How to fill address from address book into "To" field?

[pstover]

Assume I want to write a new message. After opening the write msg pane I click into "To:" entry field and want to add an existing contact from address book.

Maybe I am stupid: But how do I do this?

The context menu shows no entry "add address from address book".

In the past I typed mostly the mails manually into "To": field or started from the Address Book and selected "Write" context menu over there.
But now I want to do it the other way round: Open at first the write pane and THEN add addresses.

This MUST work somehow.

But how?

Peter

[DanRaisch]

Starting to type an address into the "To:" field should trigger Thunderbird to display a list of likely addresses to match what is being entered. That is, if there is a contact in the address book for "John Smith" typing "Joh" or "Sm" into the "To:" field would cause TB to display a drop down list including "John Smith", "John Anderson", "Robert Smith", etc. The desired contact can be selected either by using the arrow keys to move down/up the list to highlight the entry and then pressing "Enter" or by clicking on the entry with the mouse.

Alternatively, in the "Write" window, using menu path View->Contact Sidebar will display address book data in a pane on the left of the Windows, from which any contact can be selected and then dragged and dropped to the "To:" field or by right clicking on the entry and choosing "Add to "To" field", etc. from the context menu.