Support for Phonetic Names

[Yasuro]

Hi!

First of all, let me thank you for providing this wonderful add-on. You've made my life so much easier! THANK YOU!

Now I have a feature request: support for phonetic names. For each contact info on Gmail, you can specify a phonetic name, which is made up of a phonetic first name and a phonetic last name. Why would you need it? Well, if the person's name is a Japanese name and written in kanji (Chinese letters), then you cannot know for sure how you are supposed to read it. Unlike in Chinese or in Korean, each Chinese letter in the Japanese language (confusing? Maybe I should say the Japanese variation of Chinese letters) has multiple ways to read it. So we usually associate a phonetic name to each contact we'll know for sure how to read it.  The phonetic names are supported in the phonebook app of the Android platform as well.

Thunderbird SHOULD support phonetic names natively. But given they haven't done anything about it all this while, you cannot count on them to provide it. Hence my request to support it through gContactSync.

It'll have to add two custom fields, and if you can somehow let us edit those fields in the first tab ("Contact" tab) in the "Edit Contact for ..." window, that'll be highly appreciated, because we want to be looking at the regular name when we edit the phonetic name.

Thanks!

Yasuro

[Josh Geenen]

Hello,

The first step is to show phonetic fields in Thunderbird:

Thunderbird already has phonetic fields that should appear if you change the associated preference.
If you go to Edit -> Preferences or Tools -> Options then click Advanced.  Go to the General tab and click Config Editor....  Paste mail.addr_book.show_phonetic_fields in the filter.  Right-click the result and click Modify.  Type true and click OK.

The next step is to get version 0.3.1 which will synchronize those fields.  I should have it up in a few days once I finish testing it (syncing phonetic fields works fine for me with my changes).  I'll try to let you know when it's out but I might forget.  If you don't hear from me within a few days check here for version 0.3.1.

Thanks for the suggestion and description!

Josh

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.1 here will synchronize phonetic names: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gcontactsync/

Thanks for the suggestion!

Josh

[Yasuro]

Josh,

THANK YOU for supporting phonetic names! This is really AWESOME!

I am very sorry that I didn't notice your posts till just now. I got swamped after I posted my first post and I didn't have a chance to come back here for a long time. I should have set the automatic reply notification option on. Moreover, quite honestly, I didn't think my request would get much attention given that it's useful only to a limited group of people.

Is there any easy way to copy all the existing phonetic fields on my Google accounts with those in Thunderbird? Simply syncing by gContactSync does not seem to do the trick. Just to be clear, this is not very important for me at the moment, but it would be nice if I could do it. Probably I can reset the addressbooks on TB first and then sync, but I am simply wondering if there's an easier option.

By the way, I didn't know Thunderbird supported phonetic names. I did look around its "Options...", but didn't look hard enough into the config menu, or just Google it. I'm embarrassed.

At any rate, thank you very much  for your great work!

Yasuro

[Josh Geenen]

You're welcome, and that's fine you got swamped.  I've been swamped for most of this semester, but in a few weeks I hope to have much more time for gContactSync.

If you right-click the Address Book that you are synchronizing you should see something like Reset (Replace from server).  This will empty the address book in Thunderbird but keeps all your contacts on Google's side.  Make sure you close Thunderbird completely then open it again and sync.  It should pull all your contacts from Google with their phonetic names.

Josh