Address Book ability to move contacts to other sub address groups

[Suect]

I have various address book groups, one for current tenants, and one for old.  Before Modzilla was changed, I just dragged the contacts into the new group.  Now I cannot do that, or find any option to move a contact into a different address group.  I have an address book for new tenants and when they leave I put them in "old tenant" address group.  While I was able to add the tenant to "Old tenants" when I went to delete them from the new tenant address book I lost the contact in both.

Please try and fix the address book to the way it was set up prior to the changes, it was much better a few years ago.  

[Jon]

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[Toad-Hall]

Not sure exactly about your setup but here is some info that may help explain what is going on. I'm offering this information as a help guide as it may apply in your case.

In 'Address Books' :

The 'All Address Books' is not a true address book, it is a virtual address book containing all contacts from all address books. So it's like a search result of everything.

'Personal Address Book', 'Collected Addresses' and any other 'Address Book you import or create by clicking on 'New Address Book' will be a true address book and contacts are stored in an sqlite file for that address book.

Any contact in any 'Address Book' can be moved (drag and drop) to any other 'Address Book'.

'Mailing Lists' can also be created as subgroups to an Address Book. They are not separate address books nor stored as a separate file. They are also a virtual display.

Any contact in an 'Address Book' can be shown in any of that address books subgroups/Mailing Lists. A contact in 'Address book ' eg: 'Personal Address Book' cannot be moved directly into another address books subgroups/Mailing Lists. It can only be added to subgroups of 'Personal Address Book'.

A contact must exist in an Address Book in order to be displayed in one of it's subgroups/mailing lists. When you select to show a contact in a subgroup - a type of label/tag is applied to that contact, so it can be virtually displayed in the subgroup. This means any contact can appear in any number of subgroups/mailing lists which are subgroups to the same Address Book containing the contact.

This has always been the set up. 

re: your comment " I have an address book for new tenants and when they leave I put them in "old tenant" address group. "

If you have an 'Address Book' called 'New Tenants' and it has a subgroup/mailing list called 'Old Tenants', then you can drag a contact from 'New Tenants' address book and put it in 'Old Tenants' subgroup. But if then go back into the 'New Tenants' address book and delete that contact, it will get deleted so it cannot be displayed in any of the virtual subgroups because it does not exist.

The issue you describe sounds like you are doing the above.

What can you do? Here are a couple of setups you could use.

1. Use Address Book with Subgroup/mailing lists.

Create an address Book called 'Tenants' and then setup two subgroups/mailing lists for that 'Tenants' address book. You could call them 'New Tenants' and 'Old Tenants'.

All tenants get added to the 'Tenants' address book and all new tenants can then be dragged into the 'New Tenants' subgroup. In other words, you have now applied a special tag to that contact so they can be virtually seen in the 'New Tenants' subgroup. Once that tenant is no longer a current tenant, but you want to keep a record, you delete the contact from the 'New Tenants' sub group and then access the 'Tenants' address book and drag and drop tenant into the 'Old Tenants' subgroup.At no point do you delete any contact from the 'Tenants' address book unless you really need to delete that contact.

2. The alternative :use two separate 'Address Books' - not subgroups.

One is called 'New Tenants' and one is called 'Old Tenants'. Then you simply drag and drop from 'New Tenabt' into 'Old Tenants'. You do not need to delete anything because the move between address books will 'move' the contact.

[ke7zum]

I would love to see a keyboard only version of this implmentation. I as a keyboard only user / screen reader user cannot drag drop between  address books  or subgroups. A right click function would also be ideal for those of who cannot use drag / drop. A list of address books and or sub groups would ideally appear  for the contact to be moved / copied to.

[bluewanderer]

I think Suect's point is that a relatively arbitrary change was made that makes the software harder to use. To bring home this point, Toad-Hall's recommendation will not work if you have mailing lists in the separate address books. You would have to "move" the address to the other address book, then add them to the correct mailing lists.

I would recommend to Suect that he creates one address book, "tenants" which includes 2 mailing lists, "old tenants" and "new tenants".  Then the addresses can be copied, and new mailing lists can be created easily. 

Does anyone know WHY you can not drag a contact from a mailing list in one address book to a mailing list on a different address book? 

Does anyone know WHY ON EARTH if you drag a contact from a mailing list to another mailing list it copies the email address, but if you drag to an address book  it moves the contact?