(Over time I will flesh this out. I apologize for the rough outline, but it is late my time and I needed to brain dump. Screen shots and better rough out coming.)
First thing is to go to Thunderbird Site or use your favorite package manager and install ThunderBird. How to install ThunderBird is beyond the scope of this document. If you have difficulty in installing ThunderBird, please ask in the Forums and someone may help you.
Please launch ThunderBird for the first time and add your /e/ e-mail account to ThunderBird. If I have gumption, I may write a short HowTo on connecting your /e/ e-mail. Otherwise,. How to add an e-mail account to ThunderBird is beyond the scope of this document. If you have difficulty in adding an e-mail account to ThunderBird, please ask in the Forums and someone may help you. (Later edit may be coming in a separate HowTo.)
Fresh Install of ThunderBird :
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Selecting the Address Book:
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Shows that there is nothing here for /e/ related addresses:
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Next we go to Tools, and under this drop down menu select Options :
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This will bring up another Tab (I did resize my InBox so I could see the extension manager icon.) Select the Extension Manager icon. You may have to resize your window in order to see it.*
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Select the “Puzzle Piece” in the Add-On Manager (the new tab).
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Which will change the Add-On manager tab to include a search box.
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Type “CardBook” into the search box (without the double quotes)
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Press return/enter on your keyboard, which will open a new tab. (I did resize my window.)
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Click on the green box that says “+ Add to ThunderBird” next to CardBook. Please note, the warning about restarting
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When you are adding the extension please note, the following pop up will appear. Please select “Add”. (Part of my dialog box got shortened in the screen capture.)
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At this point a restart dialog should appear (Once again, my dialog is only partially showing).If the restart dialog appears , please restart Thunderbird. Otherwise please restart Thunderbird once CardBook has installed. (Close the application in the manner that is appropriate to your OS of choice, and launch it again).
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(OPTIONAL STEP:) Once ThunderBird relaunches, there is a Quality of Life adjustment to be made. There are two address books. We only want CardBook showing so as to not get ourselves confused.
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(OPTIONAL STEP:) Context Click (Right Click) on “Address Book” (any where on that toolbar will actually do, but if you are not getting the proper menu, go back to “Address Book” and Context Click) and select “Customize” on the menu that comes up.
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(OPTIONAL STEP:)Drag the “Address Book” menu item into the selection area.
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(OPTIONAL STEP:) Click on Done on the Customize Toolbar dialog.
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(OPTIONAL STEP:) Quality of life update done. No more duplicate Address Books.
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In your browser of choice, please login to /e/ e-mail service.
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Go to “Contacts” in the web interface for /e/.
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On the left hand side of contacts, at the bottom of the screen, click on “Settings”
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Click on the “Three Dots”.
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Click on “Copy Link” . Now the URL you need is in your clipboard. You may want to paste this URL into a text editor of some type.
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Launch Thunderbird if it is not already up.
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Select CardBook in Thunderbird. This will open a new tab in Thunderbird
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Right Click anywhere in the Address book area.
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On the menu that comes up, select “New Address Book”
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This will bring up the following dialog box:
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Select the radio button next to “Remote” and then select next.
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The following dialog will appear. Do not change the type. Paste the URL we copied into the field that is labeled URL . Your /e/ email address goes into the Username field, and your password goes into the password field. I suggest that you leave the “Use Password Manager to remember the password.” checked, but that is totally your choice. Once the fields are entered, press validate.
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The filled out form will look similar to (Click Next when you are ready)
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You can change the label “Contacts” on this form to suit your needs. I use “/e/ contacts” but YMMV.
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Success!
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Confirmation:
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You should now have a new Address book in Thunderbird / CardBook that is now connected to your /e/ address book.
Thanks for reading !
Notes :
I initially tested this on Pop_OS!18.04, confirmed on Ubuntu 19.10 and wrote this on Windows 10. It should be similar on OS X, I just did not dig out my MacBook to test.
(*) for those paying attention you can shortcut by going to the Hamburger menu (yes it is a thing) then options. I discovered this after I had gone through the motions 3 or 4 and written most of this post. I may update in a day or two
My intended audience is more than likely way below the person who is going to read this. I have a half dozen end-users at work that I cycle my documentation onto. If I can herd them through the what ever process I am documenting using just my documentation, then I’m good to go. Otherwise, note where I did not document enough and try again.
I am very open to constructive criticism, although I am going to ask that you email me rather than leave it in the comments.
As Always, the terms on this are CC:BY-SA
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