[Palm OS] DateBook: Praises, Questions & Requests

[metroeloise]

Date Book: Praises, Questions and Requests

One of the deal makers for me and the n800 is the availability of GVM. I anticipated the ability to run Date Book as a great thing. I had stopped using my Clie and missed it, mostly Date Book. While I had OS07 running I got GVM and was working on learning how to use it. Very exciting.

I was one of those few who had a n800 that would not flash to OS08. After a frustrating dance with Nokia, they did me right and sent me a new machine. During the wait I fired up the old Clie and reacquainted myself with it’s great features and limitations.

Date Book: Is there a better PIM anywhere? It is so very integrated, customizable, direct. The only thing missing is a spellcheck!

New n800 in hand and I got busy downloading and setting things up. Had read here that although GVM works, the PalmOS can’t access the sound functions. No alarms! Well that won’t do! Tried GPE and all of its pieces. Maybe I haven’t worked the setup correctly but To Do’s and the Calendar are not integrated! Not even the categories. Yikes. Back to Date Book.

So questions: is it true that Date Book doesn’t access the n800's sound? You can’t hear an alarm? Will Date Book sync with online PIMs using n800's WiFi? Will the non-Beta release of GVM address these issues? What is happening on the GVM development front?

I Have a Clie but have no need to sync it up with the GVM or my laptop. Can I use the Palm Desktop and HotSync Manager?

Although I am scheduling a dense round of Linux tutorials, I am aiming for competence with cl and structural understanding so I can follow directions in troubleshooting and setting up projects such as a USB host mode applet, not programing. What are the chances of getting either a feature rich, integrated PIM, such as Date Book written or enticing Palmico to port this over?

If we all asked pretty pretty pleas would they?

[dubwise]

Datebook under GVM does do sound, except that GVM sound doesn't really work.

There's Osmo, which is a toy, and GPE, which is coming along nicely but,
as you have noticed, light on features and not completely integrated.
There's no communication with the Maemo alarm system,
so if GPE calendar isn't running, you get no alarms.

The KDE PIM suite is pretty good, speaking as someone whose life
is completely dependent on his Tungsten C and DateBook5.
Google KDE and Kontact.

At the moment, you have to install all of KDE to get it on your Nokia,
which is a fair bit of hoo ha, and the performance is sluggish.
But it does work, and there are other people here using it.

There is a stand-alone version, kdepimpi (for platform independent)
that some people are working on porting. Search the forum and encourage them.

My hope is that that will be the one that will let me leave my Palm home.

[sungrove]

Sorry I don't know the answer to most of your questions, but I downloaded and installed Datebk5 last night and at least for now it appears to flawlessly sync with Palm Desktop. I recall an earlier thread here saying that Datebk6 wasn't working for them. For me the Date Book that came with GVM didn't sync.

Neil

[metroeloise]

DB5 works but not DK6? Will do a search for that and ask around. have 5 thinking of doing the up grade.
Here's another question (one I will soon have the knowledge to try!) what if, since apps in GVM can access wifi (and bluetooth?) what if there was a palm applet that watches for calls for sounds then gives a non-standard wifi (or bluetooth) signal while on the OS08 side there is an applet that listens for said signal and then makes a sound? If that works then drawing up a table of correspondence won't be hard at all! shoot we could get GVM to pass along most any information that way.

Just a thought. work graveyard and just woke up; coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

[metroeloise]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Datebook under GVM does do sound, except that GVM sound doesn't really work.

There's Osmo, which is a toy, and GPE, which is coming along nicely but,
as you have noticed, light on features and not completely integrated.
There's no communication with the Maemo alarm system,
so if GPE calendar isn't running, you get no alarms.

The KDE PIM suite is pretty good, speaking as someone whose life
is completely dependent on his Tungsten C and DateBook5.
Google KDE and Kontact.

At the moment, you have to install all of KDE to get it on your Nokia,
which is a fair bit of hoo ha, and the performance is sluggish.
But it does work, and there are other people here using it.

There is a stand-alone version, kdepimpi (for platform independent)
that some people are working on porting. Search the forum and encourage them.

My hope is that that will be the one that will let me leave my Palm home.

Will do the search and encourage them along! also will work on a request to Palmico; they must be able to read the writing on the wall. There would be 1000s of immediate sales of a fully ported version for ItT.

[Griff]

I think Metroeloise meant Pimlico (http://www.pimlicosoftware.com), not to be confused with the Pimlico project which is yet another PIM group. Ask me and I'd say the latter bunch "took" the name from CESD of Pimlico Software.

I got DB6 working to a point. Actually it works very well if you don't want saved views. When I tap the saved view diamond the list flashes up and then disappears. :-/

Have to be using the latest version of DB6 (i.e. beta). I had to install and run forcepims within the install package to force the program to use "legacy" databases and create the todo database. I copied the appropriate PDB files from my Palm TX and got my todo list working, couldn't get calendar working.

Promptly stopped any further testing when I found I couldn't select saved views, that said I may just have to try again this weekend and e-mail CESD if I can't get it working.

I've also hinted to CESD in the Datebk yahoo group that the N8x0 series would be a great platform to port to. I don't know that he'd care with 1000s of new customers considering he has millions now; I would think he'd want to see at least 100k new customers before trying to port to Maemo, but just a guess.

I'd also love to see ShadowPlan ported but don't think the developer has any plans...

It's a shame but we're early on really. It took a few years before PalmOS apps started coming out that were any good (Datebk is a noteable exception). Once people see the tablets selling and staying sold I think they'll attract the eyes of for-profit developers.

[metroeloise]

Thanks Griff for the information and correction. Keep us posted on the Datebk6 issues, please.
I feel that being early on is a great thing. it was one of the deal makers for me. I know that will mean getting a hardware up date at some point but then the n800 will make a great hand me down to my young nephew. maybe we can build a robot with it!

[dubwise]

what if there was a palm applet that watches for calls for sounds then gives a non-standard wifi (or bluetooth) signal while on the OS08 side there is an applet that listens for said signal and then makes a sound?

It's not that GVM doesn't support Nokia sound.
It's that the sound doesn't always work, which makes it completely useless for alarms.

Don't know why DB5 would sync when the Palm database didn't.
DB5 doesn't sync. It doesn't have a conduit. It just uses the Palm database.

[metroeloise]

It's not that GVM doesn't support Nokia sound.
It's that the sound doesn't always work, which makes it completely useless for alarms.

Don't know why DB5 would sync when the Palm database didn't.
DB5 doesn't sync. It doesn't have a conduit. It just uses the Palm database.

Lost here:confused:
Datebook's sound always worked. So is there a way around this? might my suggestion work more reliably?

as for sync-ing can there be a script that simply replaces (as in swaps) the file with what is one the PC? that isn't as full featured as a smart sync but it can work. just remember which was the last you modified and swap over.

more better: this swap could work with DateBook's multiple calender feature. then sync within the program. export the working one from the IiT to the PC. Modify on the PC and swap with the current "swap" calender. go into DateBook and sync that into "Working" calender. then replace the "swap" one.

If this works in principle then a script could be made?

[dubwise]

Lost here:confused:
Datebook's sound always worked. So is there a way around this? might my suggestion work more reliably?

Datebook's sound still always works. GVM's doesn't.
GVM is just a proof of concept. It's semi-functional.
When it crashes it tends to obliterate all of your Palm data, as well.

as for sync-ing can there be a script that simply replaces (as in swaps) the file with what is one the PC?

GVM doesn't give us access to the individual files on the Nokia.

[metroeloise]

Datebook's sound still always works. GVM's doesn't.
GVM is just a proof of concept. It's semi-functional.
When it crashes it tends to obliterate all of your Palm data, as well.



GVM doesn't give us access to the individual files on the Nokia.

OK. I think I get this and thank you for the learning. Just some clarification (I am a little dense):

Can a palm applet be written to watch for and do an action, like when there is a sound call from an application? This would be within GVM.
Does GVM access the n800's hardware wifi/bluetooth? Can it send and receive files? Any limitations on this? So send to the net, to my computer, to the n800? is this part stable? Can a GVM applet be written to accept incoming files and do a script on them? Place them, copy over existing file? Can GVM talk with n800 via wifi or bluetooth? Wifi and bluetooth are bi-directional? Sort of like they are both virtual machines within a shared hardware.

If GVM can be stable enough to do these things, which are the only things I really need for it to do, then we are golden! The PC part of the scripts ought be a walk in the park.

If GVM can't do these things then when it can it will be a good thing, until then, it is a successful and interesting proof of concept.

The next non-beta will be a great improvement too! Good work to those that worked on this! Hope GVM's development will continue.

In the mean time I need a DateBook level PIM.

[metroeloise]

Wow "Sungrove's" adventures with DBk is very cool. Recounted into the threadtitled: "Can't get GVM to work." DBk5 can sync (with a little help from friends)
Now sounds and stable enough to depend on!

Thanks so dubwise: Any ideas on how to write a little applet to listen for sound calls? From the GVM side and then access the WiFi?

[ArgentSilver]

I've been using GVM on a daily basis for several weeks now, and my experience is:
1. Palm apps running under GVM that try to make sounds are not just unsuccessful, they crash the GVM. However, I've done this several times and never had any serious data loss. I only had to restart the GVM.
2. There is very little access to hardware "outside" the GVM. So when you are working under the GVM you have no access to bluetooth, wifi or SD card. Getting things in or out of the GVM is accomplished from the top GVM window (before "launch", as it were). For data in and out you can do a network hotsync. For data in you can get files onto your memory or SD card (via connecting cable or bluetooth or however) and tell the GVM to "install" them. It will do that even for data files. Unfortunately, that option cannot be used for data out. This has impications for keeping backups. If you don't or can't use hotsync, then how do you back up your data? My choice is to use rsync daily on the Nokia to backup the /home/user/.gvm directory to my external SD card. That backs up the whole virtual machine. Not good for restoring individual data files, but if you had a disaster, you can restore your whole virtual machine after reinstalling the GVM software.

I hope Access fixes the sound bugs and continues the GVM after it's expiration date. I'll be using it!

[sjgadsby]

So when you are working under the GVM you have no access to bluetooth, wifi or SD card.

I've had some success running PalmVNC over WiFi from within Garnet VM. It certainly connected to my Windows desktop at work and displayed my Windows session. After only a minute or two the connection dropped, but I didn't investigate why. It's likely I had the VNC server misconfigured in some way, as I don't normally use VNC. I had only installed it to check that Garnet VM could "see" my Windows desktop across subnets during my troubleshooting of the VM's network HotSync capability.

Regardless, networking from within Garnet VM over my N800's WiFi connection worked.

[TA-t3]

Networking works from GVM, via the Nokia's network stack. It doesn't have "direct" access to wi-fi or Bluetooth though, which is fine as far as tcp/ip networking is concerned - you can have your IT online via wi-fi, bluetooth, or presumably usb networking if you can get that working, and this is transparent to GVM - it just uses the "network" virtual interface.

However, it would be nice if GVM could use the non-networking part of BT directly (i.e. everything not BT DUN/PAN). And even more important, if it could just see the SD card.. as it is now it's a bit incommunicado, as been said already. Hopefully that's the first thing Access will fix in the hypothetical next release.

[ArgentSilver]

And even more important, if it could just see the SD card.. as it is now it's a bit incommunicado, as been said already. Hopefully that's the first thing Access will fix in the hypothetical next release.

Agree completely. For backup purposes, and just general usability, you really need to be able to move data into and out of the SD card.