We just released the Dash Email Contacts Importer. With this small application you will be able to import CSV files from any email system so that you can use your email contacts with Dash, even if you don’t have Windows Address book.

Download it here

(Report problems by opening a support ticket )

The wizard will guide your through the import process, but you will need to export your contacts first, so here are guides for exporting your contacts to a CSV file in most email systems:

Outlook

1. In Outlook, on the File menu, click Import and Export.
2. Click Export to a file, and then click Next.
3. Click Comma Separated Values (Windows), and then click Next.
4. In the folder list, click the Contacts folder, and then click Next.
5. Browse to the folder where you want to save the contacts as a .csv file.
6. Type a name for the exported file, and then click OK.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.

Thunderbird

1. In Thunderbird, select Window | Address Book from the menu.
2. Highlight the desired address book in the Address Books list.
   • If you are not sure which to select, choose Personal Address Book.
3. Select Tools | Export… from the menu.
4. Make sure Comma Separated (*.csv) is set under Format:.
5. Choose a location (your Desktop, for example) and file name.
6. Click Save.

Gmail

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
3. Click Export in the upper-right corner of your Contacts list.
4. Select the format in which you’d like to export your contacts’ information.
   • Gmail CSV (for import into another Gmail account): formats your contacts’ information so you can easily import it into another Gmail account.
     • This option encodes your CSV file in Unicode/UTF-8.
   • Outlook CSV (for import into Outlook clients, including Outlook Express): formats your contacts’ information so you can easily import it into various versions of Microsoft Outlook.
     • This option encodes your CSV file based on your language preferences, since Outlook doesn’t accept Unicode files. When you import your contacts into Outlook, some entries may become garbled if they contain characters that aren’t part of your language’s character set.
5. Click Export Contacts.
6. Select a location to save your file, and click OK.

Hotmail

1. Select Contacts from the top Hotmail navigation bar.
2. Click Print View.
3. Highlight the contents of the table (including the headings Name, E-Mail and Phone as well as all your contacts) with the mouse.
4. Press Ctrl-C , to copy the table.
5. Create a new spreadsheet document in Excel or OpenOffice.org.
6. Select Edit | Paste from the menu.
7. Look for rows that have the E-Mail column empty.
8. You can sort the data by the column to find and manipulate them en bloc.
9. If you have any email addresses in the first, the Name column, cut and paste them to the second, the E-Mail column.
10. In the E-Mail column, remove all whitespace characters.
    • In Excel, right-click in an email field and select Column | Trim from the menu.
    • In OpenOffice.org, you can search for “[:space:]+$” (excluding the quotation marks), making sure Regular expressions is checked under More Options, and replace it with nothing.
11. Select File | Save As… from the menu.
12. Make sure you use CSV (Comma delimited)(*.csv) or Text CSV (.csv) or a similar format involving “CSV” for saving the file.

Yahoo Mail

1. Click the down arrow next to the Addresses tab in the Yahoo! Mail navigation bar.
2. Select Import Contacts from the menu.
3. Look for Yahoo! CSV under Export and click Export Now.
4. Click Save when prompted what to do with the file download.
5. Choose the location where you want to save the Yahoo.csv copy of your Yahoo! Mail address book.

This update corrects some important issues with 0.94.

• Fixed Docs and Files\Settings.ini file getting corrupted after 0.94 installation
• Self-repair of the Settings.ini file in case it is corrupted to avoid Access Violations and I/O errors when trying to write to the file
• Enhanced code for browsing through Network drives (it should pick up your network drives again)
• Fixed a few problems with HTTP encoding so that searches like 3+ 4 or at&t can be performed
• Updated CMD keyword and fixed some parsing problems with the command line
• Dash Notes (still beta) now saves notes properly to the AppData Dash folder
• Error report collecting is now done invisibly in a separate thread so that you don’t get distracted (please provide your email when sending an error report because that way we can contact you with fixes and can keep better track of issues)

There are other miscellaneous technical/performance fixes.

This update will automatically be downloaded upon startup. If you have version 0.94, type Update to force an update.

For any support issues open a ticket here.

If you want to leave comments please use the forums, since people tend not to use real email addresses we cannot possibly contact them to offer support.

This version has focused on providing support for regular user accounts and preventing issues with permissions which have been bothering several users. Along with this change, we also concentrated in correcting all major crash issues. We also corrected many important bugs and added quite a few new features.

More than 50 fixes and additions!

This update will not be automatically performed by Dash because we changed some essential installation structures. All current users will receive a Full Installation file (not just an update). The link for download is being sent to each user through our user database mailing list, which due to Spam prevention measures from our internet provider, will take a few hours.

Fixes:

• Dash will now copy all user data to the local app data folder to avoid problems with permissions and to allow all regular users to have their own Dash settings.
• Dash Executables are kept in the installation folder, presumably …Program Files\DashCommand\
• Missing keywords, Volume Not found and quite a few other errors were caused by permissions. Now that Dash saves all data to the local App Data folder, these issues are gone.
• Update verification done through a per user version number check
• Autorun shortcut correctly updated when Dash runs
• Dashlog.txt error on startup eliminated
• External application clipboard applications not interfering now
• Email body problem with HTTP encoding corected
• Notify Icon code replaced, no more errors on shutdown
• Keyword .kw files deleted properly when a scan job is deleted
• Capturing selection no longer “restores” the window in some situations
• Fixed Screensaver internal command
• DashLauncher will not run DashCommand when update is downloaded via web
• Command Line windows now stay open after being invoked by Dash
• Parsing Fix for CMD. (ex. cmd TAB ipconfig /all ENTER )
• Dash dialogs will now center properly in dual monitor setups
• A couple focusing problems fixed
• Reset Bar menu item will change and SAVE the position of the Dash bar now

Additions:

• Installer will backup previous installation (Installation path\DashCommand\Backup)
• Dash will backup Application Data automatically when updating files (local application data\DashCommandBackup)
• Added About and version information to tray icon menu
• Tray Icon now shows Dash on left click
• Tray Icon shows menu on right click
• ESC key closes Dash dialogs
• Error Beep is now disabled as well when sounds are disabled
• Default scanners are better protected from deletion
• Default scanners now use dynamic paths which get updated on each run (only default paths so far)
• Message notification system in place, extensive usage for informing the user of different things is coming up
• Environment variables expand correctly now (ex. %WINDIR%)
• Enhanced selection grabbing functions
• Dash logs enahanced and extensive, to allow for much faster and better customer support
• Enhanced Error trapping, logging and automatic reporting added
• Close Window command now displays icon for application
• Added “Start In” folder parameter to keywords
• New Internal Dash command: Paste String (See HTML tag keywords for examples on how it works)
• New Internal Dash command: Paste File (Can paste the text from a text file. See Signature & Greeting keywords)
• New Internal Dash command: WinMessage (path: DashCmd WinMessage Arguments: Handle,Message,wparam,lparam)
• New Internal Dash variable: *Selection* . Will get the current text or file selection without requiring the user to press TAB after the command (see HTML tag keywords).
• New Internal Dash variable: *DashDataPath*
• New Internal Dash variable: *DashInstallPath*
• New Keyword: Update
• New Keyword: Backup
• New Keyword: Standby
• New Keyword: Hibernate
• New Keyword: Lock Workstation
• New Keyword: Dash Data Folder
• New Keyword: Dash Installation Folder
• New Keyword: Signature. Will paste a signature from the Paste Files folder into a text box.
• New Keyword: Greeting. Same as above but expects the user to enter the name of a person.
• New Library for adding HTML tags to selected text. Examples:
  • Select some text, call Dash, type Bold ENTER, and the text selection will be surrounded by <b> </b>.
  • Select a URL, call DAsh, type Anchor TAB Name of the link ENTER, and the selected URL will be replaced by <a href=”URL”>Name of the link</a>
  • Etc… look for more keywords by calling Dash and typing HTML