IssueTracker

I created a thread on the android-developers forum related to this bug:
http://groups.google.com/group/android-
developers/browse_thread/thread/6caa57135927e242/86d4d895e88a5ebb?
lnk=gst&q=custom+account#86d4d895e88a5ebb

My personal theory is that Google broke this part of the API intentionally to keep
the lock-in on sync functionality they've enjoyed since Android 1.0.....

Also see the latter part of the Contacts FAQ thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/58c69a2ea5056a01

[Comment deleted]

Here's an intact link to the "Adding contacts to a custom account" thread that Carlo
refers to above:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/6caa57135927e242

ExternalSource.java bug

protected void inflate(Context context, XmlPullParser parser)
{
  final AttributeSet attrs = Xml.asAttributeSet(parser); << It can't read any
attributes from the ContactsDataKind tag. It should located blow the second while
loop.

  try
  {
    int type;
    while((type = parser.next()) != XmlPullParser.START_TAG &&
           type != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT)
    {
      // Drain comments and whitespace
    }

    if(type != XmlPullParser.START_TAG)
    {
        throw new IllegalStateException("No start tag found");
    }

    if(!InflateTags.CONTACTS_SOURCE.equals(parser.getName()))
    {
        throw new IllegalStateException("Top level element must be " +
              InflateTags.CONTACTS_SOURCE);
    }

               

Any feedback from Google guys?
It doesn't seem to be fixed in Android 2.2 and actually is going to be a blocking issue for third party sync providers. We cannot claim to sync contacts if the user cannot edit them.

Looking at the code, the fix is very easy (at least to let sync providers to use the same contact structure used by Google accounts).

Please let us know if and when you can work on this.