Version 0.3 Download

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 1
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the first beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * None (there must not be any )

New features
    * Import friends from Facebook
    * Photos are now imported from all supported sources: Facebook, Plaxo, and MySpace.

[tanstaafl]

Cool... thanks for the detailed response Josh...

I will still be using gContactSync for syncing my personal contacts between TB and my phone, but I have to say, all of the clients that I have talked with about using it all balk when I tell them it doesn't support syncing to a local filesystem. They don't want their sensitive company data synced to google, or any other 'cloud' based system, they only want it where they have full ownership/control...

So, I can only hope that when you said 'syncing with other sources is planned for 0.4', that that includes support for syncing to local/remote filesystems, even via FTP (again I'd strongly urge you to see about leveraging FireFTP for that part - just make it a pre-requisite/requirement, as long as the FireFTP dev doesn't mind).

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 2
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the second beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * Pager and mobile numbers are no longer swapped if the phone number types have been disabled.

Back-end changes
    * Accounts dialog is now more efficient (possibly a bit faster)
    * Imports are now more efficient (possibly a bit faster)

[Steve H.]

I am very please with version 0.2 and here is my concern.  I suspect that the dummy email addresses serve to prevent the generation of duplicates which I experienced with another synch program.  The issue is when you edit a contact without an email addresses, how is this detected as a change from an existing contact and not a new entry?  I would be willing to test 0.3 if you have checked on this behavior.

[kc]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 2
http://downloads.mozdev.org/gcontactsync/gContactSync-0.3.0b2.xpi  (right-click -> Save Link As...)

This is the second beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

...

When you say you won't implement any new features, does that mean for the immediate future, or are you not continuing development? Just want to make sure before I edit all my addresses, as I need them on the phone.

Thanks.

[Josh Geenen]

I suspect that the dummy email addresses serve to prevent the generation of duplicates which I experienced with another synch program.  The issue is when you edit a contact without an email addresses, how is this detected as a change from an existing contact and not a new entry?  I would be willing to test 0.3 if you have checked on this behavior.

Dummy e-mail addresses exist to prevent mailing lists in Thunderbird from breaking.  Google allows multiple contacts with the same e-mail address and contacts without e-mail addresses but mailing lists don't allow either of those.  Dummy e-mail addresses are added to contacts without e-mail addresses that are in mailing lists (in old versions of 0.2 they were added to all contacts without e-mail addresses).

gContactSync stores a lot of information about contacts that isn't visible, including a unique ID that Google assigns to each contact.  gContactSync uses this, not e-mail addresses, to match contacts between Thunderbird and Google.  A new contact is does not yet have one of these IDs.  Once that contact is added to Google, it is updated with that contact's new ID.

When you say you won't implement any new features, does that mean for the immediate future, or are you not continuing development? Just want to make sure before I edit all my addresses, as I need them on the phone.

I apologize for the misunderstanding.  I will continue development for version 0.3 in the form of bug fixes and maybe performance enhancements.  I will continue working on gContactSync 0.4 which will contain the new features I'm planning.  You can read more about 0.4 here.

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Beta 3
Old - see the end of this thread

This is the third beta release of 0.3.  Beta implies that I believe it is ready for a wider audience, but it is still unpolished and there may still be bugs.  I probably won't implement any new features before version 0.4 but will instead focus on testing and polishing gContactSync 0.3.

Bug fixes
    * Write-only mode will no longer delete local contacts that were deleted remotely.

[tanstaafl]

I will still be using gContactSync for syncing my personal contacts between TB and my phone, but I have to say, all of the clients that I have talked with about using it all balk when I tell them it doesn't support syncing to a local filesystem. They don't want their sensitive company data synced to google, or any other 'cloud' based system, they only want it where they have full ownership/control...

So, I can only hope that when you said 'syncing with other sources is planned for 0.4', that that includes support for syncing to local/remote filesystems, even via FTP (again I'd strongly urge you to see about leveraging FireFTP for that part - just make it a pre-requisite/requirement, as long as the FireFTP dev doesn't mind).

Hey Josh,

I noticed that support for a nativbe gContactSync disk based file format is not currently an official bug/feature request in the bug reporter...

Is this another oversight? Or do you just not feel it is desirable enough to officially put on the roadmap?

This is truly the only major new feature I'd like to see in gContactSync - everything else is just stability, performance and bug fixes as far as I'm concerned...

I'd like to know, because if it isn't likely to (ever?) be implemented anytime soon (next 6 months or so), I need to find another (interim, if it will be added, but just not soon enough for my clients needs) solution for some of my clients...

Anyway, I hate to bug you about it, but like I said, it is the only real deal-breaker for me with respect to some of my sensitive personal contact stuff, as well as those of my clients...

Thanks again for gContactSync!

[Josh Geenen]

I noticed that support for a nativbe gContactSync disk based file format is not currently an official bug/feature request in the bug reporter...

Is this another oversight? Or do you just not feel it is desirable enough to officially put on the roadmap?

I created a bug report for it, thanks for the reminder: https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=23214
I do not think I will be able to implement it before the end of the year, however.

[Josh Geenen]

Version 0.3.0 Release Candidate 1
http://downloads.mozdev.org/gcontactsync/gContactSync-0.3.0rc1.xpi  (right-click -> Save Link As...)

This required some fairly major changes to support custom labels in Google, so please let me know if using custom labels doesn't work for you.

Features
    * Custom labels are now supported (can only be set from Gmail, however).
    * 'Replace to Server' option added to the address book context menu (right-click an address book)
    * A summary of each sync'd address book is now in the log file and an overall summary will be displayed after all accounts have been synchronized if the sync was started manually (by default)

Bug fixes
    * 'Rename the phone column labels' preference fixed
    * 'Fourth' and 'Fifth' phone numbers are switched
    * Import strings are now localized