Postal Addresses not syncing either way

[matariki]

Hi,

This is a great add-on and is working well for me.  I just have one problem, postal addresses don't sync either way.  I have tried updating in both Gmail and TB and the changes don't get updated either way.

Am I missing something in the preferences???

I am running Windows 7, TB 3.1.2 and 0.3.0b3 gcontactsync.

Thanks
Henry

[Josh Geenen]

Hello,

I have disabled postal address synchronization by default for now as it's a bit buggy.  I believe Google is still working on adding/supporting structured postal address information (street, city, state, zip code, country, etc.) so I can't always predict what will happen with postal addresses.

To enable postal address synchronization, go to gContactSync -> Preferences -> Advanced then check "Synchronize postal addresses (EXPERIMENTAL)."  Then click "Reset All Synced ABs" and make sure you restart Thunderbird when it is done.

Josh

[matariki]

Thanks for the quick reply Josh, apologies for not spotting the tick box myself!

Sounds like I'm best to wait until Google sort themselves out before enabling anyway.

Cheers
Henry

[fregatte]

Josh!

thanks to this thread I  now found this long missing hidden function and the synchronization even with the address information works now fantastic!

From all addons for gmail <-> Thunderbird contact synchronization this one is by far the best and I would like to say many thanks for all the work and effords (presumably several hundreds hours).

Looking forward what rel 0.4 will bring us in the future.

Cheers

fregatte

[kenyoni]

I believe the new Google Contacts Data API (3.0) is baked. (though there are a few bugs)

http://code.google.com/intl/de-DE/apis/contacts/docs/3.0/developers_guide_protocol.html

It supports structured names and postal addresses. Now granted, the first time you sync using this API, things may not come out the way you expect. BUT, once you get them cleaned up in TB and they get sync'd back to Google using the structured flavor, they should stay that way.   The docs kinda explain how it all works and the caveats of the structured/formatted flavor interaction.  I would suggest that gContactsSync just use the structured flavor and leave the formatted flavor alone. You can get answers to any specific questions in the forums.

--
steve.

[rygle]

I use an HTC Desire (very similar to Nexus One) phone and it uses structured addresses to sync with gmail. Still only running Android 2.1 and I also don't know for sure how much the contacts is an HTC sense UI thing and how much a google thing.

[Josh Geenen]

I believe the new Google Contacts Data API (3.0) is baked. (though there are a few bugs)

http://code.google.com/intl/de-DE/apis/contacts/docs/3.0/developers_guide_protocol.html

It supports structured names and postal addresses. Now granted, the first time you sync using this API, things may not come out the way you expect. BUT, once you get them cleaned up in TB and they get sync'd back to Google using the structured flavor, they should stay that way.   The docs kinda explain how it all works and the caveats of the structured/formatted flavor interaction.

I have found, as have other developers, that the API is not baked.  There are plenty of unresolved questions about structured postal addresses, custom labels not being encoded, contact and group IDs recently being changed, things changing without any notification, etc.  This version of their API is a significant improvement from the previous version, but it doesn't seem quite finished, yet.

I would suggest that gContactsSync just use the structured flavor and leave the formatted flavor alone.

I tried that in the past but whenever a contact with a structured postal address was edited through Gmail the structured components of the address were removed.  So for now, 0.3 will add structured address components to contacts when they are first created from Thunderbird (if present) but it will not remove them.  It synchronizes the formatted field with a new field in TB.  I can try again but it doesn't sound like anything has changed.

So basically, while I can leave the formatted address alone, Google doesn't leave the structured address alone...  There is an open, low priority "enhancement" request for structured addresses.  It has been open for quite a while now without much activity on Google's end.

I use an HTC Desire (very similar to Nexus One) phone and it uses structured addresses to sync with gmail. Still only running Android 2.1 and I also don't know for sure how much the contacts is an HTC sense UI thing and how much a google thing.

I don't own an Android phone (unfortunately) and I haven't really looked at the Android source so I can't really comment on this.  Considering who develops Android and the fact that phones are fully localized this isn't surprising.  Android phones are tailored to the location they are sold in, unlike gContactSync which is used worldwide without being localized for most of the world.  I'd prefer not to write my own formatted address parser for addresses all over the world.