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Author Topic: Starting to use MAIL, finally  (Read 2766 times)

Offline RHPConsult

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Starting to use MAIL, finally
« on: January 23, 2007, 10:48:43 PM »
Forced by the circumstance of a royally messed-up Mozilla/Profile-file in SeaMonkey, I’ve started to use Mail. Not bad. After all, “it’s a Macintosh!”

One pressing question – since I’m on-the-road, please.

In that Mozilla Profile, naturally, is a file abook.mab that I am unable to see/understand how it can/should be exported via any other format (V-cards, LDIF etc) so its 600+ addresses will be "available" to my Mac AddressBook..

When I get home this weekend, I’m hoping to be able to extract a good copy of the Profile on my InteliMac, so to move it into my semi-functioning SeaMonkey on my PB.

For now, however, I really would appreciate any advice as to how to “process” the abook.mab file (if possible) so AddressBook (and, by extension, Mail) can read it..

Any ideas?
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Offline Paddy

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« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2007, 11:33:54 PM »
Mail understands both LDIF and CSV - Mozilla can export in either according to this:

http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/mozillaT...ddressBooks.cwd

BTW - read elsewhere that Mozilla's CSV export (on the Windows side, anyway) doesn't include the column headers; you need to open it in a spreadsheet and add them.

Haven't tried it (don't use Mozilla) but let us know if any of this seems reasonable.

From the Address Book help document:

To import addresses from other applications:
1. Export your addresses from the other application in one of the formats supported by Address Book.
When exporting a tab-delimited or CSV file, you may want to write down the order of the information fields. This will help you in step 4 if the exported file doesn’t contain labels.

2. In Address Book, choose File > Import and choose the format of the exported file from the submenu. Choose "Text file" for a tab-delimited or CSV file.

3. Select the file that contains the exported addresses.

4. If you are importing a text file, use the pop-up menus in the Text File Import dialog that appears to specify how to import the data.
If the first record contains labels instead of information for a contact, select the "Ignore first card" checkbox.

Use the left and right arrows to see different records in the file you're importing. This helps you determine how to set the pop-up menus. If you don't want to import a field, set the pop-up menu to "Do not import."

To set the pop-up menus for address fields, choose the type of address (home, work, or other) in the pop-up menu next to the first item of the address. Then use the address pop-up menus that appear to choose the corresponding data for each address field.
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Offline RHPConsult

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« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2007, 06:39:10 AM »
Paddy suggests . . .
QUOTE
Mozilla can export in either according to this . . :
I should have been clearer in stating my problem. Because I have such a seriously hosed SeaMondky/Mozilla Profile-file, no addresses are revealed in the "running" app. even though the abook.mab file (in GetInfo) declares that it's 450kb large.

There is, practically speaking, nothing to export to anything until I can find some way, directly, to transmogrify that abook.mab file to V-cards or something, outside of the app, that is directly from the list view of the Profile-file Folder.

In any event, I'll download Thunderbird to see if it somehow can make some sense, automatically, of my damaged Mozilla Profile. Who knows,
« Last Edit: January 24, 2007, 06:43:08 AM by RHPConsult »
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Offline Paddy

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« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2007, 06:46:18 AM »
Can you not create a new profile and drag the abook.mab file into it? (Make a copy of it and do this - I'd leave the original alone at this point) I wouldn't do anything other than create the new profile and move this file - leave EVERYTHING else behind, because you don't know where the corruption lies.

Otherwise, I don't know how you'd do this. Assuming that the abook.mab file is actually text, you might want to have a look at it in BBEdit and see what it looks like, and what you might be able to do to it manually to get where you want to go. But I'd try the new profile first, which should either work (and quickly) or won't work, which may indicate that the address file itself is not in good shape.

More general info about the files which may or may not help:

http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns7theaddressbook.html
http://home.att.net/~cherokee67/ns7manualAB.html (how to handle corrupt .mab files)
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_address_b...etween_profiles
« Last Edit: January 24, 2007, 06:50:59 AM by Paddy »
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Offline jepinto

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« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2007, 07:04:31 AM »
[attachment=75:attachment]
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Offline RHPConsult

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« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2007, 11:53:50 AM »
Paddy suggests . . .
QUOTE
...I'd leave the original alone at this point) I wouldn't do anything other than create the new profile and move this file - leave EVERYTHING else behind, because you don't know where the corruption lies.

That's about the only thing I haven't tried over the past four days trying to figure out a "rehabilitation" process.

Thanks.

I've even used AppZapper (twice) to try to rid myself of the "offending/offended" Profile-file along with the SeaMonkey and Firefox apps.

Somehow the old profile always seems to rear its head in any new download . . . from some hidden niche in my HD. I have a saved copy stashed in the archives partition with its apparently in tact addresses, bookmarks and mail (650MB), in case a reasonable chance appears to make use of them.


Jennie
I'm very familia (too familiar)r with that window . . . BUT, how did you do that? Make that nifty thumbnail?
« Last Edit: January 24, 2007, 11:58:00 AM by RHPConsult »
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Offline D76

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« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2007, 01:41:13 PM »
QUOTE(RHPConsult @ Jan 24 2007, 12:53 PM) [snapback]116885[/snapback]
Somehow the old profile always seems to rear its head in any new download . . . from some hidden niche in my HD.
AppZapper may have missed a SeaMonkey folder called Mozilla that's inside the hard drive's library, not the Mozilla folder your own user's library.

Inside that particular Mozilla folder in my machine were two files — one called Global.regs, the other Versions.regs.

I opened the Global.regs with TextEdit, but it was blank. However, opening Versions.regs with TextEdit shows that it's loaded with profile pathways, many of them duplicated, and all kinds of other junk. I think the Versions.regs file was created when I had more than one version of SeaMonkey running, along with an old pre-SeaMonkey Mozilla suite, as you had.

I think this is true because I dragged both those files into another folder on the desktop, then compressed the folder on the desktop to make sure those files couldn't be accessed. Then I started SeaMonkey, went to some sites on the web, then started SeaMonkey's email. SeaMonkey ran without any problem whatsoever.

The only new file that it created in that Mozilla folder was a replacement for the now-compressed Global.regs. But no new Versions.regs file was created, even when I ran SeaMonkey along with it's email program, Firefox and Thunderbird all at once, probably because there is only one version of the suite, SeaMonkey, now in the machine.

So maybe your problem is being caused by the information from your old Mozilla suite still being accessed in Version.regs.

Quit SeaMonkey and drag both those files into another folder. Then start SeaMonkey and see what happens. You could always quit SeaMonkey again and put both those files back if you need to.
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Offline RHPConsult

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« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2007, 02:15:24 PM »
WOW!  The HELP is coming thick and fast.

I'll file your useful suggestions D76, with many and sincere thank you's. I knew about that "other" Mozilla, I thought after a quick inspection that it certainly wasn't the repository of my real Profile

But, Paddy's suggestion, at least it's "opening moves", has me overawed, bowed and cowed. BINGO! in other words.

It was apparently the Directory in Server Settings– which I have been "manually" attempting to reorient, with no success, to no avail – which this time responded differently than in the past 7+ days..

For some reason this time Tools––>Switch Profile––>Manage Profile––>Create Profile––> went immediately to an unblemisherd Profile and – Boom! – there were all my subordinate Folders in Inbox, for all 3 accounts neatly displayed and filled with the correct messages.

Amazing.

I had been down that path several times this past week, but absent the instantaneous reponse, subsequent to which I had tried to insert what I was "sure" was the proper MAIL file, all severla 100 MBs of it. Today, I didn't even have to look for it, as the New Default Profile had it ready, waiting, and humming along. I had been mumbling to myself in recent days that SeaMonkey/Mozilla was designed by smart folks to work almost automatically and to operate and maintain itself. And sure enough . . .

Thanks Paddy!

Back to work! Aloha!!
« Last Edit: January 24, 2007, 02:18:06 PM by RHPConsult »
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2007, 04:42:12 PM »
Glad you got the Thunderbird/Profile/Mail thing working. Since I don't any of those, I could offer no suggestions.

As for the "How'd you do that" about the 'thumbnail', I think that's what you get if you use the 'full-fledged' Reply window and the "File Attachments" thingy near the bottom of that window. I'm not fond of it, since it opens in another tab the way I have FF set up. And it's easier for me to simply type my four character macro to insert the code for an off-site image. But I think you can upload a file from your hard drive with the attachment method, no uploading to web space required. It's a function The Empress turned on late last year, but it does use disk space on the TS servers, so if it is ever abused, you may lose the images in your posts.

If the above is not the way it is done, then dntknw.gif
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Offline Paddy

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« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2007, 05:37:00 PM »
Glad you got it working again, RHP!! biggrin.gif
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Offline jepinto

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« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2007, 06:30:42 PM »
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Jan 24 2007, 05:42 PM) [snapback]116903[/snapback]
Glad you got the Thunderbird/Profile/Mail thing working. Since I don't any of those, I could offer no suggestions.

As for the "How'd you do that" about the 'thumbnail', I think that's what you get if you use the 'full-fledged' Reply window and the "File Attachments" thingy near the bottom of that window. I'm not fond of it, since it opens in another tab the way I have FF set up. And it's easier for me to simply type my four character macro to insert the code for an off-site image. But I think you can upload a file from your hard drive with the attachment method, no uploading to web space required. It's a function The Empress turned on late last year, but it does use disk space on the TS servers, so if it is ever abused, you may lose the images in your posts.

If the above is not the way it is done, then dntknw.gif

Yes, that is the way it works
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Do not fear your enemies.  The worse they can do is kill you.  Do not fear friends.  At worst, they may betray you.
Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exist because of their silent consent.
~Bruno Jasienski~
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