Version 0.3 Download

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 1
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the first beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * None (there must not be any )

New features
    * Import friends from Facebook
    * Photos are now imported from all supported sources: Facebook, Plaxo, and MySpace.

[tanstaafl]

Cool... thanks for the detailed response Josh...

I will still be using gContactSync for syncing my personal contacts between TB and my phone, but I have to say, all of the clients that I have talked with about using it all balk when I tell them it doesn't support syncing to a local filesystem. They don't want their sensitive company data synced to google, or any other 'cloud' based system, they only want it where they have full ownership/control...

So, I can only hope that when you said 'syncing with other sources is planned for 0.4', that that includes support for syncing to local/remote filesystems, even via FTP (again I'd strongly urge you to see about leveraging FireFTP for that part - just make it a pre-requisite/requirement, as long as the FireFTP dev doesn't mind).

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 2
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the second beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * Pager and mobile numbers are no longer swapped if the phone number types have been disabled.

Back-end changes
    * Accounts dialog is now more efficient (possibly a bit faster)
    * Imports are now more efficient (possibly a bit faster)

[Steve H.]

I am very please with version 0.2 and here is my concern.  I suspect that the dummy email addresses serve to prevent the generation of duplicates which I experienced with another synch program.  The issue is when you edit a contact without an email addresses, how is this detected as a change from an existing contact and not a new entry?  I would be willing to test 0.3 if you have checked on this behavior.

[kc]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 2
http://downloads.mozdev.org/gcontactsync/gContactSync-0.3.0b2.xpi  (right-click -> Save Link As...)

This is the second beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

...

When you say you won't implement any new features, does that mean for the immediate future, or are you not continuing development? Just want to make sure before I edit all my addresses, as I need them on the phone.

Thanks.

[Josh Geenen]

I suspect that the dummy email addresses serve to prevent the generation of duplicates which I experienced with another synch program.  The issue is when you edit a contact without an email addresses, how is this detected as a change from an existing contact and not a new entry?  I would be willing to test 0.3 if you have checked on this behavior.

Dummy e-mail addresses exist to prevent mailing lists in Thunderbird from breaking.  Google allows multiple contacts with the same e-mail address and contacts without e-mail addresses but mailing lists don't allow either of those.  Dummy e-mail addresses are added to contacts without e-mail addresses that are in mailing lists (in old versions of 0.2 they were added to all contacts without e-mail addresses).

gContactSync stores a lot of information about contacts that isn't visible, including a unique ID that Google assigns to each contact.  gContactSync uses this, not e-mail addresses, to match contacts between Thunderbird and Google.  A new contact is does not yet have one of these IDs.  Once that contact is added to Google, it is updated with that contact's new ID.

When you say you won't implement any new features, does that mean for the immediate future, or are you not continuing development? Just want to make sure before I edit all my addresses, as I need them on the phone.

I apologize for the misunderstanding.  I will continue development for version 0.3 in the form of bug fixes and maybe performance enhancements.  I will continue working on gContactSync 0.4 which will contain the new features I'm planning.  You can read more about 0.4 here.

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 3
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the third beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features before version 0.4 but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * Write-only mode will no longer delete local contacts that were deleted remotely.

[tanstaafl]

I will still be using gContactSync for syncing my personal contacts between TB and my phone, but I have to say, all of the clients that I have talked with about using it all balk when I tell them it doesn't support syncing to a local filesystem. They don't want their sensitive company data synced to google, or any other 'cloud' based system, they only want it where they have full ownership/control...

So, I can only hope that when you said 'syncing with other sources is planned for 0.4', that that includes support for syncing to local/remote filesystems, even via FTP (again I'd strongly urge you to see about leveraging FireFTP for that part - just make it a pre-requisite/requirement, as long as the FireFTP dev doesn't mind).

Hey Josh,

I noticed that support for a native gContactSync disk based file format is not currently an official bug/feature request in the bug reporter...

Is this another oversight? Or do you just not feel it is desirable enough to officially put on the roadmap?

This is truly the only major new feature I'd like to see in gContactSync - everything else is just stability, performance and bug fixes as far as I'm concerned...

I'd like to know, because if it isn't likely to (ever?) be implemented anytime soon (next 6 months or so), I need to find another (interim, if it will be added, but just not soon enough for my clients needs) solution for some of my clients...

Anyway, I hate to bug you about it, but like I said, it is the only real deal-breaker for me with respect to some of my sensitive personal contact stuff, as well as those of my clients...

Thanks again for gContactSync!

[Josh Geenen]

I noticed that support for a nativbe gContactSync disk based file format is not currently an official bug/feature request in the bug reporter...

Is this another oversight? Or do you just not feel it is desirable enough to officially put on the roadmap?

I created a bug report for it, thanks for the reminder: https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=23214
I do not think I will be able to implement it before the end of the year, however.

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Release Candidate 1
Old - see the end of this thread

This required some fairly major changes to support custom labels in Google, so please let me know if using custom labels doesn't work for you.

Features
    * Custom labels are now supported (can only be set from Gmail, however).
    * 'Replace to Server' option added to the address book context menu (right-click an address book)
    * A summary of each sync'd address book is now in the log file and an overall summary will be displayed after all accounts have been synchronized if the sync was started manually (by default)

Bug fixes
    * 'Rename the phone column labels' preference fixed
    * 'Fourth' and 'Fifth' phone numbers are switched
    * Import strings are now localized

[daveozric]

Hi Josh,

Not to bug you, but just curious about the stable release.   Everything is working fine for me and am sooooo glad something finally works with TB and Google.  Did you say that maybe the final release might have support for more than one Google account?

Thanks,

Will donate again upon final release.

Cheers

[daveozric]

Will you help me with this question?  I added a second Google account in the Accounts settings.  Can the address books be duplicated so I can support more than one Google account or will that mess something up.

If not, could I just switch all the address books to the other account, then sync and then switch them back?

Thanks

[Josh Geenen]

First of all I apologize to everyone.  I've become too busy with college, work, personal life, etc. to finish up 0.3 when I had planned to (it's still being worked on, of course).  My weekends are usually booked with working on the two software projects that I'm leading for college and that's the only time I used to have to work on gContactSync.

Did you say that maybe the final release might have support for more than one Google account?

It supports as many accounts as you can add (within reason) and as many synchronized address books as Thunderbird will let you have.  I sync 2 - 4 accounts on each of my computers and OSes.  All versions of 0.3 so far should be able to do this.

If you mean synchronizing more than one account with a single address book that is not possible in 0.3.  I am considering it for version 0.4, but it would take too long to add it to 0.3 at this point.

Will you help me with this question?  I added a second Google account in the Accounts settings.  Can the address books be duplicated so I can support more than one Google account or will that mess something up.

You can just create a new address book then sync that address book with your other account.  As I mentioned above, you can only synchronize one account per address book.

If not, could I just switch all the address books to the other account, then sync and then switch them back?

Sorry, but gContactSync would not handle that very well.  It might see that those contacts have a GoogleID (an ID assigned to them by Google from your first account) then see that they aren't in the other account when you switch and delete them.  I'm not positive this would happen without taking a close look at my code, but I know enough to advise you not to do it.

Josh

[tanstaafl]

First of all I apologize to everyone.  I've become too busy with college, work, personal life, etc. to finish up 0.3 when I had planned to (it's still being worked on, of course).  My weekends are usually booked with working on the two software projects that I'm leading for college and that's the only time I used to have to work on gContactSync.

No worries Josh, school must always take precedence... 0.3 will be ready when it's ready...

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Release Candidate 2
Old - see the end of this thread

Features
    * Updated to support TB 3.3a2pre, SM 2.1b2pre, and Postbox 2.1
    * Added support for importing from Mozilla Labs Contacts in Thunderbird (in theory, didn't work for me with 0.4.2).  This is only visible if it might work.

Bug fixes
    * Full/formatted work address is now displayed in the contact view pane (below the list of contacts)
    * Adding or updating a contact with IM addresses now works