Addressbook sync service available for testing

[Jeremy Howard]

OK, that looks like a bug in FastMail's API - turns out it doesn't allow newline characters in any field. For now, I'm replacing them with "<CR>", and undoing that when syncing the other way. I've let Rob know, so hopefully he'll fix it and I can remove this workaround.

Also, rather embarrassingly, FM's API can't handle international (non-ANSI) characters at all. So I'm converting all accented chars to their non-accented equivalents, and other chars (e.g. Chinese) simply become '?'. This is a problem, because if that address is then changed at FM, the '?' will sync back to GMail, and the originally international character is now lost. I've asked Rob whether this can be fixed. If not, I might have to URL-encode these characters, so at least they will be able to sync back to GMail OK.

I've now synced my whole addressbook from FM to GMail, then deleted it from FM, cleared my sync state, and synced it all back again. No errors!

[sflorack]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

The sync service is here: http://sync.fun.as .

Ahh.. I love working for the government. Website blocked.

Reason: The category (Sex) is filtered.

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by sflorack

Ahh.. I love working for the government. Website blocked.

Huh? That sure is wacky! Anyhoo, I've just added another binding - so you can also use this URL: http://sync.howard.fm . I've only just added the domain name at FM, so it'll take an hour or so before it resolves.

[Mystakill]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

...you can also use this URL: http://sync.howard.fm

This one comes up as "Uncategorized" on my proxy server

[sflorack]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

Huh? That sure is wacky! Anyhoo, I've just added another binding - so you can also use this URL: http://sync.howard.fm . I've only just added the domain name at FM, so it'll take an hour or so before it resolves.

Great, thanks! Works here!

[nighthawk700]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

OK, I think I have a solution for you. Please take backups first in case this doesn't work.

To Sync when you already have GMail and FM contacts:

1. Download your FM addressbook (probably vCard / Mac OS X format would be best)
2. Upload that file to GMail contacts
3. Use GMail's "Duplicates" command to merge all your contacts together
4. Delete all your FM contacts
5. On the sync service screen, clear all sync state (if you've ever used it before)
6. Sync!

It would be great if you could try this, and let us know how it turns out. It doesn't matter whether it's FM or GMail that's empty to start - it's just important to realise that on the first sync all contacts are copied in each direction, without attempting to merge duplicates.

I'll give this a try. However with all the upcoming Jewish holidays (plus trying to stay caught up at work) it may be a while before I try it, since I want to make sure I have everything backed up and all before taking the dive. ;-)

As for your suggestion of possibly going the other way (delete contacts in Gmail, not fastmail), not a chance, I have all the addresses, phone numbers, etc. in my contact book there!! Fastmail it's basically just the email addresses.

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by sflorack

Great, thanks! Works here!

Cool! How did the synchronization go?

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

OK, that looks like a bug in FastMail's API - turns out it doesn't allow newline characters in any field. For now, I'm replacing them with "<CR>", and undoing that when syncing the other way. I've let Rob know, so hopefully he'll fix it and I can remove this workaround.

This is fixed now. Newlines now sync correctly both directions (thanks Rob!)

International chars are still broken, however.

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

International chars are still broken, however.

This is also now fixed (thanks again Rob!) Make sure that in FM you first have selected Default Charset: UTF-8, in Options->Account Preferences.

[Jeremy Howard]

For help with combining your various addressbooks (e.g. FM/Outlook/GMail/etc), and backing up your FM addressbook, prior to doing your first sync, I've documented some important information here: http://wiki.fastmail.fm/index.php?title=AddressBookTips .

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

I see that when one insert fails, all the following ones fail too, because the SOAP session gets interrupted

This should now be resolved - even if one contact causes an error, it should still continue with the remaining ones.

[Sherry]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

For help with combining your various addressbooks (e.g. FM/Outlook/GMail/etc) <snip>

Will this sync work between FM and Windows Mail (the vista one not windows live mail) and that Opera email client, if I ever try it?

Sherry

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by Sherry

Will this sync work between FM and Windows Mail (the vista one not windows live mail) and that Opera email client, if I ever try it?

I've googled around and can't find much... Maybe this would work between GMail and Vista?: http://synrc.com/contact-manager.htm . (Anything that can sync with GMail will work fine.)

[Sherry]

Well, I really don't want to give Gmail all that information because those in my address book may not like my putting their personal info into gmails DB but thanks anyway.

Sherry

[Jeremy Howard]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

Limitations: Doesn't sync deletes of phone/email/etc records at FM, until an Address has an update/addition of one

This limitation is now removed - thanks to Rob adding some code to keep track of changes to phone/email/etc, the sync service now correctly syncs deletes of these items.