Awesome Addressbook for Netbook Remix

If you manage your contacts with Thunderbird addressbook, you’ll want to know how to quickly open the addressbook separately to look up a contact. I’ll show you how.   I use Thunderbird IMAP to manage my Gmail account and am very pleased with it, but sometimes I want to see just my contacts and not all my Thunderbird email first. Here’s how:

Option 1: Press ALT-F2 and enter in the “Run Application” box mozilla-thunderbird -addressbook.
Option 2: Add to your gnome panel a custom launcher using that command.
Option 3: Add to your netbook favorites menu an Addressbook launcher.

But option 3 is the best setup so I’ll show you how:

In the Ubuntu menu, go Preferences–>Main Menu–>Accessories (you can add it under Office or wherever you like) Click the “+New Item” button. A “Create Launcher” window comes up. (In my latest version of “9.10 Karmic Netbook Remix” there’s a bug that doesn’t show the labels.) Here’s what I enter: Application, Addressbook, mozilla-thunderbird -addressbook, Thunderbird Tool.

Click the icon on the upper left to change the icon. I used the one from my old “Contacts” app (see bottom). OK your choices then go back to the Ubuntu menu–>Accessories (or wherever you added it). Right click to add it to your favourites. Done!  I’ve also enjoyed a Favourites drop down menu added to my gnome bar on the top right. Addressbook fast and easy! Here’s a screenshot of what my netbook setup looks like:

If you use Evolution, a great little gnome app in Ubuntu is “Contacts” which quickly opens your Evolution addressbook for managing contacts. I used it side by side with Evolution for a year and liked it. I would continue using it but I haven’t figured out how to export Thunderbird contacts into it. So I’ll just stick with using the Thunderbird addressbook. Adding a launcher for the Thunderbird Addressbook like a separate mini app makes “Contacts” pointless anyway.