scurrie | # 1 | 2007-12-31, 23:57 | Report

Well, I'm about to give up, but I'll make one last desperate plea: has anyone successfully imported contact data from a Palm device to GPE contacts on the N800? I've tried every way I can think of. The Vcard support in GPE and gpesyncd doesn't seem to like anything I give it, even a simple card with just name and phone number fails. I tried to get Opensync running on my Ubuntu machine, but I can't seem to find a plug-in that will work with my Zire71 (and I'm not really sure what I would do with the data if I could sync it anyway).

Is my only choice re-typing all my contacts?

-Scurrie

DJames1 | # 2 | 2008-01-01, 01:55 | Report

Just PDF them if you only want to carry them around for reference.

achitnis | # 3 | 2008-01-01, 04:18 | Report

sync your palm device with kpilot, grab the resulting vcf file from kaddressbook and import it into openhand's version of the gpe contacts application. took me all of 2 minutes.

DJames1 | # 4 | 2008-01-01, 16:42 | Report

achitnis, are you saying that you successfully got GPE Contacts to import a vcf file containing more than one vcard contact? I've tried that, but GPE Contacts always chokes with an unspecified error. Are you using any special version of GPE Contacts? Can you open your vcf file with a text editor and see what the format looks like? Post an example of one contact maybe?

kudos1uk | # 5 | 2008-01-01, 17:46 | Report

This:

http://cobb.uk.net/770/index.html#opensync

Suggests you can sync contacts over bluetooth with a mobile phone, if this is the case (it looks a bit beyond me) and your phone was in sync with Outlook it could be possible, assuming I have understood the article correctly.

Edit: also a sync method being worked on here (not ready yet).
http://www.pimlico-project.org/

I also found this which claims to work too.
http://www.cleardefinition.com/page/...d_GPE_on_N800/

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Last edited by kudos1uk; 2008-01-01 at 17:54.

DJames1 | # 6 | 2008-01-04, 17:58 | Report

Ok, some progress: I have found that I can export all my online Yahoo Contacts to a single VCF file (Yahoo is also good at importing contacts from other sources, so it's a good Contacts exchange mechanism).

I can then (in theory) import multiple contacts in one VCF file to gpe Contacts on the N800. I don't really care about sync, since this can be done occasionally as a one-shot update.

Unfortunately I have to say that vCard importer in gpe Contacts is one of the least robust pieces of software I have ever encountered (I have a more colorful description, but I don't think you need to hear it ). It's incredibly picky about what it will accept, and it if there's a single error anywhere in the entire import file, it aborts without importing anything, and displays only "Import failed" with no indication of what or where the error was.

So far in about 100 tests I have gotten about 1/2 of my contacts imported, stumbling over one error after another by process of elimination. I obviously haven't found them all yet. Here's some of the ones I know about:
- While gpe Contacts will accept the qualification "CHARSET=UTF-8" (used by Yahoo), it apparently doesn't know what that is, so special characters in the forms =hh or &#hhh; or &code; will not be translated.
- Any appearance of any of these codes in the N or FN (name) fields will cause import of the VCF file to fail
- Since the "=" character has special meaning in VCF files (line continuation), any other appearance of this character in the file at all causes import to fail
- gpe Contacts also doesn't like single or double quote characters to appear anywhere, or it will cause import of the file to fail
- Yahoo uses a 2-digit number in the Rev field, while gpe Contacts apparently expects a date+time value in the format used by Outlook. Instead of being ignored, the Yahoo 2-digit value causes import of the file to fail.

And BTW, editing a VCF file with Windows Notepad corrupts it invisibly for Linux purposes by adding a 3 character UTF-8 marker header to the file (EF BB BF - I have to remember to remove it with Hexedit after every edit).

Thank goodness for Wizard Mounter allowing direct access between systems, or these tests would take forever. I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to develop a simple set of automated edits to apply that will let me transfer the entire Yahoo file in one shot.

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Last edited by DJames1; 2008-01-04 at 19:21.

DJames1 | # 7 | 2008-01-05, 17:59 | Report

Yes! Success! Finally.

Another 50 or so failed test imports, three more bugs found, and it's done.

- For some reason, some accented characters (like e accent acute) slip through Yahoo's export filter without being translated to UTF-8 representation - apparently there's some disagreement about whether this is required. They cause gpe Contacts to choke on the file.

- Yahoo exports the Birthday field with only a single digit (no leading zero) for single-digit months and days. I count that as a silly bug in Yahoo's exporter. But gpe Contacts, instead of ignoring the field or misreading it, chokes on the file.

- My Yahoo Contacts list has managed somehow to accumulate a few Yahoo Messenger ID entries which have only a messenger ID and no name field. For these entries Yahoo exports a vCard with no name fields. That of course causes gpe Contacts to choke on the file.

After fixing these 10 or so errors/incompatibilities in the Yahoo Contacts vcf export file, the entire file with about 300 contacts imports successfully to gpe Contacts on the N800.

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Last edited by DJames1; 2008-01-05 at 19:17.

DJames1 | # 8 | 2008-01-05, 19:21 | Report

In case anyone was wondering how to quickly get rid of all existing gpe contacts when doing an all-contacts update import, you can find the contacts database file in directory ~/.gpe. Shell there with X-Term and "rm contacts" to delete it. gpe Contacts will create a new empty file on next run.

mich.bruus | # 9 | 2008-01-13, 22:23 | Report

Hi

I tried to import just one single contact by making a .vcf (from MS Outlook 2007).
No succes.
If I open the vcf it contains a lot of stuff (crap created by MS??) that makes no sense to me - might be the problem.
Any way to get rid of this?
And any way of making a single vcf for the entire collection of contacts? (Still from Outlok).
Likewise: Is it possible to export calendar either from Outlook or Oracle into a file that GPE calendar will accept?
This will of course not be sync, but better than nothing...
I'm on a n810.

I have also tried installing KDE - so far not succesfully.
But would I get better calendar/contacts sync from that?
bruus@daimi.au.dk

Cptnodegard | # 10 | 2008-01-15, 07:01 | Report

hmm weird seeing people have so much trouble with this, i found it to be quite easy to transfer contacts. All i did was find an doption called send all contacts on my cell, choose bluetooth, and open the file in gpe contacts. worked on first try