JBramham said

When adding a new contact I used to be able to choose which of my many address books to add it to. I'm suddenly unable to do this.I am now presented with the collected names of everyone in all of my address books and am not given the opportunity to add any details at all. Please help!

It seem strange that we are the only (in the whole world) to have this problem!

Yep. Can you offer a screenshot demonstrating the issue? I appreciate that it's difficult to show address books without sharing your contacts' addresses, but it's usually possible to blur or blot out sensitive material.

I'm not clear under what circumstances this happens. Are you adding an address from a received email message, or going directly to the Address Book and entering a new Contact "by hand"? Or is this in the Contacts Sidebar in the Write window?

Hello Zenos, Many thanks for your interest. I'm trying to add a new address directly into the "Address Book" but "New Contact" is faded-out and not accessible. Normally I click "New Contact" and then get a choice of which address book to enter the details. John

When you first open 'Address Book', the toolbar will show: New Contacts, New List, Properties, Write and Delete. All of these with the exception off 'Write' will be auto greyed out and not selectable. You must select an address book first to enable those options.

This maybe due to the current default opening on 'All address Books' where you cannot add a contact.

'All Address Books' is really only useful for performing a search on all address books. It offers you the ability to do a manual search on all address books which was previously not available.

Unfortunately, Thunderbird will default to this every time you open 'Address Book', so until the people dealing with bugs does something about this school boy error; I'm amazed they considered that the Address Book should default to a search folder, so currently, you are stuck with constantly needing to do a load more clicks than should be necessary. Hopefully, they will fix this soon and allow the user to select an address book and Thunderbird will remember it, so rendering the 'All Address Books' only usable when selected.

Yes, that explains the problem but I still don't know how to solve my problem. I still can't add a new contact into an address book.

Not even if you deliberately select, say, Personal Address Book?

Anje, we see a lot of requests to be able to search the Address Book in its entirety. The people have got what they asked for. My guess is that the devs thought most users go to the Address Book primarily to search for a Contact, and writing to the Address Book (e.g. adding or editing a Contact) is a less common activity. So defaulting to "All Address Books" probably suits the anticipated primary use case.

Those of us who use autofill don't care too much which address book a Contact is stored in. ;-)

This "All Address Books" change really hits those who find it convenient to browse the Contacts Sidebar, and there have been a few grumbles about this on the newsgroup. I agree that having it remember the last used address book would be a better implementation.

JBramham: Are you saying that after selecting another address book such as 'Personal Address Book', (not 'All Address Books') the 'New Contact' is still greyed out? In other words, is it greyed out no matter what address book you select?

Toad-Hall said

JBramham: Are you saying that after selecting another address book such as 'Personal Address Book', (not 'All Address Books') the 'New Contact' is still greyed out? In other words, is it greyed out no matter what address book you select?

No. In the past, when i wanted to add a new contact, I would click "Address Book", then click "New Contact" and then I could select which address book to use. I'm no longer able to do this because "New Contact" is greyed-out. So, I'm still not able to add a new contact at all!

Somehow we are not on the same page. You do not seem to be following instructions.

Old Method for adding contacts. In the past, when i wanted to add a new contact, I would click "Address Book", then click "New Contact" and then I could select which address book to use. I'm no longer able to do this because "New Contact" is greyed-out.

That is no longer the method to use.

New method for adding contacts: Click on 'Address Book' to open Address Book. It will default to 'All Address Books' which you cannot use to add contacts. You must select the required address book first. So, click on 'Personal Address Book' or another address book and then click on 'New Contact'.

If you can only see 'All Address Books', click on the small triangle located to the left of 'All Address Books', it will change to a small black triangle and display all your address books including 'Personal Address Book'.

I agree, we are most certainly not on the same page!

I can see no way of selecting an address book. After clicking "Address Book" there is no reference to any address book on the screen, not even "All Address Book" and I cannot locate any black triange to display the list of address books.

I'm obviously doing something wrong but I don't know what.

In the Address Book's menu, View|Layout|Directory Pane should be checked.

(No menu? Hold down the <alt> key, tap V)

I really don't know why there is an option to disable that side pane; the Address Book is virtually unusable without it.

Open your address book window. Do you have a Menu Bar with File-Edit-View etc showing? If not press the alt key to make it appear. Now from the Menu Bar select View-Layout-Directory Pane. The directory pane should appear along the left side of the window and show folders for all your address books so you can select one.

Looks like Zenos got this one covered and types faster than me. :)

No matter. These things are easy when you know about them, but hard to explain, especially when such a fundamental feature as the Menu can't be relied upon.

I keep thinking I must write something about how to use the wretched Application Menu, but then you find it isn't always there, so you have to explain toolbar customization too. It's a real mess. :-(

To the OP: by the way, the black triangle as described earlier is somewhat unpredictable. In my preferred theme, it's shown as a + or - symbol. Toad Hall is using a different theme and sees the arrows. You may have something entirely different.

SOLVED

Many thanks to everyone who offered advise.

A grateful John