbird 3 & Seamonkey 2)
  • The birthday field in Thunderbird 3 is synchronized
  • More links in the gContactSync menu
  • The Sync button can now be customized like a normal toolbar button in Thunderbird. However, you must go to View -> Toolbars -> Customize and add the button to the toolbar yourself
  • You can synchronize from the main Thunderbird window
  • The import functionality is new.

You can download the latest version of 0.3 here.

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1 Comment

Note to gContactSync Users – Please update ASAP

Posted by Pi in gContactSync on March 25, 2010

I received numerous reports of gContactSync showing errors about mailing lists, deleting contacts, and/or duplicating contacts.

I believe the cause is a recent (unannounced?) change to the API that gContactSync 0.2 uses as well as the newer API that 0.3 alphas use.

For some reason, it looks like Google changed the self URL of contacts to use HTTPS rather than HTTP (a good idea, but not so good when done in APIs that are supposed to be stable without any sort of notice…).

There is an “Issue” with Google’s Contacts API that causes the IDs of contacts to now use HTTPS instead of HTTP.  gContactSync uses this URL as the ID of the contact.  The end of the URL contains the actual ID, but back in 0.1 I decided to store the entire URL as the ID (because the full URL contains the account’s e-mail address).  gContactSync matches your Thunderbird contacts with your Google contacts based on this ID.  It looks like this change isn’t permanent, but it has not been fixed as of late March 25th (Eastern), so I will permanently add the fix to gContactSync.

So where the URL of a contact used to be something like this:
http://www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/username%40gmail.com/full/682280958b46a123

It now looks like this, which makes gContactSync determine that the two contacts are not, in fact, the same
https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/username%40gmail.com/full/682280958b46a123

Additionally, some contacts store the groups they are in with the old http://www.google.com… link while others use https://www.google.com… which causes problems with group synchronization (whether you are synchronizing one group or many, gContactSync cannot always accurately tell which groups a contact is in due to this problem).  This will be addressed in 0.2.15

The following steps should fix the problem (thanks to bblackmoor on the forum for some additional steps with changing group preferences – http://pirules.org/forum/index.php/topic,127.msg503.html#msg503)

Before doing anything else, please go http://contacts.google.com and Export all of your contacts.

Version 0.2:

  • Update to 0.2.15 or greater
  • Go to Tools -> Add-ons and click Preferences under gContactSync
  • Switch to the Main tab
  • Uncheck Synchronize contacts automatically
  • Go to the Accounts tab
  • Click Reset All Synced ABs
  • Restart Thunderbird and re-enable automatic synchronization if you wish

Version 0.3

  • Update to 0.3.0a5 or greater.  Remember that 0.3 is still in its Alpha stage, meaning it is still being worked on and tested.  Use 0.2 if you want a more stable and tested add-on.  0.3 will be put on addons.mozilla.org when it is ready
  • Go to Tools -> Add-ons and click Preferences under gContactSync
  • Uncheck Synchronize contacts automatically under the Main tab
  • Go to the Advanced tab
  • Click Reset All Synced ABs if it is there (depending on the version you have)
  • If the reset button is not in that tab:
    • Open the Address Book window
    • Go to gContactSync -> Accounts
    • Click Reset All Synced ABs
  • Restart Thunderbird and re-enable automatic synchronization if you wish

If you have updated and reset all address books and gContactSync still isn’t working as expected please send me at least part of the log so I can figure out the cause: http://www.pirules.org/extensions/submit_error.php?ext=gContactSync

If any of your contacts were deleted and you do not have a backup, please read this for instructions on how to recover those contacts from Thunderbird.

Thanks to everyone who reported this issue, and I apologize for the problems it caused.

PS – I have an exam today, one Monday, one Tuesday, a ton of homework due tomorrow, and some recruitment events that I need to attend, so I apologize if I am slow to respond.  I haven’t tested 0.2.14 or 0.3.0a4 nearly as much as I usually do since I just discovered the problem and have to go to a meeting then take an exam very soon.  If anything is wrong I’ll try to get another update out late tonight or tomorrow.

6 Comments

Two new add-ons and gContactSync Update

Posted by Pi in gContactSync, mozilla on January 5, 2010

I worked on two new Thunderbird/Seamonkey add-ons over winter break.  The names aren’t very creative, so let me know if you can think of a better name for either of them.

Contact Photos

This add-on displays the photo of the contact from whom the message was sent in the message header of Thunderbird 3 and Seamonkey 2. If a photo cannot be found for the sender then a Gravatar is used.

Please let me know if you have suggestions for this add-on because I just started it today.  One possible addition I may make is to replace the default photo with a Gravatar in the Address Book window and new/edit contact dialog as well.  I’d also like to center the image in the header.

Also see Bug 469517.

Download here.

File Type Selector

This isn’t technically new, but I recently added it to AMO.

This add-on allows you to customize the default format in which e-mail messages are saved when you manually choose to save one or more messages.  It works in Thunderbird 2 and 3 as well as Seamonkey 2.  The default in Thunderbird is hardcoded as .eml and cannot be changed when saving multiple messages as far as I can tell.

Download here.

gContactSync Updates

Version 0.3

I plan on releasing 0.3.0a1 before I go back to school on January 11th.

Pre-alpha (early testing) download information

Here’s a basic summary of its features.  This wiki article has more details.

  • Can synchronize your Google Contacts (Gmail, Google Apps, etc.) with Mozilla Thunderbird.
  • Supports multiple Google Accounts and Address Books
  • Groups in Google can be synchronized with individual Address Books or mailing lists in one AB
  • Each Address Book can be synchronized with one of the following:
    • All contacts and all groups with mailing lists
    • One specific group
    • All contacts
  • Every synchronized AB can have its own custom settings
  • You can choose to complete synchronize your contacts (so Thunderbird matches Google), to only read changes from Google but never apply TB’s changes, or to only write to Google and never apply changes made remotely.
  • Contact photos are downloaded and displayed in Thunderbird 3 & Seamonkey 2.

Version 0.2

Here’s a brief changelist since the last post.  Download here.

Version 0.2.9

  • Fixes some bugs with read-only mode
  • Compatible with Seamonkey 2.0

Version 0.2.10

  • Fixes a bug encountered when manually deleting a contact from Thunderbird

Version 0.2.11

  • Fake/dummy e-mail addresses are now only added to new contacts when necessary (only when the contact is in one or more mailing lists). Reset and sync again to remove the unnecessary addresses, or just edit the contact.
  • Adds a Korean (ko-KR) locale – thanks to Han, Dong-yoo
  • Updated Spanish (es-ES) locale – thanks to RigoNet
  • Improved name parsing for Asian names (thanks to Han, Dong-yoo)

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3 Comments

gContactSync 0.2.8

Posted by Pi in gContactSync on September 22, 2009

gContactSync version 0.2.8 has been released.  I realized that I have been forgetting to make a quick blog post about each release, so here’s a basic summary of recent versions.

Download here.

The best way to stay up-to-date on new versions is probably through Twitter: gcontactsync

Supported Applications

  • Thunderbird 2
  • Thunderbird 3 (all versions, including beta 4 and 3.0pre)
  • Thunderbird 3.1a1pre
  • Seamonkey 2 (all versions, including beta 2 and 2.0pre)

Version 0.2.8

  • Fixes ‘broken’ usernames that were able to get an authentication token but failed when trying to get contacts or groups. (usernames only without a domain or with spaces at the beginning or end)
  • Fixed the install.rdf file for Seamonkey

Version 0.2.7

  • Bug fix for renewing expired authentication tokens

Version 0.2.6

  • Updated the Portuguese translation
  • Mailing Lists (groups) in Thunderbird now use their translated names
  • The log moved to the main profile directory

Version 0.2.5

  • Adds the following new languages:
    • Portuguese (devezas on BabelZilla)
    • Russian (Glk63)
    • Spanish (with help from Guillermo Klew from VisualBeta.es)

Version 0.2.4

  • Fixed a bug with adding or renaming groups
  • Minor updates to the Italian translation (thanks ZaZy)

Version 0.3 Update

This deserves its own blog post, but here is a basic summary.  I don’t have a tentative release date yet since this is just a hobby, not a job. Wink

The main delay is described here. College (a full 18 credits) and my job (programming) don’t exactly leave me with much free time, either.

Features

  • Support for Google’s new API
  • Support for downloading contact photos*
  • Synchronized birthday field**
  • ‘Relation’ fields (Mother, Father, Coworker, etc.
  • More phone number types

Potential Features

  • The individual address fields may be synchronized instead of using the new address fields
  • Support for adding, updating, and removing contact photos

*I (among others) worked on contact photos for the Address Book in Thunderbird 3 beta 4/Seamonkey 2.0 Beta 2.  gContactSync 0.3 and up will download photos in all supported applications, but you’ll have to use TB 3 or SM 2 to see them.
**I worked on a birthday field for the address book in Thunderbird 3/Seamonkey 2.  If you use TB 2 the values are synchronized but not displayed.  Google also added a birthday field after the changes were made in Thunderbird.

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1 Comment

gContactSync Updates

Posted by Pi in gContactSync, mozilla on June 10, 2009

Google Contacts API Update

Google announced a new version, 0.3, of their contacts data API yesterday. It adds a significant amount of flexibility, several new fields, and enhances existing fields. Some of the major changes include:

  • Structured Postal Addresses – It is now possible to keep the structured address fields that Thunderbird has without converting them.
  • A birthday field – I am currently working on enhancing the birthday field that will be present in Thunderbird 3, so the birthday values will be synchronized by default. If you use Thunderbird 2 the values will still be stored and displayed once you upgraded to 3.
  • Website fields with various types (list)
  • More phone number types
  • A nickname field

It doesn’t look like all of the changes are available in Gmail yet, but you can see a few of them here.

Version 0.3

I am going to start working on Version 0.3 sometime this week which will use the new API and hopefully include some of the most frequently requested enhancements. For those of you familiar with Bugzilla, I have a bug tracking my changes. I am going to focus heavily on Thunderbird 3 starting with version 0.3 and may drop support for 2 with future versions. If you are opposed to this please let me know and I will reconsider.

Here are some potential features. Please keep in mind that I have a full time internship that involves programming and am starting an online class soon, so I may have to delay some of these. The links are to bugs where I will track my progress.

  • Code refactoring. This isn’t the most popular feature request, but I would like to like to reorganize the existing code with the new API and these enhancements in mind.
  • Contact photos. I am working on contact photos in Thunderbird 3 and have a modified version of gContactSync 0.2.4 that will download photos from Google when adding contacts for the first time. Due to time constraints, 0.3 may be limited to downloading photos only in TB 3.
  • Synchronizing all fields that only Thunderbird has and allow for customization of that data.
  • Adding a new ‘Relation’ field. This describes the relationship between you and the contact (brother, sister, mother, father, child, coworker, etc.). I haven’t found an existing request for Thunderbird in Bugzilla, so maybe I could add it in Thunderbird rather than just gContactSync.
  • Several more types of phone numbers. (list)
  • Website field types, and possibly more fields.
  • More advanced synchronization with a more intuitive wizard (pick an account, then all groups w/ mailing lists, one group, or no groups/all contacts, plus a few options). Syncing individual groups with address books instead of mailing lists would prevent nearly all error reports that I get.
  • A button or context menu to synchronize only one directory.

Version 0.2

There have been a few new versions of gContactSync 0.2. It is currently up to version 0.2.3 that handles mailing list bugs a bit more gracefully. Download.

Since the development of 0.3 is going to take some time, I am going to slow down development of 0.2 and let it get translated to more languages.

Locales

  • ZaZy was kind enough to translate gContactSync to Italian (it). Updates to the locale will be in 0.2.4
  • A Russian (ru-RU) translation is being worked on courtesy of Glk63 on BabelZilla.
  • A French (fr-FR) translation is in progress by afroxav. Another translation was done by LaGrange.

Lessons Learned

  1. Mailing lists are evil. Just kidding, but they can be broken easily rending them (and their parent address book) useless. The cause of nearly every error report I have received so far is directly related to mailing lists.
  2. The nobody<id>@nowhere.invalid workaround helps but it is still possible to break mailing lists with this workaround.
  3. People would like to see gContactSync in their native language.
  4. People have good ideas and valuable suggestions. I have received a lot of feedback and requests. While I don’t have the time to implement every suggestion, I can at least try to add the more popular suggestions
  5. Creating a forum was a good idea.

Helping with Development

If you know a bit about JavaScript, XML, XUL, and/or CSS or even if you would like to learn I wouldn’t mind letting others fix bugs or enhance gContactSync. The code has a decent amount of comments and I generated some JsDoc of 0.2.

Or if you are good with icons and could make at least a sync button image I’m sure everyone would appreciate it.

1 Comment

gContactSync 0.2.2 Released

Posted by Pi in gContactSync, mozilla on May 23, 2009

Download

You can find the download on addons.mozilla.org (recommended) or mozdev.org.

Current Features

  • All the features of 0.1
    • Synchronizes an address book in Thunderbird with contacts from a Google Account (Gmail)
    • Customizable
    • Groups in Gmail are synchronized with mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • Duplicates (multiple contacts with the same e-mail address) are allowed
  • Much faster synchronization than 0.1
  • Only US English (en-US) for now, but more translations coming soon
  • Customization of how addresses are synchronized
  • Can synchronize just one group (My Contacts), all groups (including My Contacts, Family, Friends, & Coworkers), or all contacts and no groups
  • A new fetch-only mode where Thunderbird only receives updates and never sends updates to or deletes contacts from Google.

Changes since 0.2.0

  • Added some workarounds for mailing list bugs in Thunderbird (easily the number 1 cause of problems with gContactSync)
  • Added a FAQs page on the wiki and a link in the gContactSync menu
  • Improved logging (to help me with troubleshooting)
  • Fixed the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog
  • Improved the first/last name parsing for contacts from Gmail

Where to look for help

You can use the following resources for help or suggestions for gContactSync:

JSDoc

I am working on improving the documentation for any interested developers.  You can find it here, and it will probably change and improve in the near future.  If you are interested in helping please let me know.  It is open source, so you are free to use it as long as you follow the license.

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gContactSync 0.2.0 on AMO

Posted by Pi in gContactSync, mozilla on May 9, 2009

I finally added gContactSync 0.2.0 to addons.mozilla.org.  I also placed it on BabelZilla so I should be able to add more locales (translations).  Since it is new and hasn’t been reviewed yet, it is still listed as “Experimental”.

Current Features

  • All the features of 0.1
    • Synchronizes an address book in Thunderbird with contacts from a Google Account (Gmail)
    • Customizable
    • Groups in Gmail are synchronized with mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • Duplicates (multiple contacts with the same e-mail address) are allowed
  • Much faster synchronization than 0.1
  • Only US English (en-US) until I finish adding features and strings
  • Customization of how addresses are synchronized
  • Can synchronize just one group (My Contacts), all groups (including My Contacts, Family, Friends, & Coworkers), or all contacts and no groups
  • A new fetch-only mode where Thunderbird only receives updates and never sends updates to or deletes contacts from Google.

Bugfixes & Enhancements since 0.1.x

Bugs in italics are new since 0.2.0b3

  • Bug 20925 Log the preferences
  • Bug 20907 onDrop needs to set dummy e-mails if the target is a mailing list
  • Bug 20681 Handle expired tokens
  • Bug 20655 Login dialogs should specify and validate an e-mail address
  • Bug 20549 Add a hidden preference to disable dummy e-mail address
  • Bug 20119 Improve the first login dialog
  • Bug 20891 gContactSync ignores the name in the first login dialog
  • Bug 20888 Change untyped phone number labels in the card view
  • Bug 20833 Add a preference to disable the new phone number labels in abResultsTreeCols
  • Bug 20865 Allow synchronizing only one group (My Contacts)
  • Bug 20864 The group XML feed is displayed in the verbose log twice
  • Bug 20771 Allow name parsing
  • Bug 20779 Add a preference to disable auto-delete
  • Bug 20853 Too much recursion when the log directory is deleted
  • Bug 20852 Illegal rel value due to dummy e-mail address
  • Bug 20658 Add version info to the log
  • Bug 20739 Add links to the support forum & wiki in the menu
  • Bug 20757 Allow read/fetch of Google Contacts only
  • Bug 20546 – Search is broken in gContactSync 0.2
  • Bug 20644 – Localize all strings in options.xul
  • Bug 20656 – Error: gAddressBookBundle is undefined
  • Bug 20527 – Avoid HTTP Request errors when the Address Book window is closed
  • Bug 20509 – Add Seamonkey support
  • Bug 20508 – Consider adding overlay.css to customizeToolbar.xul
  • Bug 20487 – Add shortcut to preferences in the Address Book
  • Bug 20486 – Improve Address Preferences
  • Bug 20352 – Update gContactSync to use Contacts Data API 2
  • Bug 20148 – Default groups dont appear in Thunderbird
  • Bug 19786 – Support for Google’s ‘Most Contacted’ & ‘Suggested Contacts’

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback, whether positive or negative (if polite ;) ).  My new preferred method of feedback is through the forum, which will hopefully help me stop forgetting to reply to e-mail and let others add their opinions to feedback.  Please send logs with the error report form or via e-mail and do not put them on the forum.

I am working on updating the wiki with articles on how to use and troubleshoot gContactSync.

I will be adding some polls here and would appreciate any feedback.

Tutorials

Flash tutorials are coming soon…  I’ll write another blog post when they are ready.

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2 Comments

gContactSync 0.2.0b2r2 Released

Posted by Pi in gContactSync, mozilla on April 24, 2009

I have released gContactSync 0.2.0b2r2, and you can download it here.  The only changes are a few bug fixes, some logging improvements, support for Thunderbird 3.1a1pre, and a new link to the error reporting form in the gContactSync menu.  I recommend upgrading if possible, but if you already have 0.2.0b2r1 it isn’t too urgent.

Current Features

  • All the features of 0.1
    • Synchronizes an address book in Thunderbird with contacts from a Google Account (Gmail)
    • Customizable
    • Groups in Gmail are synchronized with mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • Duplicates (multiple contacts with the same e-mail address) are allowed
  • Much faster synchronization than 0.1
  • Only US English (en-US) until I finish adding features and strings
  • Customization of how addresses are synchronized
  • Default groups are enabled (Family, Friends, Coworkers) as mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • A new fetch-only mode where Thunderbird only receives updates and never sends updates to or deletes contacts from Google.

What Features are left for 0.2.0?

0.2.0 will probably have an option to just synchronize the My Contacts group since it contains the most important contacts and is all some devices, like the iPhone/iPod touch, synchronize.  It will also help avoid the usual problems with mailing lists.  I may also make some UI changes before 0.2.0.

Bugfixes & Enhancements since 0.1.x

Bugs in italics are new since 0.2.0b2r1

  • Bug 20779 Add a preference to disable auto-delete
  • Bug 20853 Too much recursion when the log directory is deleted
  • Bug 20852 Illegal rel value due to dummy e-mail address
  • Bug 20658 Add version info to the log
  • Bug 20739 Add links to the support forum & wiki in the menu
  • Bug 20757 Allow read/fetch of Google Contacts only
  • Bug 20546 – Search is broken in gContactSync 0.2
  • Bug 20644 – Localize all strings in options.xul
  • Bug 20656 – Error: gAddressBookBundle is undefined
  • Bug 20527 – Avoid HTTP Request errors when the Address Book window is closed
  • Bug 20509 – Add Seamonkey support
  • Bug 20508 – Consider adding overlay.css to customizeToolbar.xul
  • Bug 20487 – Add shortcut to preferences in the Address Book
  • Bug 20486 – Improve Address Preferences
  • Bug 20352 – Update gContactSync to use Contacts Data API 2
  • Bug 20148 – Default groups dont appear in Thunderbird
  • Bug 19786 – Support for Google’s ‘Most Contacted’ & ‘Suggested Contacts’

Sync Button Details

Newest instructions.

Quite a few users have reporting seeing a strange and ugly icon for the Sync button:

Toolbar buttons

It should look like this for now:

abcard-large

If you still see the incorrect icons there is a workaround that should fix it:

  1. In the Address Book window, go to gContactSync -> Preferences
  2. Check Force the Sync toolbar button image.
  3. Click OK/Close
  4. Close the Address Book window and open it again.

If those instructions still do not work, please let me know.

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback, whether positive or negative (if polite ;) ).  My new preferred method of feedback is through the forum, which will hopefully help me stop forgetting to reply to e-mail and let others add their opinions to feedback.  Please send logs with the error report form or via e-mail and do not put them on the forum.

I am working on updating the wiki with articles on how to use and troubleshoot gContactSync.

I will be adding some polls here and would appreciate any feedback.

Tutorials for 0.2.0

I will probably create some flash tutorials like the original one I had.  This time I will probably host them on YouTube to prevent my website from getting blasted again.

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Duplicate contacts in Thunderbird 3

Posted by Pi in mozilla on April 6, 2009

Update: Someone else beat me to it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/53145

As the author of a synchronization extension for Thunderbird 2 and 3, I get a lot of questions about duplicate contacts.  Duplicates are more common than ever  with the explosive popularity of mobile devices.

There is a fairly popular Duplicate Contact Manager Extension on AMO, but it hasn’t been updated recently, won’t work in Thunderbird 3, and comments mention some bugs, possibly including one that was present in gContactSync 0.2.0a1.

I have not found a way to contact the author, Marian Steinbach, to offer my assistance with updating it for Thunderbird 3.  It looks like the Google Group doesn’t have much activity.

I can reuse a good chunk of code from gContactSync which would allow it to work in Thunderbird 2 or 3, but I would most likely package it as a new extension to not force everyone to install gContactSync just to remove duplicate contacts.  I had some primitive duplicate detection code in 0.1.x, but it was inefficient and only checked e-mail addresses since that’s what Google used to identify duplicates.

So, I have three questions.

  1. Would there be enough interest to warrant new duplicate contacts extension?
  2. Would anyone else like to work with me to develop one?  I already have plenty of code for working with contacts and the address book; it would just need an intuitive, customizable front-end and an efficient way to find duplicates.  I’m just a bit busy with work, gContactSync, online classes, and a possibly emerging social life.
  3. Does anyone have a way of contacting the original developer?

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7 Comments

gContactSync 0.2.0b2 Released

Posted by Pi in Uncategorized on April 5, 2009

I have released gContactSync 0.2.0b2, and you can download it here.

Current Features

  • All the features of 0.1
    • Synchronizes an address book in Thunderbird with contacts from a Google Account (Gmail)
    • Customizable
    • Groups in Gmail are synchronized with mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • Duplicates (multiple contacts with the same e-mail address) are allowed
  • Much faster synchronization than 0.1
  • Only US English (en-US) until I finish adding features and strings
  • Customization of how addresses are synchronized
  • Default groups are enabled (Family, Friends, Coworkers) as mailing lists in Thunderbird
  • A new fetch-only mode where Thunderbird only receives updates and never sends updates to or deletes contacts from Google.

What’s New?

The Sync button should work in a few more cases, and I added a possible workaround (see the end of this post for details) that should force the correct image to appear, although it will use the same icon whether you have large or small icons.  If you use small icons with the workaround the sync image will be cropped to fit.

It also adds a few links to my new forum and wiki in the gContactSync menu and preferences window.

I made some logging improvements which should help me get all the information I need to help.   I am working on a bug reporting form before I release 0.2.0 on addons.mozilla.org.

Bugfixes & Enhancements since 0.1.x

Bugs in italics are new since 0.2.0b1

  • Bug 20658 Add version info to the log
  • Bug 20739 Add links to the support forum & wiki in the menu
  • Bug 20757 Allow read/fetch of Google Contacts only
  • Bug 20546 – Search is broken in gContactSync 0.2
  • Bug 20644 – Localize all strings in options.xul
  • Bug 20656 – Error: gAddressBookBundle is undefined
  • Bug 20527 – Avoid HTTP Request errors when the Address Book window is closed
  • Bug 20509 – Add Seamonkey support
  • Bug 20508 – Consider adding overlay.css to customizeToolbar.xul
  • Bug 20487 – Add shortcut to preferences in the Address Book
  • Bug 20486 – Improve Address Preferences
  • Bug 20352 – Update gContactSync to use Contacts Data API 2
  • Bug 20148 – Default groups dont appear in Thunderbird
  • Bug 19786 – Support for Google’s ‘Most Contacted’ & ‘Suggested Contacts’

Sync Button Details

Newest instructions.

Quite a few users have reporting seeing a strange and ugly icon for the Sync button:

Toolbar buttons

It should look like this for now:

abcard-large

If you still see the incorrect icons there is a workaround that should fix it:

  1. In the Address Book window, go to gContactSync -> Preferences
  2. Check Force the Sync toolbar button image.
  3. Click OK/Close
  4. Close the Address Book window and open it again.

If those instructions still do not work, please let me know.

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback, whether positive or negative (if polite ;) ).  My new preferred method of feedback is through the forum, which will hopefully help me stop forgetting to reply to e-mail and let others add their opinions to feedback.  I recently was blasted w/ new spammers on the forum and added some safeguards so if your account is tagged as spam and deleted I apologize.  Just send me an e-mail (joshgeenen <at> gmail [dot] c o  m).

I am working on updating the wiki with articles on how to use and troubleshoot gContactSync.

I will be adding some polls here and would appreciate any feedback.

Tutorials for 0.2.0

I would like to record tutorials again for gContactSync 0.2.0 since the original was nearly too popular (almost brought my site down).  I used a free trial of Camtasia Studio 5, and it looks like it is up to version 6 now.

I’m fairly certain I have the full version of Camtasia Studio 3 in some Windows installation on one of my computers from some promotion a year or so ago.  So it looks like I’ll use that, the 30-day trial of v6 and maybe buy an upgrade for $150, or use gtk-recordMyDesktop which would let me use Gentoo (my favorite OS) and is free.  I think I’ll record a demo in Camtasia Studio and gtk-recordMyDesktop and post links here to see what everyone thinks.  I will admit that I prefer using text on the screencast (which Camtasia makes easy) instead of recording my monotonous voice.  This time around I”ll put the videos on YouTube and embed them somewhere on my website.

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