SYMBFS - Symbian Filesystem plugin for Total Commander

Version : 0.4 (BETA)

Date : 11/21/2004

Author : Ralf Saborowski (sabo@sabo-zone.de)

License and disclaimer agreement

This license and disclaimer statement constitutes a legal agreement ("License Agreement") between you (either as an individual or a single entity) and Ralf Saborowski ("Author"), for this software product ("Software"), including any software, media, and accompanying on-line or printed documentation.

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This software is provided "as is" and without any warranties expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of the Software is at your sole risk.

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This software is freeware. Copyright 2004 Ralf Saborowski. You can use this software royalty-free for private and commercial purposes. As freeware you are permitted to distribute this archive subject to the following conditions

- The archive must be distributed without modification to the contents of the archive. Redistributing this archive with any files added, removed or modified is prohibited.

- No charge may be made for this archive other than that to cover the cost of its distribution. If a fee is charged it must be made clear to the purchaser that the archive is freeware and that the fee is to cover the distributor's costs of providing the archive.

Purpose:

The plugin allows Total Commander to access the file system of Symbian based mobile devices. This provides a convenient way of transferring files (e.g. JPGs, ring tones, application files in the software development cycle) between desktop PC and mobile device.

So far the plugin has either been successfully tested by the author or the
author has received reports of it working for the following devices:

- Nokia 6600 (IR)
- Nokia 3650 (Bluetooth)
- Nokia N-Gage QD (Bluetooth)
- Siemens SX1 (USB)
- Sony Ericsson P900

Unfortunately not all Symbian based phones, in particular the Symbian OS 7 based phones except the 6600, support the Symbian Connect QI Runtime. These phones will not be accessible through the plugin. For more details see

http://www3.symbian.com/faq.nsf/0/A88D7782EAB7932E80256ED80039DCF1?OpenDocument

Since I don't have access to any of the newer phones not supporting Symbian QI Connect, I'm currently unable to research supporting these phones.

Complain to Nokia and ask them to build transparent support for OBEX into the Symbian QI Connect runtime layer.

Installation:

The SYMBFS plugin is based on the Symbian Connect QI API. For details on this API visit:

http://www.symbian.com/developer/downloads/tools.html#connect

Symbian Connect QI is a layer on top of the native PC/device communication mechanism (mRouter). Unfortunately I could not find any public information on the mRouter API so I chose to use the Symbian Connect QI API, although it is COM based and I consider COM one of the most unnecessary things in the world (besides .NET of course).

In order for the plugin to work both mRouter and the Symbian Connect QI API runtime must be installed.

mRouter is usually installed by the software that ships with the phone. So make sure you have the PC/device connectivity software installed.

The Symbian Connect QI Runtime is included in the full package. To install it execute "SCRuntimeSetup22.exe". If you already have it installed (because for example you downloaded and installed the full package of an earlier version) you might just download the plugin only archive.

Once these 2 components are installed, copy SYMBFS.WFX to the "plugin" subdirectory of your Total Commander installation and register the plugin in Total Commander through

Configuration -> Options -> Operation-> FS-Plugins-> Add

After successful registration a "Symbian Devices" entry will be available in the Network Neighborhood of Total Commander.

History:

08/03/2004 Initial release (v0.1)

08/27/2004 v0.2. Fixed truncation issue of file names.

11/20/2004 v0.3. Added progress bar support.

11/21/2004 v0.4. Fixed Windows 9x compatibility issues.

Known issues and limitations

- Issue: Time stamps of device files might be off on non-XP (or higher) systems.

- Limitation: Device file time stamps cannot be modified (limitation of SC QI API)

To do:

- Investigate performance optimizations by caching certain device information inside the plugin

Download:

Full package (including Symbian Connect QI Runtime):

SYMBFS04.ZIP (700 kB)

Plugin only (won't work without Symbian Connect QI Runtime):

SymbFSPlgOnly04.zip (35kB)