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-- Open Desktop (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=16714)

Totally missing the point

You guys who are saying that Palm shouldn't make a great PiM are totally missing the point. No one wants Palm to. We want Palm to give out the source to what they have now, so other people could improve and innovate. Imagine how much this could help jpilot if they got the actually hotsync code.

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I swear, she told me she was 16!

Re: Totally missing the point

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Originally posted by Coyote67
You guys who are saying that Palm shouldn't make a great PiM are totally missing the point. No one wants Palm to. We want Palm to give out the source to what they have now, so other people could improve and innovate. Imagine how much this could help jpilot if they got the actually hotsync code.

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Re: Re: Totally missing the point

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Originally posted by linuxppcguy
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So what's really missing here? It seems that Jpilot implements the features that Palm Desktop does (excluding the add-on conduits for Palm Desktop). And it implements them well. Its user interface is not the most polished, I'll admit that. But that's the nature of many open source projects. People can feel free to spiff it up if they so desire. So would source code from Palm be beneficial to the developer of Jpilot? I don't know. I'll ask him, and perhaps he'll even chime in here at some point. :-)

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James Hromadka
Old Friend

The PD has worked just fine for me over these past couple years. There are areas of improvement that I think either they should do or as the article states open source the software.

I have never looked much at the other PIMs since the PD does what I need. I can look up information quickly and do some quick data entry if needed. Though I will admit that I have not tried many of the other PIMs. The only one I have played around with is Lookout (Outlook), and even then I only use it at work. I found it to be a lot more bulky than the PD.

When I first got my PalmPro I never looked at other PIMs since the PD seemed to do just want I needed. Even though there are a lot of choices out there for PIMs it would be nice to see the PD improved and become a cross-platform PIM.

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Re: Re: Re: Totally missing the point

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Originally posted by JHromadka
I think the conduits issue is the greatest setback for jpilot or any 3rd party HotSync setup. JPilot also appears to require X Windows. A unified Palm Desktop could eventually have a generic conduit that works across most platforms. No more waiting for a Mac/etc conduit!

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Originally posted by Hoser_back_home
i think many of you are missing a very important point.

(snip)

with the 3 points mentioned above, i really don't see why palm would want to invest too much time or money in the desktop application. there will come a time when every Palm owner would simply sync wirelessly to a remote server and in the event of a memory wipeout, even reload everything onto the palm wirelessly. at the same time, if you're on your desktop and want to look at your schedule (palm not handy), you could either log into your account via a webpage, or, and here's the point, have your information on the remote server sync with ANY desktop application you want to use. the desktop PIM becomes such a small chip in the giant puzzle, it's just not worth the time/money which could be used elsewhere.

(snip)

Sure, there will be people out there that will still want to use a Desktop PIM with their handheld device, but they'll be going against some well ingrained heavyweights like Lotus, Outlook, etc.

I don't think Palm should do anything else with the desktop (waste of resources) as it'll just be a losing cause, especially when dealing with big business where exchange servers, outlook, and lotus are running the show.

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<p>--GrouchoMarx

I take back what I originally said. It's the Windows verison of PD that stinks. The Mac version is very nice, only becasue it's Claris Organizer. However it's not without it's faults. And since it's been PD there seems to have been very little effort to update it. I also expected them to port it over to Windows.

A genric OpenConduit system is absoulutly needed. I cannot belive they didn't do it that way to begin with. But I don't understand what it takes to make it work or program it so there may be some techinical issues with it.

Now, where is my Mac Outlook 2001 conduit!

Do it right

I think the PD is simple and effective but could use some small updates. Why doesn't it have an alarm? My Palm beeps at me why doesn't the PD have a popup reminder when an alarm goes off? Updating the contact fields on the PD and in the Palm would also be helpfull. Something more like Outlook.

Beyond that it doesn't need to try to be like Outlook. Instead like has been suggested just allow support to be included in other apps.

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Originally posted by GrouchoMarx



The main drawback is actually not the PDesktop itself. The HotSync technoloy is. PDesktop is a simple copyright that is easily GPLed. HotSync is actually patented (Reg. US Pat. #6,000,000, in fact). They many not be so willing to let that out.

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First, don't call it Open Desktop. Anyone who's suffered through the mess SCO made of the only decent OS Microsoft ever produced will know what I mean. My first reaction to seeing this title was a horrible sinking feeling...

Second, there's an open-source Palm Desktop workalike called jpilot already, If you want to work on something, work on a Windows port of jpilot, hooks for jpilot to call palm conduits, and so on. If you have the nous to go anywhere with an open source palm desktop, you don't need to wait for Palm.

Third, given Outlook 2000 or Palm Desktop, I'm firmly in the Palm Desktop camp. If I could get my HP Jornada 548 to sync with Palm Desktop or Jpilot I'd be much happier. Yes, it's a little clumsier in some areas, and has fewer features, but it's fast and what it does it does right.

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Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC<br>
<a href=http://www.taronga.com/~peter/>Ar rug t� barr�g ar do mhact�re inniu?</a>

More conduits!

I like the Palm Desktop. It's basic, but pretty reliable, and once you get around some of its quirks (such as Import/Export), fairly easy to find your way around in. Sure beats a marathon Graffiti session for inputting lots of text to the Memopad or Calendar.

But I wish there were more conduits available than just Mail and Expense. It would be great if you could install a plugin to be able to work on doc, AvantGo, or Visorphone settings or data from a desktop, instead of having to do everything from the handheld. If opening the source code for HotSync and/or PD would make it easier to develop these additional capabilities, I would be all for it. But if all these things can be done in additional interfaces not integrated with the PD itself, then that's fine too.

It doesn't seem to likely that Palm would go this route though. Just look at the great lack of PalmOS applications at Sourceforge and elsewhere, and you'll get an idea of how little activity there is in this area.

Dare I say without getting flamed - Java?

This is a really interesting conversation to me because I have toyed with the notion of developing a Java-based version of the Palm Desktop for many years. At some points I've had a complete and working GUI that mimiced exactly the Palm Desktop save I did not have HotSync working. I did include offline capabilities to read the DAT files that the Palm Desktop reads/uses.

I've seen only one other Java-base Palm Desktop, and it seemed to be pretty successfull, and that's why I never bothered to continue with my own project. Recently it's owner abandoned the project due to a hard drive crash that claimed all the code with it. This made me think about reviving some of my old code. But I'm not sure there's a need.

Even from this discussion, it seems that most users prefer to use their own PIM, and would just like to have clean synchronization with it. The one exception might be the Mac users who just altogether feel left out. This leads me to ask, is the Palm Desktop dead? Do people still use it? Do enough people still use it enough to warrent a developers time in creating additional versions (for different OS's, plug-in capabilities, etc.)? And given that Apple flat out endorses Java as a development technology on OS X, and that many Linux magazines have touted Java as a good future for Linux platforms, would a Java version fly?

I'd be interested in this groups thoughts, but please, no flames on Java is slow, etc. This is a debate going on around the world in other forums. What do we think of it as applied to getting the Palm Desktop on other platforms?

I definitely prefer Palm Desktop to Outlook or Lotus Notes. If you do do a Palm Desktop clone, it'd be nice if it could function as a general repository/archive too... so that it maintained .pdb files as well as .dat files.

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Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC<br>
<a href=http://www.taronga.com/~peter/>Ar rug t� barr�g ar do mhact�re inniu?</a>