What really needs to happen is a rewrite of that part of the code to make the addon store google’s gdata xml. It would then support sync of both:
* the entire google contact (not just the subset that maps to tb) and
* groups.

Work hasn’t started on that yet. Partly that’s because it’s not clear how zindus-for-firefox might sit alongside Mozilla’s contacts addon and partly because the Thunderbird development team has finally allocated some resources to contacts and it makes sense to wait and see how that plays out. And … other things are cooking which it’s premature to talk about!

Thanks

Questions:
How do we track the sync functionality as compared to the Tbird addon?
I see no group sync, but in Tbird I think this is happening.

Just trying to get my head around what to test, and how to provide feedback.

I currently have it synching GApps with Gmail accounts, include Google suggested contacts, sync Google Groups with FF addressbook.

Not seeing groups come across from Gmail to GApps

Also what’s confusing about “FF addressbook” is … where is it. Is there a FF addressbook or is that just a term?

@skwasha - the addon works fine in firefox 3.6 (with install.rdf tweaked). If you encounter a problem - feel free to file a bug report.

@mark - thanks for the feedback. Contact syncing between google accounts is a great idea - will consider it. Anyone else thinks this is a good idea - please speak up!

re: Mozilla’s Contacts addon.

Mozilla’s Contacts addon has pretty broad scope, and (aside from Mark’s idea above) it is really unclear to me what a ‘zindus for firefox’ would do that Mozilla’s addon won’t.

Whatever happens, there’d be no point for ‘zindus for firefox’ to compete with Mozilla’s Contacts addon.

However … one thing that zindus does well is state-based synchronization. It means that users can make local changes while offline and when the addon comes online again, the local changes will sync reliably. It’s seems a bit early to know what the sync strategy will be for Mozilla’s contacts addon but there might be some interesting use cases around that (eg. Firefox Mobile). Hardly seems compelling though.

What’s starting to happen is that addons like NoScript are storing their settings in special bookmark files so that they can be sync’d with Weave.

Now they are putting out the contacts prototype.
Whatever happens it would be good to ensure that a contact syncher in browser has smart sync capability, works with Google gmail and Apps, and can be managed via weave so that the settings and sync states can be carried across to other profiles.

Thanks

The Contacts prototype consists of these pieces:

* A browser-based Contacts database that stays in sync with your address books (so far, it supports GMail, Twitter and Mac OS Address book)
* A generic importer system for Contacts from desktop or web-based address books (so you can implement missing ones)
* An email autocompletion feature, which demonstrates how the browser can auto-complete email addresses on any website. The autocompletion is performed entirely in the browser, without sharing the your list of contacts with the website.
* A Javascript API that websites can use to access the Contacts database, with explicit user permission and filtering

Stimulating competition, or time to work together ?