User talk:YinYang

Address book: check for duplicate entries

General considerations

Due to the fact, that

• bug 45946 is still open since 6 years,
• bug 150632 since 2002-06-10 AND (marked as )critical,
• bug 134256 since 2002-03-29
• bug 189895 since 2003-01-21 AND (marked as) critical,
• bug 318364 since 2005-11-30,
• etc.

it is really time to do something. But we shouldn't cause more problems for the future with a "quick-fix" than we have today, why I try to use this page for discussion and to collect thoughts to be able to really solve the problem(s).

From the general "mail-freaky" point of view, it is relatively simple:

"E-mail addresses are unique, every person in my mail-proggie has one, so just check for the E-mail address."

But considering other/additional motives/usecases makes this issue a bit more complicated:

• in several cases, you can't count on the E-mail, because
  • the grandfather has no address book (stored to have the address, birthday, etc. in one common address book)
  • in families or small self-helped groups there can be one E-mail address be valid for more persons

• to be accurate, you can't even count on the combination name and E-mail, because at least in the German-speaking area it happens often, that 2 names are equal, and if they both have no E-mail (or it is just not known),

• besides perfomance-reasons, you can't also check always all fields, because of e.g. imports/synchronizations of other address books, where the one or the other field might have changed.

So I can't find a solution for a "fixed" way to solve all this issue, especially if you look at the several requirements for just only the "mail-aspect" as mentioned in bug 45946.

Therefore, we should let decide the user how he wants Thunderbird/SeaMonekey to handle this issue.

Proposal for the following Usecases:

1. manual "add card" over Menu (button) "New Card"
   • Warn, and ask what to do (add contact, don't add contact, edit contact) on save.
     (in a 2nd step: make "warn" or "just add" a preference-setting)
2. manually over selecting an address in a E-mail -> right-klick -> "Add to Address book"
   • like 1.).
3. automatically, when "Automatically add outgoing E-mail addresses to my..." e.g. "personal Address book" (Options - Composition) is chosen:
   • User-Option in preferences "If E-mail address(es) already exists: "
     1. "Ask what to do" (add new contact, don't add new contact, edit contact),
     2. "Don't add address"
     3. "Add entry anyway"

and add a User-Option "Fields to compare" (with E-Mail as default - and mandatory?)

1. Importing single VCARD
   • like 1.).
2. Importing whole address books
   • User-Option in either Import-dialog (default as in preferences, with the possility to store), or as a general option in (not yet existing) preferences-dialog "Options - Address book": "If E-mail address already exists: "
     1. "Ask what to do" (add new contact, don't add new contact, edit contact),
     2. "Don't add address"
     3. "Add entry anyway"

and add a User-Option "Fields to compare" (with E-Mail as default - and mandatory?)

So we would have several new user-preferences (names are just to figure out what they are for):

• addressbook.add_contact.single.action
• addressbook.add_contact.single.checkfields (or 1 property per field)
• addressbook.add_contact.multiple.action
• addressbook.add_contact.multiple.checkfields (or 1 property per field)

the "single" part would cover manual actions for (almost) single cards, like 1., 2., and 4. the "multiple" part would cover item 3. (and 5., if realized as general user-option)