Introducing Evolution Contacts Integration for Thunderbird

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Mike Conley

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Aug 3, 2011, 4:24:17 PM8/3/11
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I've been developing an add-on that allows users to access their Evolution address books from within Thunderbird on Ubuntu.  That means that if you've got an Ubuntu One, Google Contacts or local address book hosted within Evolution, then getting those contacts is a snap from Thunderbird!

See the announcement here, or visit the project page directly.

All feedback can be put in this thread.  Thanks!

Alex Murray

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Aug 3, 2011, 7:57:15 PM8/3/11
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You mention in the vodeo that when moving a contact (with a photo) to the google contacts address book, the photo is lost since EDS doesn't support setting a photo in the google contacts backend - well it seems support for this was just added to EDS - http://tecnocode.co.uk/2011/08/01/avatars-for-google-contacts-in-evolution/ - will this automatically be supported via your add-on now or will you have to make an update to support this?

Thanks by the way, this is really cool stuff.

Mike Conley

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Aug 4, 2011, 1:03:03 PM8/4/11
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Hey Alex,

The short answer:  yes, I believe when EDS supports writing photos to Google contacts, that this will automatically work with my add-on.

The longer explanation:  for any given address book, my add-on asks EDS what the supported fields are for contacts in that address book.  Currently, the photo field isn't returned, and so photo uploading is disabled.  Once EDS starts providing the photo field as supported, then my add-on should work properly with it.

All the best,

-Mike

Alex Murray

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Aug 4, 2011, 10:25:43 PM8/4/11
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Awesome, thanks again Mike, Thunderbird as default email client in 11.10 is definitely going to be much better for all your hard work.

mlaverdiere

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Aug 15, 2011, 7:10:46 AM8/15/11
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Hi there,

First:  thanks a lot for this great extension.  Really great and welcomed on Ubuntu, considering the transition from Evo to TB in Oneiric (I'm testing Alpha 3 right now).

Now my question:  Did I miss something or right now, there is no way to create an EDS addressbook within the TB addressbook?  That means that  if I want my TB addressbook to be synced with my Google contacts, I have to create first the corresponding addressbook within Evolution? 

Thanks for your attention.

Mike Conley

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Aug 15, 2011, 9:30:20 AM8/15/11
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mlaverdiere:


 >First:  thanks a lot for this great extension.  Really great and welcomed on Ubuntu,
> considering the transition from Evo to TB in Oneiric (I'm testing Alpha 3 right now).

Thanks!  I'm glad it's working for you!


> Did I miss something or right now, there is no way to create an EDS addressbook
> within the TB addressbook?  That means that  if I want my TB addressbook to be
> synced with my Google contacts, I have to create first the corresponding addressbook
> within Evolution? 

Yes, that's currently the state of things.  There wasn't enough time this cycle to properly implement address book creation / deletion.  We're hoping to finish that in the next release.  Sorry about that!

-Mike

Matej Cepl

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Sep 9, 2011, 2:43:26 AM9/9/11
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You mention in https://mozillalabs.com/messaging/eds-contacts-integration-for-thunderbird/, that "While this add-on is compatible with Thunderbird 6.0 and above, it will only work with the version of Thunderbird 6.0 that currently ships with Ubuntu Oneiric." What's the deal? Is there anything we can do in Fedora, to make your addon working (and yes, it doesn't work with our thunderbird-6.0.2-1.fc16.x86_64)?

Thanks,

Matěj

Mike Conley

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Sep 9, 2011, 11:22:31 AM9/9/11
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Hey Matej:

So, the deal was that the critical changes to the Thunderbird core code required for my add-on to run were scheduled to land in TB 7.  Canonical decided to backport my patches for TB 6 during their alpha phases, and so that's why the add-on worked in TB 6 only on Oneiric - because that version had the patches early.

TB 7.0 has the required patches landed in it, so theoretically, the add-on should work for all Linux versions of TB 7 and up.

I have not updated the add-on page on AMO for a while, since Canonical has been bundling the add-on with their TB builds, and have been pulling / building from the Launchpad bzr repo.  If you're interested in using the latest version, let me know, and I'll update the AMO page with the latest.

Thanks,

-Mike

mcepl

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Sep 9, 2011, 2:27:32 PM9/9/11
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Dne pátek, 9. září 2011 17:22:31 UTC+2 Mike Conley napsal(a):
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Install_Manifests#updateURLTB 7.0 has the required patches landed in it, so theoretically, the add-on should work for all Linux versions of TB 7 and up.


I have not updated the add-on page on AMO for a while, since Canonical has been bundling the add-on with their TB builds, and have been pulling / building from the Launchpad bzr repo.  If you're interested in using the latest version, let me know, and I'll update the AMO page with the latest.

Yes, updated add-on would be awesome (or .xpi somewhere on the web over https, if you want frequent updates ... https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Install_Manifests). And yes, I have always some beta/earlybird around for testing, so that isn't a problem).

I would really like if your extension wasn't Ubuntu-only, and I am willing to help to make it happen.

Thank you,

Matěj

Halil-Cem Gürsoy

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Sep 18, 2011, 6:32:03 AM9/18/11
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Hi Mike,

I've just detected your add-on while I'm searching for an alternative to the SOGO Connector add-on, which still runs only in TB3.x. I'm using sogo to retrieve my personal address books from a MS Exchange Server.

So I've some questions regarding your add-on:

- should it be able to use it retrieve the exchange address books from exchange?
- has Evolution to run in the background or just only the eds 

I droped Evolution last year because it was so awful to use it with an Exchange Server (loosing mails, instable etc.) and switched to TB3.x, but the upcoming upgrade to Oneric makes me a bit headache due to a mass of incompatible add ons in TB7.

Thank you
Halil


Mike Conley

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Sep 19, 2011, 9:37:57 AM9/19/11
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Matej:

Hey - sorry for the late response. I've updated the AMO page for the
EDS Contacts add-on to the latest release (0.3.6a). It's currently
under review, but you can find it here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/eds-contact-integration/versions/

I haven't tested it on a non-Ubuntu Linux dist, so YMMV. Let me know
how it goes! All the best,

-Mike

On Sep 9, 2:27 pm, mcepl <mc...@redhat.com> wrote:
> Dne pátek, 9. září 2011 17:22:31 UTC+2 Mike Conley napsal(a):
>
>
>
> >https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Install_Manifests#updateURLTB7.0 has the
> > required patches landed in it, so theoretically, the add-on should work for
> > all Linux versions of TB 7 and up.
>
> > I have not updated the add-on page on AMO for a while, since Canonical has
> > been bundling the add-on with their TB builds, and have been pulling /
> > building from the Launchpad bzr repo.  If you're interested in using the
> > latest version, let me know, and I'll update the AMO page with the latest.
>
> Yes, updated add-on would be awesome (or .xpi somewhere on the web over
> https, if you want frequent updates ...https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Install_Manifests). And yes, I have always

Mike Conley

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Sep 19, 2011, 9:40:47 AM9/19/11
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Halil:

For the EDS Contacts add-on to work, EDS needs to be running in the
background. If you had your Exchange contacts stored within EDS, you
*should* be able to retrieve them with this add-on.

I totally sympathize with your broken add-on situation. :( Have you
tried using the add-on compatibility reporter to try to force
compatibility? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/

All the best,

-Mike

Halil-Cem Gürsoy

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Sep 19, 2011, 10:58:11 AM9/19/11
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Hi Mike,

thanks for your reply.

Sogo stated that they will update the connector add-on for TB7...
maybe.

Reason is that they need some additional bugfixes in Lightning which
they've already contributed but which are not integrated in TB up to
date.
(see https://inverse.ca/sogo/lists/arc/users/2011-08/msg00287.html)

Best regards
Halil

On Sep 19, 3:40 pm, Mike Conley <mike.d.con...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Halil:
>
> For the EDS Contacts add-on to work, EDS needs to be running in the
> background.  If you had your Exchange contacts stored within EDS, you
> *should* be able to retrieve them with this add-on.
>
> I totally sympathize with your broken add-on situation.  :(  Have you
> tried using the add-on compatibility reporter to try to force
> compatibility?  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/add-on-compatibili...

Anssi Saari

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Oct 15, 2011, 11:31:03 PM10/15/11
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On Friday, September 9, 2011 6:22:31 PM UTC+3, Mike Conley wrote:

TB 7.0 has the required patches landed in it, so theoretically, the add-on should work for all Linux versions of TB 7 and up.

Well, are you sure TB 7.0.1 has everything needed? Any help on how to use this outside Ubuntu? I've now tried with TB 7.0.1 in Debian and Fedora, but this add-on (version 0.3.6a) doesn't seem to do anything. Is there some setup required or should it just work? How to debug it? At least in Fedora I think I have EDS working, since the Gnome panel calendar shows calendar events from Evolution.

Vincent P.

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Oct 25, 2011, 4:11:58 AM10/25/11
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I cannot succeed to have contact sync beetween UbuntuOne and Thunderbird 7 on Oneiric. Have you identy some sort of bug? Can we do anything to understand the problem?

Mike Conley

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Oct 25, 2011, 9:14:07 AM10/25/11
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Anssi:

Hey - I'm sorry you're having difficulty with my add-on!

Unfortunately, this add-on was only designed with Ubuntu in mind.  I haven't done any development or testing with other distributions.  Sorry!

If you want to try to debug it, you can set the extensions.logging.enabled boolean to True to get some console logging.  Your mileage may vary.

-Mike

Mike Conley

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Oct 25, 2011, 9:14:57 AM10/25/11
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Vincent:

Hm - I need the following information:

1)  What version of the EDS Contacts Integration add-on do you have, and how did you get it?
2)  Have you enabled contact sharing in Ubuntu One?

Thanks,

-Mike

Vincent P.

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Oct 25, 2011, 3:12:52 PM10/25/11
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1)  What version of the EDS Contacts Integration add-on do you have, and how did you get it?
This is 0.3.4
 
2)  Have you enabled contact sharing in Ubuntu One?
Yes

Just install 0.3.6 from AMO and now, I don't see anymore the UbuntuOne address book in Thunderbird :-(

Got the following errors in the console:
Erreur : uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIXPCComponents_Utils.import]"  nsresult: "0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://edsintegration/content/overlay.js :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 40"  data: no]

Erreur : resource://edsintegration/libedataserver-ctypes.jsm - Could not get symbol 'libedataserver'.
Fichier Source : resource://edsintegration/EDSIntegrator.jsm
Ligne : 49

Vincent P.

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Oct 26, 2011, 3:21:23 PM10/26/11
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Hi Mike,
Any thought about my error report?

Mike Conley

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Oct 26, 2011, 3:27:30 PM10/26/11
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Vincent:

First, I'd suggest uninstalling the version of the add-on available on AMO.  You're on Oneiric, so the add-on should be bundled automatically.  Uninstalling the AMO version should reveal the bundled version.

Next, it sounds like you don't have libedataserver installed.  Is that true?

-Mike

Vincent P.

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Oct 26, 2011, 3:39:20 PM10/26/11
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OK, so I go back to the "official" release of EDS and I don't have the errors anymore. However, my contacts on UbuntuOne cloud and contact appearing in UbuntuOne Address Book (in Thunderbird) are still different :-(

When I search for libedataserver in the software center, I got the following results:

Installed:
- libedataserverui-3.0-1
- libedataserver1.2-15

NOT installed:
- libedataserverui-3.0-dev
- gir1.2-edataserver-1.2
- libedataserver1.2-dev

Should I install one of the "not installed" program?

Vincent P.

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Oct 26, 2011, 3:41:11 PM10/26/11
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The add-on version is now 0.3.4a

Here are my complete troubleshotting informations:

Paramètres de base de l'application

Nom Thunderbird
Version 7.0.1
Agent utilisateur Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20110929 Thunderbird/7.0.1
Répertoire de profil
(Lecteur local)
Identifiant de compilation de l'application 20110929181644
Plugins activés about:plugins
Configuration de compilation about:buildconfig

Comptes courrier et groupes

Identifiant
Serveur entrant Serveurs sortants
Nom Sécurité de la connexion Méthode d'authentification Nom Sécurité de la connexion Méthode d'authentification Par défaut ?
account1
(imap) imap.laposte.net:993SSLpasswordCleartextsmtp.laposte.net:25plainpasswordCleartexttrue
account2
(none) Local FoldersplainpasswordCleartext

Extensions

Nom Version Activée ID
CouchDB addressbook integration0.0.1truethunderbi...@ubuntu.com
EDS Contact Integration0.3.4atrueedsinte...@mozilla.com
Global Menu Bar integration2.0.1truegloba...@ubuntu.com
Lightning1.0b7true{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}
Messaging Menu and Unity Launcher integration0.8truemessag...@mozilla.com

Préférences modifiées

Nom Valeur
extensions.lastAppVersion7.0.1
mail.openMessageBehavior.version1
network.cookie.prefsMigratedtrue
places.database.lastMaintenance1319657408
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages42037

Accélération graphique

Description de la carteTungsten Graphics, Inc -- Mesa DRI Intel(R) 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2
Version du pilote2.1 Mesa 7.11
Rendu WebGLTungsten Graphics, Inc -- Mesa DRI Intel(R) 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2 -- 2.1 Mesa 7.11
Fenêtres avec accélération graphique0/1

Mike Conley

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Oct 26, 2011, 4:25:26 PM10/26/11
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Hm - can you give me the output of: 

ls /usr/lib/libedataserver*

Please?

Thanks,

-Mike

Vincent

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Oct 27, 2011, 12:45:33 PM10/27/11
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2011/10/26 Mike Conley <mike.d...@gmail.com>

Hm - can you give me the output of: 

ls /usr/lib/libedataserver*

This is:

vincent@Inspiron-1525:~$ ls /usr/lib/libedataserver*
/usr/lib/libedataserver-1.2.so.15      /usr/lib/libedataserverui-3.0.so.1
/usr/lib/libedataserver-1.2.so.15.0.0  /usr/lib/libedataserverui-3.0.so.1.0.0

 
Does it helps?

Vincent

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Oct 28, 2011, 3:42:07 PM10/28/11
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Mike? Could I give you more log?

2011/10/27 Vincent <el.cam...@gmail.com>

Mike Conley

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Oct 28, 2011, 3:47:44 PM10/28/11
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Hey Vincent,

I don't want to turn this into a massive support thread, so I've sent you mail. :)

-Mike

Vincent P.

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Oct 28, 2011, 3:51:33 PM10/28/11
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The only thing that I see after setting extension.loggin.enable to TRUE (and installing console² add-on):

LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: gobject-2.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libgobject-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libgobject-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: dbusmenu-glib
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libdbusmenu-glib.so.4
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libdbusmenu-glib.so.4
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: indicate
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libindicate.so.5
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libindicate.so.5
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: unity
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libunity.so.6
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libunity.so.6
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: gdk-x11-2.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Initializing MessagingMenu
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Searching for launcher entry for /usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop in /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Setting total new count to 0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Enabling messaging indicator
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Searching for launcher entry for /usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop in /home/vincent/.config/indicators/messages/applications-blacklist/
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: /home/vincent/.config/indicators/messages/applications-blacklist/ does not exist or is not a directory
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Found launcher entry /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: glib-2.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libglib-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libglib-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: edataserver-1.2
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libedataserver-1.2.so.15
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libedataserver-1.2.so.15
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Loading library: gobject-2.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Trying libgobject-2.0.so.0
 ----------
LOG messagingmenu: Successfully loaded libgobject-2.0.so.0

Anssi Saari

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Nov 3, 2011, 5:45:22 AM11/3/11
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On Tuesday, October 25, 2011 2:14:07 PM UTC+1, Mike Conley wrote:

If you want to try to debug it, you can set the extensions.logging.enabled boolean to True to get some console logging.  Your mileage may vary.

-Mike

Thanks for the tip. I seem to be getting these messages a lot in the log:

LOG edsintegration: Init'ing EDSNewContactEditor
LOG edsintegration: Opened a regular card - EDSContactEditor going inert.
LOG edsintegration: EDSContactEditor going inert.
LOG edsintegration: New contact editor address book changed
LOG edsintegration: Done init'ing EDSNewContactEditor

So this is in keeping with my experience, "it doesn't seem to be doing anything".

I have seen one error message a couple of times, I don't know if it's relevant though:

Error: An error occurred updating the cmd_delete command: [Exception... "'[JavaScript Error: "cards[i] is null" {file: "chrome://messenger/content/addressbook/abResultsPane.js" line: 158}]' when calling method: [nsIController::isCommandEnabled]"  nsresult: "0x80570021 (NS_ERROR_XPC_JAVASCRIPT_ERROR_WITH_D
ETAILS)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://global/content/globalOverlay.js :: goUpdateCommand :: line 80"  data: yes]
Source File: chrome://global/content/globalOverlay.js
Line: 86

Anssi

Giles Weaver

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Apr 9, 2012, 5:27:44 PM4/9/12
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FYI, this extension still works (currently!) in Precise (Ubuntu 12.04 Beta).

However, there is a bug - it doesn't respect the "View->Show name as" options in Thunderbird, my contacts are always shown in "Last, First" format. I also can't edit my Google contacts (picked up via Evolution).

Thanks for this add-on - together with syncevolution it's the best solution I have for syncing contacts between Thunderbird and my Nokia (Symbian) phone.

On Wednesday, 3 August 2011 21:24:17 UTC+1, Mike Conley wrote:
I've been developing an add-on that allows users to access their Evolution address books from within Thunderbird on Ubuntu.  That means that if you've got an Ubuntu One, Google Contacts or local address book hosted within Evolution, then getting those contacts is a snap from Thunderbird!

See the announcement here, or visit the project page directly.

All feedback can be put in this thread.  Thanks!

giancarlo iannizzotto

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Dec 15, 2012, 1:37:21 PM12/15/12
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I could not find the add-on, nor the project page.
is it still avalable somewhere?

best wishes
ianni


Wayne Mery

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Apr 1, 2013, 7:59:42 AM4/1/13
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https://launchpad.net/thunderbird-eds-extension
but not sure how helpful that is
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