CardBook

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

by aaFn on Dec. 30, 2016 · permalink

Very nice add-on, fitting a big hole in TB, thanks for that.

However, I am hitting at least 2 problems when trying to import my address book from another aging device (Windows Mobile 6):

1) When importing from a VCF file, I get in the log the errors "2016.12.30 21:25:04:349 : Testdir : Erreur lors de la traduction de la carte de visite :
3.0 et 4.0 sont les seules versions supportées
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=utf-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:..<note: I suppressed personal info from the error msg>..
END:VCARD"
and so nothing is imported, although it seems to read it pretty well from what I can see in the error log.
This happens for each record of course.

I have no way to generate a higher version of the VCF file from my WM6 contacts application :-(.
So nothing is imported.

2) When trying to import from a .CSV file, unicode is not supported.
So I have to edit my .CSV file exported from WM6 in the Windows Notepad to Save as UTF-8 or ANSI.

Then I am hitting a bug when using the import as .CSV (after saving in UTF-8 or ANSI):
only 20 out of the 170 contact records are really imported, whatever effort I put in matching fields ...

Something is breaking the import in most of the records, and I cannot figure it out.
The error log says, for each one:
"2016.12.30 21:21:04:700 : Testdir : Erreur lors de la traduction de la carte de visite :
myArgs.template[j] is undefined" (repeated about 150 times)
"2016.12.30 21:21:05:331 : Testdir : Importation terminée, résultats :"
"2016.12.30 21:21:05:331 : Testdir : Contacts importés : 19"
"2016.12.30 21:21:05:331 : Testdir : Contacts en erreur : 151"
"2016.12.30 21:21:05:332 : Tous les imports sont finis"

Debug mode adds nothing to those details, so can't figure out what is wrong, and so I still don't have something exploitable.


And then, some features would really be useful to make this more useable:

1) In the import as CSV, when adding matching columns, have "Up" and "Down" buttons to move a selected matching column.
My imported source has more than 60 columns, so when making an error in the middle, the only way to correct is to select all the fields after that one one by one, pressing "Delete" for each, then correcting, then "Add" one by one again ... :-(

2) Synchronize the cursor in the two vertical boxes "Selected column" and the "Heading column" at right, to be able to verify which column is matching with which (again, remember my 60+ columns import ...)

3) Be able to add more than 1 event, besides "Birthday" = feast, and other or custom for other events to remember / signal.

4) Be able to add more than 4 custom fields (2 personal + 2 professional) in contacts, if possible.

Hope this helps.
Let me know if you want more details for the CSV import bug and how to get them.

And again thanks for the work, this look promising .. too bad I can't use it for now.


EDIT on 2/1/2017: I can see that VCF exports from latest Android phones (6.0 Marshmallow) are also in VCF v2.1 .. so this Add-on would definitely benefit from allowing to import at least 2.1 versions and not just 3.0 and 4.0 which do not seem to be so widely used.
All the more that standard Thunderbird address book does import those V2.1 VCF files.

So for now, CardBook does not allow to share a common address book with an Android phone, unless to use a convoluted import/export path through TB std address book.