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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/2/18 12:49 pm, R Kent James wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:7a7eadcb-126d-2d99-1140-e53b351bfd82@caspia.com">
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On 2/2/2018 5:29 PM, Óvári wrote:<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/2/18 8:58 am, R Kent James
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:756e8b08-4437-99ec-63cc-9b68345250a8@caspia.com">
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:55a57c2f-4f67-336f-0631-f94fd73d8db7@gmx.de">
<blockquote type="cite">rewrite of the address book <br>
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I don't care about the address book, but are very annoyed by
bugs in search (misses many emails) and calendar (cannot
access different accounts on the same server). <br>
</blockquote>
The point of focusing on the address book is not that it is
the most pressing need felt by users, but it is a good test
bed for new technologies because it is relatively isolated
from the rest of the application.<br>
<br>
Most of the pressing issues that users feel are caused by deep
problems in the code base that will not easily be solved
without major rewrites and redesign. But we need to have a
technological target for those redesigns.</blockquote>
<p>1. On 30 June 2014 R Kent James (Chair of the Thunderbird
Council) wrote “Thunderbird should be a full-featured desktop
personal information management system, incorporating
messaging, calendar, and contacts. We need to incorporate the
calendaring component (Lightning) by default, and <u><b>drastically
improve contact management</b></u>.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://mesquilla.com/2014/07/31/thunderbirds-future-the-tldr-version/"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://mesquilla.com/2014/07/31/thunderbirds-future-the-tldr-version/</a></p>
<p>a) Unfortunately contact management seems to have remained
the same for almost 4 years (this is lifetimes in software
development)</p>
<p>b) Should a different paradigm be considered in relation to
Thunderbird's contact management?<br>
</p>
<p>2. Have you considered the option to convert the current
Thunderbird Address Book to an add-on?</p>
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<br>
Some sort of address book is critical to the operation of an email
application, so making it an optional component is not reasonable.<br>
<br>
It is already possible to have an addon that interfaces in a
standard way with Thunderbird to provide an alternate protocol.
Not easy, and very poorly documented, but possible (as was done by
ExQuilla and a few other address book addons).<br>
<br>
Unfortunately Cardbook, that you seem to be promoting, did not
choose to use the existing capability, but instead interfaces with
Thunderbird at a different, unexpected level. Not that I blame
them for taking that route, as I said it is really hard to do it
in the undocumented "standard" way.<br>
<br>
I've generally been in favor of taking steps to improve the
ability of addons to add features (see for example the custom
search and filter action interfaces, as well as JsAccount). I
doubt there would be any objections to someone changing the core
code to make it easier to fully replace the standard addressbook
with an addon.<br>
<br>
:rkent<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>Perhaps the first step in your proposed rewrite of the address
book would be to document the undocumented "standard" way to
interface with Thunderbird and changing the core code to make it
easier to fully replace the standard address book with an add-on.</p>
<p>The "someone" changing the core code to make it easier to fully
replace the stand address book with an add-on should be discussed
and decided upon at a TB Council meeting.</p>
<p>A time-frame when this would be delivered would also help.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
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