Warning about destroying a mailing list while deleting address book entry

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User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.2.17) 
Gecko/20110420 Firefox/3.6.17
Build Identifier: 3.1.10

Often I have duplicates in the address book. I can't see, which one of them is 
assigned to a mailing list.
So when I try to delete one of them manually, I would be happy, if there would 
be a warning, if the item is listed in one of the mailing lists to avoid 
destruction of the mailing list.
Additionally a flag on each email item in the address book, which is listed in 
a mailing list, would be helpful, ideally showing the name(s) of the list(s) as 
a tool-tip on mouse hover. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open address book
2. select a duplicate entry
3. click delete

Actual Results:  
1. entry is silently deleted in assigned mailing list
2. no info about assignment to existing mailing list

Expected Results:  
1. if entry is assigned to a mailing list, there should occur a warning about 
with choice to cancel the delete action
2. there should be a flag, indicating the assignment to existing mailing list
3. on mouse-hover over the flag, a tool-tip should show the name(s) of the 
list(s)

Don't forget to check the same factor when context menu on email item in email 
header view is invoked to delete an address.

Alternatively provide a patch to Mozilla for:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654744

Original issue reported on code.google.com by CoSoCo...@googlemail.com on 1 Nov 2011 at 10:01

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Since I have similar needs, and there was no progress, I've started working on 
the issue.

BTW, in my view TB's whole mailing list concept is pretty broken (it would be 
much better if tags were supported that could be freely combined creating 
mailing lists on-the-fly) and its implementation terribly documented.

I already have code running that extracts the mailing list info and puts it 
into the available custom fields ("Custom 1" .. "Custom 4"). That is, if a card 
is in two lists with names "list1" and "list2", then "Custom 1" gets filled 
with "listmember:list1" and "Custom 2" with "listmember:list2". 
This info is visible when viewing the card in the address book and would also 
show up when processing cards in DCM.
Moreover, the presence of this info would prevent automatic or accidental 
deletion.
What do you think about this (pragmatic) approach?

Original comment by DvO...@gmail.com on 27 Apr 2012 at 1:08

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> BTW, in my view TB's whole mailing list concept is pretty broken (it would be 
much better if tags were supported that could be freely combined creating 
mailing lists on-the-fly) and its implementation terribly documented.

For this reason, I have filed: 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654744
Feel free to vote and comment on that bug.

Meanwhile, David has implemented "Warn on Address Book Card Delete" in 
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/thunderbird/addon/thunderplunger/ on my request. 
We had an interesting discussion. But still we think, this feature does not 
really match to ThunderPlunger's maim purpose. Instead it better would be a TB 
core feature.
But until it's not there, I think, it would perfectly fit to 
DuplicateContactManager's purpose.
I suggest to contact David White, author of ThunderPlunger, for assistance with 
the implementation. I know him as highly responsive and cooperative. Please 
check out ThunderPlunger to have a look on his regarding beautiful informative 
user warning dialogue.

I don't think, it's a good idea to fill the mailing list info in the custom 
fields. User might have his own usage of these fields, and additionally may 
have more than 4 mailing lists. Maybe it would be acceptable if this feature is 
switchable.
There better should be a separate UI flag, which should be part of TB's core 
address book UI.

Much thanks for your effort in this issue.

Original comment by CoSoCo...@googlemail.com on 28 Apr 2012 at 10:57

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Hi CoSoCo, I tried out Thunderplunger, which is very nice,
commented on the bug you filed on Thunderbird, and voted for it.

I agree to your point that filling in any of the existing card fields to store 
info on the list membership is not clean and should be made optional if at all. 
Its advantage would be that once implemented, this would imply the effects I 
mention below.

What I do not like so much is adding a warning popup that shows when one 
requests deletion of a card belonging to a list. Instead, I propose:
* adding a read-only info when displaying/editing cards in which mailing lists 
(of the same address book) the card is referenced
* on comparison of cards, giving cards more weight if they belong to more 
lists, such that only those with less (including: zero) list membership can 
become suggested for removal or get auto-removed.
I could implement this, as well as the option mentioned before, easily.

Original comment by DvO...@gmail.com on 11 May 2012 at 5:29

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> filling in any of the existing card fields to store info on the list 
membership is not clean ...
Maybe you don't know, but those 4 fields are frequently used by PalmOS 
smart-phones. At least I personally use those fields very frequent on my Palm 
phone. I estimate, those 4 fields have been introduced to TB to allow lossless 
synchronising with Palm devices. AFAIK in contrast, M$ Outlook lacks 100 % 
synch with Palm.

> * adding a read-only info when displaying/editing cards in which mailing 
lists (of the same address book) the card is referenced
IMO this would be fairly enough for your DCM-Addon, as the user is prompted to 
compare the content of the cards side by side.
But for the official TB address book, I think the warning popup is important. 
For an inexperienced user, even me, the potential silent mailing list 
corruption is not obvious, and the disaster may be discovered very long time 
later, if some mailing list member complains about missing info. Non-IT people 
are not aware, that the behind concept of a mailing list is just a pointer to 
existing card data, which will become invalid after deletion of the entry in 
the address book.
DCM-Addon should better provide an option to bypass the original warning popup.

Original comment by CoSoCo...@googlemail.com on 15 May 2012 at 6:50

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>> filling in any of the existing card fields to store info on the list 
membership is not clean ...
> Maybe you don't know, but those 4 fields are frequently used by PalmOS 
smart-phones. 

Actually I did not know. I do not consider this behavior by PalmOS clean, 
either.
What I consider now to implement is that the DCM user may optionally specify 
not only whether the list membership gets stored in a card field, but also in 
which one. As ThunderPlunger demonstrates, even entirely new, user-defined 
fields may be used in Thunderbird address books. What do you think about this?

>> * adding a read-only info when displaying/editing cards in which mailing 
lists (of the same address book) the card is referenced
> IMO this would be fairly enough for your DCM-Addon, as the user is prompted 
to compare the content of the cards side by side.
Good, so this feature will have my implementation priority for DCM. What do 
others think?

> But for the official TB address book, I think the warning popup is important. 
I agree, for the same reasons you give.
The email pointer semantics and implementation of Thunderbird's email lists 
(which also breaks when the email address changes) is really a bad concept. I'm 
glad that ThunderPlunger provides some features that help avoiding some of its 
sub-optimal effects.

Original comment by DvO...@gmail.com on 15 May 2012 at 7:54

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> I do not consider this behavior by PalmOS clean, either.
Hm, what do you think is not clean there?
On Palm device one can name those fields, very useful!
At me, I have 3 fields named: Date of 1st contact, Birthday, Friends

> Good, so this feature will have my implementation priority for DCM.
That's great! On mouse hover over the flag, please display the referred mailing 
lists as "tool tip".

Original comment by CoSoCo...@googlemail.com on 15 May 2012 at 9:41

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I had thought that Palm OS uses the Custom 1-4 fields for internal purposes.

Concerning read-only info on mailing list membership when displaying/editing 
cards,
I do not like the tool tip approach, but would rather print the list names 
directly,
basically like any regular field contents, (for layout reasons) one entry per 
line.

Original comment by DvO...@gmail.com on 16 May 2012 at 6:00

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Hi,
are there any news?

Original comment by CoSoCo...@googlemail.com on 16 Apr 2013 at 2:20