I learn from ROC that Google released the API for contacts. As Robert mentions, it would be really interesting to see what we could do with that. Starting with an extension, but also using it to inform our thinking about how to rework the address book in Thunderbird 3. It’s not a particularly secret wish of mine that I could use Thunderbird’s address book as the hub for my various “address books”, be those Google contacts, facebook friends, dopplr fellow travelers, etc. I need to get Mark Banner (thunderbird address book expert) and Philipp Kewisch (GData author) in a room…

by Robert Kaiser
07 Mar 2008 at 12:34
Philipp and Mark are both Europeans, I’d hope it’d be not so hard to get them together – but tell me, I’d love to meet Mark in person one time
by david
07 Mar 2008 at 12:39
@KaiRo: oh, i know. The calendar meeting might be a good place to talk about address books =).
by Aubrey
07 Mar 2008 at 13:01
I wish there was a good way to sort the gmail contacts I use reguarly with the ones I used once or twice. I’d rather see an outlooky “cards” or a myspace friends list as an interface then a list of 5000 addresses I’ve ever emailed. When I type a friends name, the least they can do for me is automatically highlight the address I’ve sent to them most. The best would let me select which way I want it to default when I type that term.
by Dan
07 Mar 2008 at 16:28
I’ve been patiently and loyally waiting for this for years.. Thunderbird is so good and has moved forward so much, it’s time for the address book to catch up with the rest of the app. I’m really looking forward to future developments on it.
by Raymond
09 Mar 2008 at 05:11
It would be nice if the thunderbird address book would use something like the provider model used by lightning for the different calendars.
Then anybody could make a provider for his or her addressbook format.
by CEP
09 Mar 2008 at 13:29
I join my voice to others by saying Mozilla Messaging rejuvenates our hopes for a well thought communication platform.
My personal wish for Mozilla Messaging is for it to integrate well (or give a shot at) identity management.
I’m well aware it’s not an easy task but I’m all for an honorable attempt to better the collective effort.
Communications must be firmly rooted around human centric concepts so that data serves us and not the other way around.
My best to all of you who thrive for excellence!
Cheers,
CEP
by Extra
09 Mar 2008 at 14:55
You should also talk to Wolfgang Sourdeau (wsourdeau@inverse.ca) and see how’s added CardDAV (and GroupDAV) support in Thunderbird’s address book module (in the SOGo Connector extension).
Support for other protocols could be added in the same way.
by Carl
09 Mar 2008 at 21:30
This is very interesting! And definatly on of my biggest issues with thunderbird today.
ContactSync beetween Thunderbird and Gmail would really be a killer. Not to mention: Maybe it would enable sync of contacts between different Thunderbird installations, via gmail (in my case I use two computers with Thunderbird and IMAP, works perfect except from the pain with out of sync contacts..)
I really hope someone concider making a Thunderbird-Gmail contactsync extension for the current Thunderbird version.
by Steven Wake
10 Mar 2008 at 03:55
I would like to an address book as a stand alone application with tight integration with Tbird and other apps through good APIs, like OSX does (works very well). I would like to be able to open the address book without opening Tbird.
by .
13 Mar 2008 at 05:30
roc is Robert O’Callahan, not Accettura.
by hamatosan
28 Mar 2008 at 13:54
Personally, after 13+ years on the net I’m tired of having several address books for several applications. I think the intelligent way of solving this would be to offer “one ring to bind them all”, that is, an address book application that can also be the LDAP server you use for all your other applications, as most applications using address data can query LDAP servers. Make publishing your address book via LDAP an option, and make it an option whether you want to publish “locally” or for the whole network.
Of course, that would mean making the Address Book a separate application. But from a user POV, it already is. (I don’t know whether it technically is one, but it sure looks as if it were.)
by Carl
31 May 2008 at 11:56
Just in case you didn’t know:
A new thunderbird extension providing gmail contactsync is now available:
http://www.zindus.com/faq-thunderbird-google/
http://lifehacker.com/394284/zindus-syncs-thunderbird-with-google-contacts