There are many areas we wish to improve and would like help with, please have a look at the [[MailNews:Address Book Help Wanted]] page for more information.
==== What's being worked on? =Roadmap & Work In Progress ===
This is a list of things we are currently looking at/working on with respect to address book. These are things known to the The [[MailNews devs:Address Book RoadMap|roadmap]] isn't detailed, note we'll try to keep the list up to datenor does it have timescales, but don't guarentee nor has itbeen agreed between developers, and schedules won't apply here - We have limited people for address book and we work on it when is more where we cancurrently appear to be heading in the short term.
* Drag and Drop fixes ([https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35837 bug 35837] & others)* Address Book autocomplete transfer to toolkit (WIP)* Basic vcard redesign work - [[User:Mhovis|Mhovis]]** Expand contact database to include a superset of all supported protocols / card versions, including sync tokens.** Provide a framework to allow third-party protocols bi-directional interaction with a persistance abstraction layer for the contact database(s). This would possibly use a network of contact observers.** Each consumer of the framework would implement a "view" of the abstracted contact persistence layer, adding columns and interfaces to the persistence layer if needed.** Translations between the different "views" would have to be considered if inputting from one interface and outputting to another (in essence using the persistence layer) is not sufficient.** Possible relevant link libvcard? http://freshmeat.net/projects/libvc/* Tidy up and rework of the address book preferences/settings backend - [[User:Standard8|Standard8]]** This includes:*** removal of redundant code*** removal of duplicate code/optimisation of existing code.*** possible moving of pref backend functions from nsDirPrefs into the classes that define the directories themselves as this would be more appropriate.*** finally the removal The roadmap also gives some idea of the nsDirPrefs code.* Misc bugs e.g.** ldap fixes** UI fixes ==== Short and Long Term Goals ==== This is a brain dump being written as we talk about it on IRC. This needs much more information/design before any of it goes anywhere. Note that the above help wanted and work currently in progress areas apply hear as well... * Pluggable address books** A system whereby extra definitions for different formats/address book interfaces may be bolted onto the main address book code without need for major code rework. (things to remember: device synchronisation)* Device Synchronisation Interfaces** See [http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla2:Device_Sync Device Sync]* Revised back end** This is potentially a better alternative to mork see [[MailNews:Address Book Native Formats]] for more info.* Some kind of generic interface for import/export etc of different types of cards and books. ==== What's being thought about? ==== This list contains things that we'd like to be able to get round to doing, or have previously been discussing. Again, no schedules and same comments apply as above. * [[MailNews:Address Book Interface Formats]]* [[MailNews:Address Book Native Formats]]* Relayout the new/edit card dialogs** This would be to solve our current screen size issue** but would also be in preparation for the addition of more fields** [[MailNews: Address Book Card Fields]] - what fields do we want?* LDAP** Writeable LDAP address books** [[MailNews:LDAP and Large Searches]]
