Palm Database Viewer

[Lars Lewejohann]

Hi,

(...) whether there are any templates/experiences using revolution to

read/write

Palm databases.

Well, now there is. I wrote a simple Palm Database Viewer that at least
works
well on WinXP with Palm databases produced by my own Palm software. You
can download the stack from http://www.tinyredbook.com/PDBV.zip .

Known issues:
-The record format is supposed to be NULL terminated string data - data
saved
in other format (e.g., integer) will not be displayed (and saved)
correctly
-The App/Sortinfo block and Categories are ignored (my databases don't
use them)

I have not tested this on Linux or Mac systems. Especially on Mac I
have no idea
whether PDBs saved with my prog will be installable since I don't know
a) if a
"Mac file type" is needed and b) if so, what is the "Mac file type" for
Palm databases.

Any comments are welcome!

Kind regards,

Lars

[R***@sealedair.com]

Post by Lars Lewejohann
Hi,

(...) whether there are any templates/experiences using revolution to

read/write

Palm databases.

Well, now there is. I wrote a simple Palm Database Viewer that at least
works
well on WinXP with Palm databases produced by my own Palm software. You
can download the stack from http://www.tinyredbook.com/PDBV.zip .
Any comments are welcome!
Kind regards,
Lars

Lars,

I'm not sure why, but my perception of programming for PalmOS has always
seemed somewhat mystical. Fear of the unknown, I guess. But I am happy to
see a Rev developer building apps to bridge over to the PDA relm. There
was a thread on this list over a year ago, asking RunRev to offer PalmOS
as yet another supported platform. Wouldn't it be great to be able to
build tiny apps on your PC/Mac/*nix system that will run on a PDA? I
really enjoyed opening various .PDB files with your viewer just to have a
look at their guts. I looked at your Palm app "Tiny Red Book" on your
website... nice. Great work!

Regards,
Roger Eller
***@sealedair.com

[James Richards]

Post by Lars Lewejohann
I have not tested this on Linux or Mac systems. Especially on Mac I
have no idea
whether PDBs saved with my prog will be installable since I don't know
a) if a
"Mac file type" is needed and b) if so, what is the "Mac file type" for
Palm databases.

A little preliminary checking on my Mac shows that there is no single file
type for Palm databases. Different Palm applications set different types.

This leads to a problem with your script on your button "LoadPDB" [16]

the line
answer file "Open pdb document?" with filter "pdb, *.pdb"

doesn't work on my Mac (OS 8.6 Rev 2.0r2). I think the problem is the
filter. The absence of any consistent file type means that there can't be
any filtering by file type (you will just have to trust Mac users that
they're opening the right thing). Unfortunately it appears that [*.pdb] (and
even [.pdb]) types are interpreted as being strings of four (and five)
characters, so instead of ignoring them the engine treats them as if they
*are* Mac file types and shows nothing because there are no Mac files with
that type.

I'm a complete novice so this advice is not worth the usual 0.02 [currency
unit], but if you want this to operate on Mac OS 8 to 9 you may need to test
what system it is running under and choose different 'answer' statements
accordingly. Someone with more knowledge or cleverer than I may have a
better solution.

As I am running the free edition I can't alter your script and test further
:(

Regards

James

[Lars Lewejohann]

Hello,

Thanks for your replies! I updated the stack at
http://www.tinyredbook.com/PDBV.zip . Now it should
work on Mac too (I changed the open database for Macs
to non filtering). I am still confused about the file type of
Palm databases on a Mac.

Post by James Richards
A little preliminary checking on my Mac shows that there is no single file
type for Palm databases. Different Palm applications set different types.

If there is no single file type, how will a pdb be assigned to
be hotsyncable? All I could find so far was that changing the
file type to "Gld0" might work. However, if this is not a
generic pdb file type, will it work then on all Macs connected
to a Palm-handheld?

Any enlightenment will be appreciated!

Kind regards,

Lars

[James Richards]

Post by Lars Lewejohann
If there is no single file type, how will a pdb be assigned to
be hotsyncable?

Interesting... I've just had a go with HotSync manager which seems to be
willing to let me install any plain text file or even HyperCard stacks! I've
not tried out installing because I don't want to mess up my PDA. It looks as
though they are working on 'trust the user not to be an idiot' which is not
what I'd call failsafe!

Post by Lars Lewejohann
All I could find so far was that changing the
file type to "Gld0" might work. However, if this is not a
generic pdb file type, will it work then on all Macs connected
to a Palm-handheld?

That type seems very common. It applies to almost everything I have got.
Exceptions are the Bible text files for BibleReader which are 'TEXT' and the
translated document files for Documents To Go which appear to have 'PDB ' -
the fourth char seems to be a space.

I think that the effect of using that type in your stack would be that any
non 'Gld0' type files would simply be invisible in the answer dialog. And
effectively unopenable. What hazards are there in allowing the user
potentially to try and open anything in your stack as if it were a .pdb?
There could be potential for freezing/crashing I suppose. Is there anything
in the content of the file which would identify it so that it could be
tested for and if it is not a .pdb file the stack could close it again
without changing it and refuse to dispaly it. Sorry - just thinking aloud
here

Regards

James