Re: [pilot-db-list] editing on a PC

[Yedidyah Bar-D. <di...@ta...>]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 09:41:13AM -0600, Nathan Kurz wrote:
> > > Yes, certainly a tool that did not throw away all the information it
> > > did not understand would be a useful improvement.  I must confess I
> > > haven't actually tried using palm-db-tools in the last couple years. :(
> > 
> > And you don't need to? Do you use a Palm regularly and is it good enuogh?
> 
> No, that's the sad part.  I don't actually use a Palm now.  I've got a
> Palm III deep in my closet somewhere, but I'm doing everything
> Simulators and Emulators.  I used DB on a Palm about 4 years ago, when
> Tom Dyas was just developing it, and then came back to it recently
> with an idea for how it could be made useful to me if it would support
> better linking, automatic sorting, and multi-line record displays.
> 

I also have no Palm. I do this mostly for my brother-in-law and for fun.
I also tend to think that if/when I will buy a machine of this size, I
will still want it to run Linux, and guess it will be easier for me to
use this way. But maybe I am wrong - using unix on a 80x25 text console
or on a 1300x1000 graphic one is probably very different from on a 160x160
(or even a 320x320) one.

> But as I started poking around, I realized the project was well on its
> way to dying: there was no one left on the list who even had write
> access to the SF code.  I managed to get CVS access from Tom Dyas, the
> original but no longer involved author.  I started fixing things, and
> only later realized that the CVS was junk and that 1.1.0 was the last
> code that was ever compiled.
> 
> But I don't use it currently, since without the true link support, I
> have no current use for it.  My goal is just to keep it breathing
> until a stranger from the holy land appears to save it.  But who knows
> when that will happen. :) (hope the hereticism doesn't offend)

That's not me :-)

> 
> > I even thought about patching pilot-db to give each record in the
> > listview more than one screen line, to see longer fields without
> > entering the recordview. Does this sound good? Do you have any idea
> > if it's easy to do?
> 
> Great idea, hard to do because of the way records are layed out.  My
> last plan (haven't thought about it for a bit) was basically to allow
> "newlines" to be added to record views, such that items after the
> newline would appear on a second line on a per view basis.  But this
> wouldn't allow for one record to be on multiple lines.  The other way,
> but probably harder to implement, would be to just wrap at the pixel
> width if a "wrap" flag is set.  Likely one would also need word wrap.

I think both are generally needed, but not that urgent. It of course
depends on the specific use.

> 
> > > > But when writing for a PC, we can use some higher level language. Either
> > > > a general-purpose scripting language (such as perl or python),
> > > 
> > > Yes, definitely.  I think the best way to achieve this might be to
> > > have a C language library that allows access to PDB files (ideally one
> > > that actually shares most of its code with the Palm version), and then
> > 
> > Ideally. But is it practical? From looking at both sources, it seems it
> > will require mostly rewriting at least one of them.
> 
> My assumption (perhaps unjustified) was that rewriting a PDB interface
> from scratch, adding a Perl XS layer, and then writing the utility in
> Perl would be easier than modifying the current db-tools code.  
> 

Yes, that's also what I think.

> Writing the entire thing in Perl (I'm more comfortable there than
> Python) would probably be easier yet, but would be less generally
> useful.  C is usually so much easier as an interface langauage (to
> Python, to Java, etc).  
> 

I know no Perl, no Python, and no Java. Only C and sed/awk/shell (and
some other less useful (at least for this) stuff). I did not mention,
that I am a sysadmin. I do program a bit from time to time, but do not
consider myself a good programmer.

> > Is the palm-db-tools project alive?  Should I correspond with them,
> > or here?
> 
> As far as I know, it has no life other than here.  Neither
> administrator listed is still involved, and there don't appear to have
> been any changes to CVS in recent years.

Yes, I saw that.
Are you in touch with any other relevant project? jpilot-db, dbeditor?

> 
> > BTW, do you want to be in the "To:" line? I manually send to the list
> > only, guessing it's annoying for you to get everything twice. Is it?
> 
> No, I'm happy with list only.  I added you to the first few messages
> only because I wasn't sure if you had subscribed to the list yet.

OK. This was a good opportunity to learn a bit more about mutt, and add
'subscribe pil...@li...' to my .muttrc. This also
causes mutt to add a header 'Mail-Followup-To' which it looks at to see
if you want email CCed to you or not.
-- 
Didi