What's New in Google Contacts 0.5.50: Group Mapping

Google Contacts 0.5.50 has some new functionalities. In the post, I briefly show you one of them: Group mapping functionality. Group mapping is the functionality that map a Gmail group to a Thunderbird address book, not a mail list.

By default settings, all contacts and groups in Gmail are mapped into a Thunderbird address book. A group is mapped to a mail list and a contact is mapped to a card. See the image below.

Assume you have four group, My Contacts, Friends, Family, and Coworkers. And you have three contacts in the Friends group. Google Contacts maps them as follows:

This is the default synchronization. Then, let's enable the group mapping functionality. Open the add-on's option dialog and select the "Advanced" tab. You'll find Group mapping section in the middle of the form.

You can choose one of your groups in a Group cell. It shows only system groups. If you map custom group, choose "Other" and input a group name. The image shows an example that Friends group is mapped to an address book in a account. After you select a group, close the form by clicking the OK button.

Then, click the reload button in the address book window or button in the main window. Google Contacts reconstruct address book as follows:

All mail lists disappear and only contacts in the Friend group exist in the address book. In other words, the address book represents the Friends group.

That is the group mapping. If you add a card to the address book, a contact is added to Gmail and joined to the Friends group. As for a delete operation, you can choose a behavior. See the section below the group mapping in the option dialog. You can select one of the followings:

Default setting is "Delete from Google".

You can reduce contacts by using the group mapping. Moreover, you can synchronize a contact without an email address; due to the limitation of Thunderbird group, you cannot manage such a contact by default synchronization. However, it also has a drawback. Since it does not show all contacts in Gmail, you may add a contact which already exists. It may create many duplicates and make contacts management complicated.

Open Tab Button 0.1.13

Open Tab Button 0.1.13 is now available for download. It newly has an option dialog and all preferences are move into there.

Now, it has the following two options:

• open a tab by double clicking a message in the thread pane
• open/close a tab by double clicking the header view (new in v0.1.13)

Have fun!

Google Contacts 0.5.50 was released

Google Contacts 0.5.50 is now available for download. It is an official update of Google Contacts. In some locales, strings are not fully translated but I've released it since it fixes serious bugs such as crashing issues.

It fixes many bugs, including performance issues, and newly have the following functionalities:

• Group mapping: an option to synchronize a Google group into Thunderbird address book,
• Disk cache: an option to flush memory data to a disk,
• Read only mode.

I'll post later details of the new functionalities.

[Update]
I've re-upload v0.5.50 since the previous one has a problem in locale packaging. Please download again if you download v0.5.50 before 24 March.

Gmail IMAP Account Setup 1.6.20

Gmail IMAP Account Setup 1.6.20 is now available for download. It is the locale update version of v1.6.10. I've submitted it to AMO too. You'll receive an update notification after it is approved by an AMO Editor.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b7

I ended the beta testing for Google Contacts 0.5.50 at b6 butI resume it since serious crash problem was found. It will happen when you install Google Contacts to a brand new profile. Please try v0.5.50b7 if you are faced with the issue. In addtion to the fix, it also includes minor bug fixes. To summarize up, it includes the following changes:

• Fixed: Thunderbird will crash when an address book window is opened
• Fixed: Progress bar does not stop when disk cache is disabled
• Fixed: Settings are not loaded to the option dialog when the account list is empty
• Fixed: Creating backup file for Thunderbird address books fails

v0.5.1x and before also involve the crash problem. I'm going to release v0.5.13 after the fix is verified.

Thunderbird3 Compatibility Testing Thread

I've started to work for making my add-ons compatible with Thunderbird3. I'll update this post when test versions are available. Please test them and give me your feedback as a comment for this post.

I don't plan to release "Gmail IMAP Account Setup" and "Maximize Message Pane" for Thunderbird3. Thunderbird3 will have an account wizard for Gmail IMAP. And Thunderbird3's tab functionality will be an alternative for Maximize Message Pane. These are the reasons for the no plan.

• Tag Toolbar:
  v0.8:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
  v0.8b2:
  
  • Fixed: it should not work on search result tab
    
  v0.8b1:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3.0.*
    
  v0.8a5:
  
  • Fixed: an error message is shown after customizing a toolbar
    
  v0.8a4:
  
  • Fixed: cannot add tags to a sent message
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3b4
  • Added: Recent tags category is added
    
  v0.8a3:
  
  • Fixed: an error message is shown while searching tags
    
  v0.8a2:
  
  • Fixed: duplicated "Tag Toolbar" menuitems in context menus
  • Fixed: tags are not grayed out when no message is selected
  • Fixed: chevron button does not work
  • Fixed: Remove All Tags button is not disabled when no message is selected
  • Fixed: Save Query as Category button is not disabled when no query is inputed
    
  v0.8a1:
  
  • Initial version
    
• Check and Send:
  v0.9:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
  v0.9b4:
  
  • Fixed: recipients checking is not work if a mail list has a description
    
  v0.9b3:
  
  • Fixed: recipients checking is not work if a mail list is included
    
  v0.9b2:
  
  • Fixed: cannot send a message if search by domains option is enabled
    
  v0.9b1:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3.0.*
    
  v0.9a3:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3b4
    
  v0.9a2:
  
  • Fixed: Recipients/recipients' name checking does not work
  • Fixed: Layout of the General tab in the option dialog is horizontal
  • Added: Attachment file size checking
    
  v0.9a1:
  
  • Initial version
• Priority Switcher:
  v0.6:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
    
  v0.6b2:
  
  • Fixed: toolbar item is not updated when a tab is switched
    
  v0.6b1:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3.0.*
    
  v0.6a5:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3b4
    
  v0.6a4:
  
  • Fixed: Priority in the toolbar is not updated when a tab is switched
    
  v0.6a3:
  
  • Fixed: Priority menu item does not appear in a context menu
  • Fixed: "Commit" functionality does not work
  • Fixed: Support Thunderbird3b3pre
  v0.6a1:
  
  • Initial version
    
• Google Contacts:
  v0.6:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
  v0.6b3:
  
  • Fixed: "Enable Remote Content" is always enabled
    
  v0.6b2:
  
  • Fixed: mobile phone is not synchronized
    
  v0.6b1:
  
  • Fixed: add suffix to system group names to avoid conflict of names (ex: Friends:1)
    
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3.0.*
    
  v0.6a5:
  
  • Fixed: support Thunderbird3b4
    
  v0.6a4:
  
  • Fixed: Group mapping setting UI does not work
  • Fixed: Remove debugging code
    
  v0.6a3:
  
  • Added: Add option to add a pseudo email address to a contact without email addresses (for synchronizing Google groups and Thunderbird mail lists)
    
  v0.6a2:
  
  • Fixed: Sync process does not finish completely at first sync after installation of the extension
  • Added: Show icon in the add-ons manager
  • Added: A message is shown if no Gmail account is detected
  v0.6a1:
  
  • Initial version
• Get before Send:
  v0.8:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
  v0.8a1:
  
  • Initial version
    
• Gmail IMAP Account Setup:
  no plan
• Maximize Message Pane:
  v1.1.00:
  
  • Stable version is released. Thank you for the testing!
  v1.1.00b5:
  
  • Fixed: Attachment view is always collapsed
    
  v1.1.00b4:
  
  • Fixed: Maximize when more link on the message header view
    
  v1.1.00b3:
  
  • Fixed: Double-clicking a message in the thread pane does not work
    
  v1.1.00b2:
  
  • Added: Maximize/restore folder pane
    
  v1.1.00b1:
  
  • Initial version
    

Please translate Google Contacts 0.5.50

All strings in Google Contacts 0.5.50 were frozen and it is submitted to BabelZilla. Please translate it into your language.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b6

I've uploaded Google Contacts 0.5.50b6. It fixes a problem in a batch synchronization and add new option to a group mapping functionality. You can choose one of two delete operation when you enables the group mapping: delete from Google and delete from the mapped group.

In addition to that, I decided to use Javascript 1.7 and its yield statement in the beta. I enables the add-on to release CPU regularly. It makes synchronizing time a little bit long but it reduces freezing of GUI.

After the b6 release, I'm going to localize the addon and submit to BabelZilla. Please keep watching BabelZilla and translate new strings when it is available there. I'll start to work for Thunderbird3 add-ons after official release of v0.5.50.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b5

Google Contacts 0.5.50b5 is now available for download. It fixes bugs in the previous beta and improves efficiency. In this beta, group mapping is changed. So, you need to set it again before you use it.

This will be the last beta for v0.5.50. Please let me know if you find any problems.

[Update]
b5 has a problem in synchronizing contacts having non-ascii characters by batch mode. So, I'll release an addtional beta. It'll fix the issue and include some new functionalities.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b4

I've uploaded v0.5.50b4. The previous beta, v0.5.50b3 has a problem in batch synchronization. v0.5.50b4 fixes the issue. Please don't use b3. In addtion to the fix, b4 eliminates some ineffective codes in rebuilding an address book. It may improve the performance issue more.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b3

I've uploaded new beta: v0.5.50b3. It optimize a batch mode sync prcess. Moreover, backup functionality is disabled by default.; it is one of reasons for the low performance when a large numer of contacts are synchronized. These fixes includes many code changes. Please test it carefully.

I've implemented almost all functionalities I planed to add to v.0.5.50. If you find any problems, please let me know.

Google Contacts 0.5.50b2

I've uploaded Google Contacts v0.5.50b2. It fixes some bugs in the prevous beta and adds new functionality: Group mapping.

The group mapping is in the "Advanced" tab in the option dialog. You can select one of system groups in a menulist for each account. If you want to choose user created group, select "Other" and input the group name. After you specify the group, only contacts in the group are synchronized. In other word, the group to an address book, not a mail list. If you don't need the function, choose N/A.

For example, if you select My Contacts for the group mapping, all contacts in the group are loaded to an address book. When you add a card to the address book, a contact is added to Gmail and added to the group.

There are two precautions for the group mapping. One is duplicated contacts. Group mapping does not retrieve all contacts in Gmail. So, it cannot check conflicts of contacts. Another is deletion of contacts. Deleting contacts means removing them from Gmail; it does not mean removing from the group. Please note them.