185014 - Copying lists from one address book to another is broken

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 42879

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Address Book & Contacts, defect)

Description

[Max Spicer]

It does not seem possible to copy a mailing list from one address book to an
other.  Attempting to do so simply results in a new _card_ being created in the
other address book, with the same name as the list (i.e. with no associated
addresses).  This is a real pain as it means that it isn't actually possible to
import address books containing lists and then copy the result into your main
address book.

Steps to reproduce:
- Create a new list in Collected Addresses and call it Foo
- Add some addresses to this list
- Drag Foo from the address pane for Collected Addresses to the Personal Address
Book in the Address Books pane

Expected behaviour:
- Foo should now exist as a list in the Personal Address Book

Actual behaviour:
- A new card is created in Personal Address Book, with last name and display
name set to Foo
- None of the addresses in Foo are copied to the Personal Address Book

This is present in 2002121108 and Mozilla 1.2.1.

Comment 1

[Max Spicer]

Confirmed on Linux too.

Anyone out there??

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

mass re-assign.

Comment 3

[Max Spicer]

A workaround for the importing problem:  You can import an addressbook into
Mozilla, then close it down and move impab.mab over abook.mab in your profile
folder.  This will destroy any addresses in your address book, but will bring
the imported addresses into your main address book, preserving all lists.  You
can then remove the (now non-existent) imported address book from Mozilla's list
by simply deleting it in Mozilla.

Comment 4

[Jim Booth]

As I understand it, Lists are SUBSETS of address books, so dragging the subset
from one book to another doesn't make sense since the cards probably don't exist
in the second address book. 

WORKAROUND: click on the List (Foo in your example) in the left pane, which
displays all of its members in the results (right) pane.  Now select all of them
(CTRL-A works) and drag them to the new list.  This causes all the cards to be
copied to the Address book that contains the new list. 

Another Workaround, create a new Address Book (File/New/AddressBook) and drag
addresses you want to keep to there instead of to a new list. 

Yet another: Just create FOO in Personal Address Book to begin with.  Then as
you drag each card from CAB to FOO, it is copied.

We probably should not allow dragging of lists at all, and the FOO card should
not be created in the second address book.

Comment 5

[Jim Booth]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 42879 ***

Comment 6

[Vedran Miletic]

v