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|Feature overview=From a surface perspective, Thunderbird's address book has not changed much since it's very beginnings. Even today, by default, it is impossible to create a contact with more than 2 e-mail addresses in Thunderbird. It has also failed to adapt to the social web as it exists today, where the identity of contacts can be spread across multiple services (Facebook, Google Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, LDAP, desktop address books, etc). It also has no notion that contacts may belong to one or more groups.
Thus, we believe an address book refresh is in order.
Note that we're not planning on upgrading the old address book - this is a full reimplementation, from the ground up. This is, obviously, a relatively large undertaking. This project is comprised of the following 6 components, in no particular order:
<b>1) Move the Address Book into a tab ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Address_Book_in_a_Tab feature page]):</b>
* Following in the footsteps of Conversations and the Compose-in-a-Tab experiments, we would like to see the address book open in a new tab as opposed to a new window.
<b>2) Update the Design a contact editor to allow N typed/labelled email addresses and instant message accounts (and maybe more fields...) ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Collection_Fields_for_Address_Book feature page]):</b>
* Thunderbird only allows a fixed number of e-mail addresses (2), phone numbers (5) and instant messaging accounts (0) per contact. This is a major inflexibility that is the source of many complaints and frustrations with the address book. We should allow users to add an arbitrary number of these fields to their contacts.
<b>3) Migrate Have a smooth migration path from the current address book storage backend from Mork to something a little more sane - with asynchronous operations being a primary subgoalthe new address book. ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Replace_Mork_for_Address_Book feature page]):</b>
* While Mork may be fast, it can also be a nightmare to work with. It's time is critically important that users are able to move ontheir contacts over to the new address book, and have their data be fully intact.
* Interactions with the new database should be asynchronous
<b>4) Move from Mailing Lists / Address Books to more generic "groups" of contacts. ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Features/Thunderbird/Contact_Groups feature page]):</b>
* Moving from folders to tags/groups means greater flexibility in contact organization for our users.
