LinuxQuestions.org - HOWTO: New format for Distribution Lists in KaddressBook

Just installed PCLINUXOS 093a "Big Daddy" onto my wife's machine, which used to run Mepis/Ubuntu. PCLOS is very fast, and prettier too. But I ran into a hitch when converting data from old profile to new. Both OSes run KDE3.53, but they handle Kaddressbook differently. Under PCLOS the Distribution Lists are integrated into the standard VCF file under /home/user/.kde/share/apps/kabc. There used to be a file called distlists. Follows instructions for migrating data manually, until somebody cleverer than me makes a utility to do this:
1. Open up old distlists file in kate. Print it too, if it is large. Leave kate open with this file.
2. Go into Kaddressbook (hereafter KABC)(or Contacts in Kontact). Settings> Show Extension Bar > Distribution List Editor.
3. For each old list you had create a new list with the New List.. button. DON'T populate it. Keep creating new lists.
4. Make sure Kontact,etc. is closed. Right-click-quit by the clock is usual.
5. Open up another kate window, being the current std.vcf file in /home/user/.kde/share/apps/kabc.
6. Now comes the tricky part. In the std.vcf file use CTRL-F to bring up find, then find the point where the first of your distribution lists are. It looks like this: (at least it did on our pc)

BEGIN:VCARD
FN:relatives
N:relatives;;;;
UID:n3QJHLSPMY
VERSION:3.0
X-KADDRESSBOOK-DistributionList:;
END:VCARD

You can see here that the list was called relatives. You can choose your friends...;)

7. Now go into the other kate window with distlists open. You should have something like this:
[Distribution Lists]
Relatives=wm0rh3b40B,,FxWNYeS9p7,,R9TWpcOMdf,,oNgkqClsNf,,9rJRCZrI5U,,8fyYfrHLE9,,9gXY0dgnTy,,vyi0bC zBWY,,Mo13LoISG3,

8. Use click and drag to select everything after the "=", except if a new list starts. Press CTRL C (to copy to Klipboard memory.)

9. Go to kate window with std.vcf open. at this point "X-KADDRESSBOOK-DistributionList:;" you want to follow the semicolon with the text you just copied. Press CTRL V. Don't go away yet, you're not done!

10. In the same kate window, reselect what you just pasted in, using click and drag to select.

11. Now press CTRL R. The replace window comes up. Very important: in Text to Find you type the two commas ,, in replacement text it must be \,; (backslash comma semicolon). MAKE SURE the ONLY cross for selection of options is in the SELECTED TEXT box. Then click Replace.

12.Click Stop ( you don't want to do any more ).

13. Now the unique codes are in place for the distribution list. BUT you must follow the last code for each list like such:
X-KADDRESSBOOK-DistributionList:;wm0rh3b40B\,;FxWNYeS9p7\,;R9TWpcOMdf\,;oNgkqClsNf\,;9rJRCZrI5U\,;8fyYfrHLE9\,;9gXY 0dgnTy\,;vyi0bCzBWY\,;Mo13LoISG3\,

Note the ending backslash then comma.

14. Repeat from step 6 onwards until all lists are done.

15. Close the kate window with std.vcf, and then reopen KABC / Kontact to check it. If all went well you just saved yourself from the dog-kennel for another week!

Of course this all would have been academic had the KDE developer in charge of the KABC project made the distribution lists export with the VCF format. Maybe now that will happen in the future.