1470577 - RFE: need a shared address book

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 72399

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, enhancement)

Description

[Todd]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180611123338

Steps to reproduce:

Dear Thunderbird,

I CONSTANTLY get asked by my customer if there is a way to share a Thunderbird address book.

Would you please consider modifying Firefox's SYNC feature for Thunderbird so that an address book(s) can be shared?  Or some such.  I am not picky.

Many thanks,
-T

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

see bug 72399 comment 18.  I believe there are more addons that provide this

Comment 2

[Todd]

I do not believe this is a duplicate.  I am asking for a sync feature, like Firefox does with its sync feature.  72399 is to "merge" address books, not to share/synchronize them.

And I have found no add ons for this.  The closest is https://www.ggbs.de/extensions/AddressbooksSynchronizer.html, but it is an overwriter, not actually a synchronizer

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

If bug 72399 is not a match to you situation than consider bug 446444 or bug 232387.  Or more clearly define your idea if "share". Because the classic solution, where everyone can update, and add to an address book is ldap.

Comment 4

[Todd]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)
> If bug 72399 is not a match to you situation than consider bug 446444 or bug
> 232387.  Or more clearly define your idea if "share". Because the classic
> solution, where everyone can update, and add to an address book is ldap.

No, neither one applies.  Please un-duplicate this report

Comment 5

[Todd]

I just got my chops busted again about this issue last Friday by a customer.  The cutomser's DO NOT CARE what the technical issues are that are involved. They only see that their eMail (IMAP) will synchronize across devices and EXPECT that their address books will too.  And when it does not, THEY BUST MY CHOPS!

Please reuse the Sync feature of Firefox and create a syncing address book.  Or something similar.

Comment 6

[Todd]

Okay, heard from another customer.  They are IMAP sharing three Thunderbirds.  This was a nice customer:

      A lot of our emails (from clients and vendors) are still going straight into junk, it's been 
      frustrating. They also won't move over into the inbox even if I add to the address book.
      I know (redacted) has other issues she wants to address at the same time, but thought I'd let you
      know so you can research the solution.

You see, every eMail app on their phones/tablets and every web eMail app synchronizes their contacts.  I have explained to the above customer several times that their address books are all separate, but it does not sink in as they EXPECT them to be synchronized.  AND THEY HAVE A POINT!  They do not see this as "optional".

Now the more I think about the problem, the easier it seems to solve.  You already have "Mozilla Sync" set up on Firefox.  It synchronizes bookmarks, tab, history.  The solution is to just add a Thunderbird address book to this utility and add "sync" into Thunderbird as well.  This should be easy to program and you already have 95% of the code.

As a kindness to those of us who have to deal directly with the customers, please implement this quickly.  This customer was nice; other just treat you like you are an incompetent idiot.

Many thanks,
-T

I will be removing junk checking here shortly from all three machines.  This is only a temporary solution until you guys fix this issue.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 72399 is precisely what you need - it even has sync in the title.  And Firefox sync is not, because it is far more than just one part of firefox. Firefox Sync is the equivalent of keeping an entire Thunderbird profile in sync - from wikipedia "is a browser synchronization feature that allows users to partially synchronize bookmarks, browsing history, preferences, passwords, filled forms, add-ons, ..."