Contacts not compatible with Firefox 4.0.1?

[Joseph Boyle]

I'm interested in trying Contacts again, but am getting this error on
install - any hints?

[Anaerin]

This is really quite insane. I'm using (And getting great functionality out of) Conversations view, but Contacts hasn't been updated in over six months! Thunderbird (Especially nightlies) have moved on 4 major version numbers since the last version of Contacts was put out! Is this particular add-on dead?

[Shane Caraveo]

The code in github works, primarily it is just an update to install.rdf
to fix the max version number for thunderbird. You could fix the xpi
you have installed to do that.

[Anaerin]

And I have just done that. But it seems to me that some indication of "life" on this project would be more than a little nice.

[Dan Brickley]

On 6 July 2011 03:30, Anaerin <ana...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And I have just done that. But it seems to me that some indication of "life" on this project would be more than a little nice.

You're not the only one to be wondering! It would be great to get some
hint from Mozilla Labs that this (important!) work is getting some
love...

cheers,

Dan

[Christopher-Titus M. Vanderwall-Brown]

It might just be a sign that members need to become more proactive regarding these sorts of things. I don't know about those who have already posted, but it makes me think some kind of streamlining system is in order--where we can group together and ask those in "authority" WTH is up. This has to be at least the thirtieth email I've seen on this topic, and being there is probably anywhere between one per hundred or per thousand who actually writes, we have a lot of people wondering.

I am still waiting for the linkup to Windows that was promised eons ago, that now appears to be nowhere in sight. I don't know what the deal is. Perhaps, the project is dead, but we need to figure that out, and I suspect it means we need some kind of streamline system to ask those who would know.

If anything, it says to those of us out there, if you have the skills, I have no doubt they probably are short-staffed on this project and could use the assistance. It's usually a sign of that when the project goes on the back burner (unless there is some other kind of restructure going on). Who knows. Any guess is likely as good as mine at this point.

-Christopher Brown

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[Mike Hanson]

Hi everybody - here's a quick update of what's happening on the MoCo side of this:

The Contacts addon doesn't have a full-time MoCo owner right now.  It was intended as an experiment, and fostered a lot of good conversation inside the Mozilla community, as well as in web standards groups.  There isn't currently a plan to productize the addon, but instead to take what we learned and use it in a couple product initiatives:

1. The Firefox Mobile team is actively working on glue to the Android Contacts API with autocomplete in forms.  This will the first use of contact data on trunk product code.  When this is done we can port it to desktop Firefox with different OS backends.  The tracking bug is #583242 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=583242)

2. The integration of web service APIs (Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.) for contacts was very interesting, and also posed a number of technical problems.  For example, the use of OAuth for client-side application integration, has a number of security problems that have still not been addressed by service providers.  That said, the project was exciting enough that we now have two projects staffed to push the idea forward:

* The F1 project (http://f1.mozillamessaging.com/) pushed forward the idea of contacts-and-sharing services integrated into the browser.  The goal is to get that into Firefox ASAP. (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/F1)

* The Open Web Apps project embeds the idea of "web activities" as a way to model the APIs provided by a website and provide those APIs in a safe, structured way to web content.  It is straightforward to model the "getContacts" API (or getContactCircles, or getPhotos, or any other service you can think of) in this system, and the entire system will be safer, more dynamic, and more open to new entrants than the plugin-based model used in Contacts.  We have recently started talking with the Web Intents guys at Google, and there is interest in reaching some sort of standards-based approach here.  (http://paul.kinlan.me/web-intents-a-fresh-look).

You can read my post about service discovery through Web Apps here: http://www.open-mike.org/entry/using-web-applications-for-service-discovery  - we will be releasing a version of the Open Web Apps addon that supports activity invocation very soon, but if you want to try the bleeding edge, grab it from https://github.com/mozilla/openwebapps.  Blog post coming ASAP, just want to get some sample code done.

m

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[dragoo...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

First, I just wanted to thank Mike for such an expedient reply to our information quiry.

Looks like things are as I suspected--the project in its imediate itteration and form is "dead", but we have "two, new" projects coming about as a result of the research done--definately a plus--and hopefully, a new standardization with at least Google, which is great for us, as we get to "set the bar" so to speak.

Mike, I do have one question regarding this new "web based" ui for future iterations of the "contacts" model: Will at any time in the future the teams be working to move our physical system based contacts into a universal format, floating in cyberspace on a secure and unisolated server setting?

I ask because as a primarily Windows based PC user, I was unable to utilize the benifits of 'Contacts' to its fullest, since support for our Windows folder content was unsupported at this time.

Do you know, or have any inclings as to whether the web based teams will be pushing to isolate our data, such as via a contacts sync? Such as by logging onto "Contacts Sync" via Thunderbird or Firefox, et. al. you would be able to access your user contacts from any api, anywhere by simply entering your user login, etc, and it would travel over a highly secure and encrypted SSL 2.0+, or the like, transmission?

I know that was my biggest interest in 'Contacts', although, having the ability to contact friends from one source, like the Thunderbird ui, is ideal.

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