[Libreoffice-qa] minutes of ESC call ...

[Michael Stahl]

On 19/07/12 11:09, Fridrich Strba wrote:
> On 12/07/12 17:55, Michael Meeks wrote:

>> 	  and/or re-write to avoid big chunk of mozilla bundled
> 
> Mozilla is also used for Outlook Express (WAB) address-book and for
> Outlook address-book via MAPI. For windows, there is a (deprecated) API
> to access Windows Address Book using wab32.dll. The MAPI API is also
> present on windows, so to make 2 distinct address-book drivers for
> Windows might be reasonably feasible. For mozilla/thunderbird
> addressbook, there seems to be a solution that does not require the
> whole beast and thus no xpcom eating CPU time.
> 
> For Linux, there is libpst that is able to read outlook contacts and
> somehow old libwab that knows how the WAB format looks. They are
> GPL-licensed thus, so not directly usable.

on my Linux master build with --enable-mozilla i've got the following
address books:

- LDAP Address Book
- Seamonkey Address Book
- Thunderbird/Icedove Address Book

so apparently Outlook [Express] is not a currently supported feature on
non-Windows platforms, and if we offer it only on Windows in the future
it's not a regression.

i personally don't think supporting it on non-Windows platforms is all
that useful, because i assume that people only use these Address Book
drivers on a live address book that they actively maintain in their mail
client; generally Linux/Mac users don't use Outlook as a mail client
because of its limited platform support.

thus it should be acceptable to let Linux/Mac users use their Outlook
[Express] address books by first importing them into e.g. Thunderbird on
Linux (possibly indirectly by first importing into Thunderbird on
Windows), and then accessing that via the newfangled Mork driver; they
would have to import it into a Linux mail client anyway if they want to
use it to send mails.