Outline of Address Books. Confirmed in Thunderbird 2. Probably valid in other TB versions, and in Netscape 7 also.
The
prefs.js contains the linkages between the
xxx.mab file ids and the labels that one sees when looking at the Address Books.
There are two standard Address Books that are created when the Mail Profile is created:
-
Personal Address Book is named
abook.mab -
Collected Addresses is named
history.mab - See
this also for TB.
- See
this also for NS.
Other user-created address books are named
abook-1.mab,
abook-2.mab, . . .
abook-n.mab.
Address books that have been creatied by importation are named
impab.mab,
impab-1.mab, . . .
impab-n.mab.
--- (This may apply only to Thunderbird, I don't see it mentioned in NS documentation.)
Prefs.js also has a mention of a
default.mab. This appears to be a model (template) for the creation of new ABs.
I have over 25 address books, and found it confusing to track which mab was which named book. I renamed each mab (from abook-n or impab-n) to the address book name. But to make this work, I also had to modify the prefs.js.
Here is a representative set - there are six lines involved - of the
prefs.js lines associated with each address book. (Note -
does not apply to the two standard mab-s named above.)
= = = = = = = =
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.description", "Riverside");
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.dirType", 2);
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.filename", "Riverside.mab");
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.isOffline", false);
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.protocolVersion", "2");
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.Riverside.replication.lastChangeNumber", 0);
= = = = = = = = =
line 1 - The description is the name as one sees it when looking at the Address Books.
line 3 - the filename is the actual disk file id, as seen in Explorer (or by a DIR). (See also the Note below.)
all lines - the servers.xxxx appears to be an internal linkage (control block) name to keep the set of definition lines associated together. For convenience I set all names to be the same.
Note: Interestingly, it turns out that the file extensions do not have to be
mab: they can be anything, or even null. But in order to be able quickly to identify which files in the profile are in fact address books, I left them as mab-s.
Now, to address Stan's situation. Suggested procedure.
For either Netscape or Thunderbird - (this 'should' work for both).
With NS (or TB) not open, in the Mail (if TB) profile -
1. Copy the
prefs.js as a backup.
2. Copy the [
old, but adequate address book.mab] file, and name it
good.mab - If you want to name it Riverside.mab you'll be able directly to use a Copy/Paste from this post!
3. Edit prefs.js. Use either Notepad or WordPad.
4. Locate where the ldap_2.servers lines are.
5. Copy/Paste insert the six lines given above. Be sure to keep existing groups-of-6 together.
- If you named your mab as Riverside (step 2), you're done. Otherwise, change the description and filename lines to match.
6. File
7. Open NS (or TB)
8. You should find your 'Good' or 'Riverside' address book.
9. Then Export it into whatever format you need.
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1
by Vegstan » Fri 30 Dec, 2011 2:04 am 
