Not working in TB 78

[xundeenergie]

Hi There!

Are there plans to add support for TB 78+?

thank you

[jsreynolds]

Amen... hoping there will be support?

[JoachimTanner]

+1
Hoping for future support, knowing that there is quite an effort to modify the add-on to the new add-on technique.

[effemmeffe]

Second this

[DDvO]

Unfortunately Mozilla's major API changes keep kicking out large numbers of valuable Thunderbird and Firefox add-ons.

Currently I do not have the time for a major revamp of this add-on, but hopefully in end-December.
Is there anyone with experience with coping with the latest API changes who can help?

[jsreynolds]

I'm sorry - I would love to help but this is solidly out of my wheelhouse I think - mostly I do DBA/DB work and a smattering of C#. Thank you for taking it on.

[JoachimTanner]

@DDvO: Thanks for the good news that there is a chance for a new compatible version in future, the extension is very valuable for me to manage duplicates.

[ed1111]

This is a wonderful addon! It simplifies large contact list maintenance, saving hours vs. having to do it manually.
Hopefully, you will be able to find the time to update it for TB78+. Thank you.

[GamerBene19]

+1 and bump. Any news?

[DDvO]

Unfortunately i was too busy with other issues (mostly OpenSSL certifciate handilng),
but hopefully in the next couple of week...

[JohninAustria]

I have just manually merged a number of address books from different sources and would really appreciate a tool like this to tidy up all the entries. I don't see any other Thunderbird add-on that can do this.

[der-picknicker]

I would also be happy if the add-on would continue - I am currently in the process of porting my contacts to my own Nextcloud, so the Duplicate-Contacts-Manager would be extremely helpful!
@DDvO: I hope you will find time to continue here soon;)

[typoworx-de]

I would also be happy if the add-on would continue - I am currently in the process of porting my contacts to my own Nextcloud, so the Duplicate-Contacts-Manager would be extremely helpful!
@DDvO: I hope you will find time to continue here soon;)

Same here @der-picknicker good luck. Off-Topic: Is nextcloud better than owncloud? any experience? Drop me a message if you like to :-P

Also would be glad to have a new version for TB 78 👍 💯

[sonnenhexer]

I would be very glad if this addon will work with TB 78.

Thanks

[RichardBollinger]

Saw hope in "The add-on meanwhile supports Thunderbird 68+". I support just bringing it up to 78 specs without adding new features. I see value in the add-on you already created. Imagine it was a lot of work to get this far. A job well done.

Thanks a bunch.

[Krishna5907]

Dear I am Waiting for this Great Addon to Work for not Only for V.78 but For All, As I know its very Tedious for you but for the Community use, I think you should do this Great Job.

[DDvO]

Yeah, unfortunately I'm still overly busy with other IT topics.
There is a fair chance that I can do something about it in August..

[uwedisch]

I would be very glad to see an update for most recent Thunderbird.
@DDvO Thanks a lot for your effort.

[Der-Dings]

I join in and extend the hope to versions 91 and following. Helped me to get a few hundred contacts down to about 160. Was still in version 52 (or so), but it would be nice to have the pleasant option of this wonderful addon again in the future.

[DDvO]

Yeah, unfortunately I still have not found the time to work on this. Next good chance is around end of December.

[DDvO]

Code contributions by anyone who is familiar with the new/changed Thunderbird API is more than welcome.

[xCapRx]

Would it be okay if we tried to find volunteer help for you? If so, where would we look?

EDIT: Could eyalroz from removedupes possibly help? His addon is the only one remotely similar to yours.

[DDvO]

I've started finding out how update the extension to the current Thunderbird API.
Found helpful samples, in particular https://github.com/thundernest/sample-extensions/tree/master/addressBooks.

[PhilippSchlesinger]

Would be great to see this work with TB 102.
I really value your work on this great addon.
Do you see any chance for the near future or do you want to ask the TB team to integrate the addon into the new addressbook?

[DDvO]

Would it be okay if we tried to find volunteer help for you? If so, where would we look?

We'd need someone who is familiar with the new Thunderbird address book API.

EDIT: Could eyalroz from removedupes possibly help? His addon is the only one remotely similar to yours.

Hmm, handling duplicate messages uses different parts of the API than handling duplicate address book entries.

[DDvO]

I've started finding out how update the extension to the current Thunderbird API. Found helpful samples, in particular https://github.com/thundernest/sample-extensions/tree/master/addressBooks.

Sigh, I got stuck in the middle of changing things for lack of time.
Hope to resume maybe in October.

[DDvO]

Would be great to see this work with TB 102. I really value your work on this great addon.

Thank you.

Do you see any chance for the near future

Currently my best bet is in October (or around year-end).

do you want to ask the TB team to integrate the addon into the new addressbook?

Good thought in general.
Yet I'm not a fan of the TB team, given how they do (not) deal with bugs and feature requests. I've been waiting for some fixes for more than 10 years meanwhile, and they are not open for the suggestions I gave them on improving their S/MIME support. This is why I meanwhile rarely use Thunderbird but mostly switched over to (Gnome/) Evolution.
And I can't imagine that the TB team is keen on integrating the rather complex behavior of this add-on.
What you could do though is to bug the team on Bugzilla, for instance at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1331249 but I fear that it may take a decade to until maybe they do something about it.

[blausand]

Hi @DDvO !
I was using this AddOn since the Marian Steinbach versions and still can't believe that there's no modern remedy to duplicate contacts. Nowadays, merging backups of several devices has become key for me personally. More than one time, self-hosting broke after upgrading the OS and users continued feeding Thunderbird, K9-Mail, Android etc. leaving them with lifetime addressbooks out of sync.
Actually I'm just dropping in to thank you again for picking up Marian's work and to bump this issue once more in July 2023. Never forget: For every comment on a github issue, there's a hundred people out there experiencing the same twist.
I always felt the need to dive in Thunderbird's codebase in order to free myself and others from it's insufficiencies. At the same time, I'm in sheer horror with just facing the crust and patina of it. Moreover, having witnessed how Mozilla treats AddOn developers, I don't want to subordinate myself to this entity at all.

But hey: It's 2023! Have you ever tried to ask LLMs for assistance?

[adatum]

It is difficult to comprehend how duplicate contacts are not handled by TB natively. I am looking to manage many duplicates in several address books, and this is the only tools that comes up, but unfortunately isn't compatible with the latest TB version for understandable reasons.

Would it be viable to temporarily install TB v73 to use this add-on, import address books, deduplicate and manage contacts, then import/copy the address book databases back to the latest TB version? i.e. are the address book databases compatible across TB versions or has something changed. Thoughts on this potential workaround?

[DDvO]

Yes, this is a viable workaround.
One can install the old version in parallel.
The LDIF format should work with any TB version.