On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 10:48:04PM +0200, Alf Haakon Pietruszka Lund wrote:
I've mainly been using Thunderbird and Evolution
as my mail readers
[...]
Editing contacts require loads of clicks and mouse navigation to enter
info to those fields I use most often:
Name, email (might be multiple), phone (might be multiple), Street
Address, Organization / Company, Birthday, Notes.
I'd like a spreadsheet approach instead: a simple list view of the
preferred columns, right click to get a "Mail to" context and double
click in a field to edit. Or something similar. And keyboard
navigation, please.
Maybe write an extension for Thunderbird or Evolution, to add the
functionality you desire (or modify the existing functionality until it
works as desired)?
I want sync across devices (that is Android phone, PC
and occasional
webmail) but I don't want Google, so I'm using a CardDAV address book.
Thunderbird doesn't even let me use cardDAV as default address book
but saves all contacts to "Personal address book". Evolution opens
contacts in a tabbed window without CTRL-TAB navigation. Etc.
So. Does anyone here have pointers to mail readers with powerful
search, good folder and account management AND good contact
management?
Mutt's "limit" functionality is powerful enough for most use-cases. For
additional oomph, you can add Notmuch - but it's usually not needed.
For address book management, `abook` is OK. It lacks cardDAV support,
unfortunately, but is otherwise quite capable. Here is the relevant
man page excerpt:
"The following inputformats are supported:
- abook abook native format
- ldif ldif / Netscape addressbook
- mutt mutt alias
- pine pine addressbook
- csv comma separated values
- palmcsv Palm comma separated values
- vcard VCard addressbook
The following outputformats are supported:
- abook abook native format
- ldif ldif / Netscape addressbook (.4ld)
- mutt mutt alias
- html html document
- pine pine addressbook
- vcard VCard addressbook
- csv comma separated values
- palmcsv Palm comma separated values
- elm elm alias
- text plain text
- spruce Spruce address book
- wl Wanderlust address book
- bsdcal BSD calendar
- custom Custom output format"
I would be surprised if you can't rig up a script to convert from
CardDAV to abook and vice versa - perhaps via VCard or CSV as an
intermediate format - and then set up a hook to call that script each
time you update the address book. Can't currently bring to mind the
utilities for converting between VCard or CSV on the one hand and
CardDAV on the other, but I believe conversion tools do exist.
Good luck!
Sam