CONVDB Revision Number: 2.7
Author: Narayan Natarajan
Email : venkman1@ix.netcom.com
Web : http://www.oocities.org/Venkman69
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T
S
===================================
Skip this if you get bored with egotistical rantings...
Around October of 1997 I bought my PalmPilot Professional. At that time there was no synchronization capabilities with different softwares and the datebook database. My company decided to use Lotus Notes as the primary vehicle and I found out quickly that it was irritating to try and manually "sync" the information.
Just like everyone else I was surprised that there was no import feature in the Palm software for datebook - well other than its own "dba" format. That is when I thought it would be an interesting idea to try and figure out how the format works and write an application. After searching on the web for some resources on the datebook format.. and failing, I started to hack at it with my favorite editor on the windows platform - elvis. That and quite a bit of emailing to programming groups and generous support from several people, plus finally finding Nico Seesle's rosetta stone for datebook, I started getting a better picture of the whole format.
Unfortunately, I found that I still did not know some of the features of the datebook format. And, fortunately, I found that some of the gobble-de-gook could be spit out verbatim and it would work just fine.
After quite a lot of hours of coding late in the night the first release of convdb started to materialize. By then things had started changing at my work and I no longer had the need to sync with Lotus Notes anymore. Sometimes I wondered what was my motivation to write the software after that point. I must admit creating the software gave a lot of pleasure, especially the part that it was helping a lot of people on the net. That was one of my original intentions - I wished to contribute to the net in my own little way. I felt a kind of belonging to the group of people that create wonderful freeware and let it loose on the net to evolve and proliferate.
About 8 months into the development, I had a bit of a setback. I'd moved to wonderful Seattle and there was so much to do and see that... "life" happened :-) and convdb took the back seat. Fighting against losing interest I tried to desperately finish programming the much needed "note" feature. For nearly a year I dilly-dallied and the programming wouldn't budge. Eventually I had to return to boring Michigan around end of 1998 and that was not fun at all. So again convdb fell in its priority. Finally around February of 2000 - a whole year later almost, on a cold sunday in michigan, I took my laptop into a caribou coffee. For a good solid 4 hours (until battery started to beep me) I kept at it and made a lot of headway. Sometime later during the same month at the same Caribou Coffee, it kinda snapped together. The bugs became evident and stuff just kinda .. worked.
That was when I realized all that I'd set out to do with the program was finished. Sure there is always room for progress, but my personal desire to finish the code was fulfilled. Now what? Quite honestly I vacillated between wanting to make some money and setting it out free. The decision finally was made when I spoke to my friend who said "you had fun writing the code, that was the return for the effort you put in". I am sure the majority of the population would think that that is such a brain-dead thing to say, but I must admit that it did bring some kind of satisfaction. The main part of that satisfaction coming from all the users sending me "thank you" notes. In fact through which I ended up making a very good friend as well. The desire to generate some cash flow out of this venture did not really die, but sort of simmers. And therefore, here is a shameless pitch: If you feel that you'd like to say thanks in a "financially beneficial" way, then please send no more than $5 to:
Narayan Natarajan
2930 Olden Oak ln #201
Auburn Hills, MI 48326
I am not very certain of what I'd do with the money, but two things
come to mind:
1. to purchase a new Handspring Visor and sell/give my PalmPilot
Pro
2. to donate it to charity.
In fact I leave it up to you to decide how you wish me to use any
monies that you may send and I promise to honor it.
I realize now at this point, that I don't have any more interest
in developing this software further. Although, I do have interest in seeing
it grow and be used, span across operating systems, gain a GUI, and be
able to identify fields without the use of all the funky header information,
and then sync right into the datebook without any more manual help. I am
therefore setting my source code loose for anyone to use and modify under
the GNU license. I hope that you find the code worthy of development and
request that you keep the development under the GNU umbrella.
CONVDB :
This utility converts a formatted text file to the datebook database
format. The output can be imported into the Pilot Desktop.
Program notes:
==============
C Program Compiled with mingw32 and Cygnus gcc for winNT/95/98
on Win98.
==========================================================================
What's new in the
latest release?
=================================
COVNDB works from the command prompt. There is no user interface.
CONVDB without arguments prints this message out:
-------------------------------------------------
Usage: convdb -[OPTIONS <value>] <filename>
Alarm may be set globally:
-m N
N minutes in advance
-h N
N hours in advance
-d N
N days in advance
-x e'x'plain more
: Help
$Revision: 2.7 $
How do you make a text
file?
==========================
The text file can be created manually using a text editor or by
exporting data from your scheduler. When exporting data from the scheduler,
you can usually define the fields that need to be exported. The most reliable
format would be a tab delimited format. As far as the event description
goes, do not include any delimiters such as quotes ("). Next you may need
to clean up this exported file if it has fields that do not conform to
the requirements of CONVDB. Once this is done, insert the field definitions
record as the first record in the file. Here are the basic requirements:
Description
of the flexible format text reading capability
==========================================================
The flexible format allows you to have any group of characters as
a delimter. You could have for example: "gobble-de-gook" as the delimiter.
The only requirement, therefore, is that the *data* inside a field should
not contain this group of characters. Since, the record is parsed one field
at a time, the search for a delimiter group is forward. Meaning, if your
string had a tab which was used to delimit field #1, and say your event
string is the last field (therefore delimited by return character), then
your string may have tabs in it. This would not cause problems.
To illustrate:
Record:
98<tab>1/3<tab>10<tab>This string has a <tab> in it.
Field definitions
within the text file
======================================
| Flag | Description | Type of value | Default Value |
| %d | [d]ate | Number | |
| %y | [y]ear | Number, 4 digit or 2 digit. Ex: 1998, 98 | Current Year |
| %m | [m]onth | Number, String: 10, Oct, October, Octo | |
| %h | [h]our: start hour | Number | |
| %i | [i] : start min
(i follows h) |
Number | zero |
| %e | [e]nd : end hour | Number | start_hour + 1 |
| %f | [f]: end min
(f follows e) |
Number | start_min |
| %t | [t]ime span: duration of event | Number: integral hours. Ex: 2 (hours) | 1 (hour) |
| %r | [r]epeat flag | String:
Date: Yearly by date Day : Yearly by day of the month None: No Repeat |
"None" |
| %a | [a]m/pm: start time | String/Char case ignored, only 1st character is checked: A[M],
P[M].
If field not specified time is assumed to be in 24 Hr format. |
|
| %b | [b] am/pm: end time
(b follows a) |
-- ditto -- | |
| %p | [p]rivate flag | Boolean, case ignored: y, n, 1, 0 | N (not private) |
| %u | [u]ntimed event flag | Boolean, case ignored: y, n, 1, 0
Note: event must have some number (dummy value) in the time fields even if it is untimed. |
N (not untimed) |
| %v | e[v]ent. | String: Preferably be the last field.
Multi-line string not supported because return character is considered to be end of record. |
|
| %n | [n]ote | This is NOT a FIELD!!!
Note FOLLOWS the record in lines of text. The END of a note is denoted by a single PERIOD (.) all by itself on a line. The delimiter for '%n' could be anything, but keep it simple and make it a a space or a tab. NOTE: !!! YOU MUST HAVE A PERIOD EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE A NOTE FOR THAT RECORD !!! |
Minimum fields required:
========================
Month, date, start_hour, event
TroubleShooting:
================
The examples are included in this package in form of example1.txt, example2.txt and so on. Open them in a text editor and see how the fields have been formatted. Suggestion: Use Notepad and not Microsoft Word or some hefty application to read the text.
Example : To add an alarm 10 minutes prior to every event in the file:
convdb -m 10 example1.txt
Development History and Ideas for the future:
IDEAS for the future:
=====================
BUGS! ( Eeeeeeek! take that! and that! and that! *splat*):
=====================================================================
(Seems like the bug list grows as I improve(?) the converter)
Fri Jan 16 20:03:26 GMT-8:00 1998:
----------------------------------
Note: This is now limited by your computer's memory settings alone.