Re: [Opensync-users] Some thoughts about Sync of Psion & Symbian

[Armin B. <arm...@de...>]

Joachim Laier wrote:
> Hi Armin,
> 
> 
>>>The Symbian-API provides import and export of vCalendar-Files
>>>(Version 1.0); however it seems to be pretty buggy. Time values are
>>>pretty messy and reptetitions and alarms seem to be faulty.
>>>As I don't know much about the vCalendar file format I would prefer
>>>to convert the data to the XML-format used by OpenSync as an
>>>interchange format. However I haven't found any documentation on
>>>that format.
>>
>>so do i understand you correctly that you dont want to use the
>>symbian api at all, and instead access the content directly?
> 
> 
> not quite, as far as I'm aware of, there's no way to read the data in 
> the Symbian files of calendar, contact, etc. But there's an API to 
> access the data and to enable you to externalise entries.
> So my Idea was to externalise the modified entries to the XML format and 
> internalise new data from XML. So this would reduce the number of 
> conversions.
> 

ok. in which format does the symbian api offer your the entries? Is it a
 symbian specific format?

> 
>>how buggy are the generated vcal files? if they arent too buggy,
>>another option would be to write an extension to the vcal format
>>(like "vcal-symbian") that can work around these bugs.
> 
> 
> Well, I'm not that much into vCal/iCal. From the experiences I got from 
> the sync of KOrganizer with Psion Agenda I realised a few problems with 
> the presentation of times, definition of all-day events, repetitions 
> and alarms/reminders.
> 
> Even export of Symbian entries and import to another Symbian Agenda 
> causes some loss of data.
> 
> The biggest drawback however is that I cannot modify events if I use 
> export/import. To modify an event would require to delete the old event 
> and import the new. It works but's ugly. Also some Symbian-Specific 
> information may be lost in this process.

hmm that would really be ugly. :)

> 
> I have done those fixes in my previous attempt but didn't really like 
> it, it started to become a real mess. Further more I did the string 
> handling with QT on the Linux-box. 
> For the Symbian-OpenSync solution I don't want to add another dependency 
> and drop QT.
> Instead of the conversion of Symbian's buggy vCalendar to a valid 
> vCalendar I planned to export it directly to a useful format. I guess 
> this would be easier to maintain and would give me the opportunity to 
> modify entries. Instead of an export to vCalendar I could also export 
> to XML.
> 
> 
>>I didnt publish any documentation about this format yet for 2
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>guarantee stablity of this internal format at this point of time.
> 
> 
> What about to introduce file format version numbers? This would ensure 
> that the format for the dedicated version is stable and gives the 
> flexibility for later changes.

hmm... that would definitely be good. Maybe we even could add this
version info the the format information. This way we could register the
same format several times with different version numbers which would
always ensure that we have backward compatibility.

> 
> 
>>>Is there a definition/list of attributes for Events, Todos,
>>>Contacts, etc?
>>
>>at the moment, your best bet is to ask me :) I will help you with
>>information about the internal xml format if this is ok.
> 
> 
> So, if I give you a list of attributes of the calendar entries, could 
> you give me an example of a corresponding XML-File?

sure!

> 
> As I don't have much experience with XML and neither with vCalendar, 
> which way would you propose?

I think the best way is to look at the already existing converters like
the internal xml to vcal converters. Another good source might be the
format conversion of the palm plugin which converts xml to the palm
internal format.

Armin

> 
> 
>>>Looking forward to get into coding. ;-)
>>
>>very good :)
> 
> Don't expect anything useful in the near future. :-(
> 
> Cheers Jo
>