Palm Desktop Replacement?

rueger asks: "Almost from Day One I've found the Palm desktop and handheld software to be sorely lacking. The Address Book only allows you to record one address, not one for home and one for work, and only lets you sort or search by name and company name, not by city for instance. The calendar won't let you link contact names to appointments which again seems an obvious missing feature. I've been looking for a software replacement that would add these features and more, and still sync with my Palm (well, Clie). Outlook is not a possibility for all of the usual reasons. What I've found is that there are some very nice PIMs out there, but most won't hot-sync. Those that do, like Time & Chaos, have no more functionality than the Palm software, and lack some features that I use. What are other handheld users turning to? Is there an Open Source replacement?"

Comments

Re:Apple's iCal and Address Book or....

[Anonymous Commando]

Or first list on a Google search: Palm Desktop Replacement Comparison Chart

And had you actually clicked through the link you posted and read the article, you would have realized that it was an old article about "Palm-sized PCs" running Windows CE, not Palm® handhelds.

Am I the only one who is getting sick of the knee-jerk "use google" reactions to "Ask /." questions?

Re:Apple's iCal and Address Book or....

[xanderwilson]

Okay. Forget Google. Try here.

Alex.

Ecco Pro with Shadow Palm and DateBk5

[Will Sargent]

There was a pretty huge list of PIMs, but the market was exterminated by Microsoft Outlook and never really recovered. In addition, only some of them integration with Palms.

http://john.redmood.com/organizers.html
http://www.ypsolog.com/docs/comp/other/pim.html
http://www.ms.lt/ms/projects/toolkinds/organize.ht ml

The odds are good that you'll find something that works.

I personally use Ecco Pro, Shadow Palm and DateBk5.

But then again, I'm a zealot.

Evolution

[npsimons]

I know a lot of people like to bag on Evolution, but I've found it works quite nicely when synchronizing to my Palm m500 over serial. I'm using Debian stable, and there are a couple of packages that you will need besides evolution. I believe they were evolution, gnome-pilot, and gnome-pilot-conduits (apt should get all the proper dependencies). Although, you still only get one address (business) on the Palm side, I believe this is a limitation with the Palm addressbook software. You can keep multiple addresses in Evolution, but only the business one will show up on the Palm addressbook.

Re:Evolution

[npsimons]

Isn't pilot-link the thing that evolution uses for syncing?

The short answer: no. The long answer: while they may have shared a code base in the distant past, they definitely don't perform the same now. I'll admit that Evolution isn't perfect, and while I haven't had the severity of problems you listed, I've had some similar ones (duplicate contacts). I mainly use pilot-xfer in backup and restore mode, which does no "synchronizing", just bit for bit copies to or from the Palm.

Correction

[NanoGator]

"Outlook is not a possibility for all of the usual reasons."

The 'usual reasons', for the most part, apply to Outlook Express and not Outlook 2000/XP.

Re:Correction

[NanoGator]

"I don't use OE so I don't know about the express version."

The Express version is scary. Not only are a bunch of things implemented in a half-assed way, but it also uses a different extension than OL2k does. If somebody forwards you an OE message as an attachment, it attaches a .EML file to the email and opens OE even if you have OL2k installed. Nasty security risk there, thank you very much M$. I'd recommend to ANYBODY to change the .EML extension to Notepad.

Outlook XP (haven't used 03 yet) was locked down pretty hard. Unfortunately, you had to edit the registry for somebody to send you a .EXE file. I don't mind them blocking .EXE files to begin with, but editing the registry to get it back? Son of a bitch.

Ah well. Them's the breaks. I really do enjoy how well Outlook interacts with PocketPC. The dude who posted this Ask Slashdot would love it if he tried it.

Agendus

[notyou2]

I can't speak for the desktop version of their software (I only use the Palm edition), but I've been very happy with Agendus by Iambic. It remedies many of the issues you raise.

They have full versions of their software for both Palm and Windows.

Open Source, pure Java HotSync replacement.

[Yaztromo]

To replace your HotSync software, take a look at the jSyncManager. It's an Open Source, pure Java, and will run on all your different operating systems. It features an Object-Oriented "jConduit" plug-in system to allow different applications to use it for their synchronization services.

The two downsides currently with running the jSyncManager on the desktop are:

• The jSyncManager relies upon external libraries to communicate with the hardware. For serial docks/cables it requires either the Java Communications API, or the Open Sourced jSerial API. For USB ports it requires jUSB. jUSB is currently only readily available on Linux, with a partial implementation available on Windows. TCP/IP sync support is available on all platforms.
• There aren't a whole lot of jConduit plug-ins available yet. The bundles ones provide generic functionality such as CSV and XML downloading of common PalmOS record types, the ability to upload PRC and PDB databases, the ability to export Zire 71 photos as JPG files, etc. However, if you're a Java-coder and want to write your own jConduit plug-in for your favorite PIM, documentation is available online, and support is readily available through the jSyncManager development community.

Brad BARCLAY
Lead Developer & Project Administrator,
The jSyncManager Project.

New Palm Desktop has what you're looking for

[stu72]

The newest version of the Palm desktop has a number of new features, including new contact fields - these will not migrate to an older palm (i.e. less than OS 5) but they stay on your desktop until you upgrade.

I've been using the new desktop w/an older palm for a while and I'm pretty happy.

Re:Limitations of the Palm

[Yaztromo]

Also, if you edit data on the palm you might break the "links" that the PC software maintains.

This should only ever happen if you delete a record on the handheld and re-enter it, causing the new record to receive a different ID value. No properly-written synchronization module should cause any such breakage under normal conditions )ie: editing/modifying the data on the handheld) -- any that do are due purely to buggy code, and not the design of the PalmOS itself.

Some developers who have written PIMs that weren't designed wih handheld synchronization in mind might try to use one of the fields as the unique record identifier, but this is wrong, and will cause the problem you mention if you change the field being used as the identity field. The proper mechanism for this is to create a mapping between the record ID values and the internal application record identifier.

Please don't blame the PalmOS for things outside its control.

Brad BARCLAY
Lead Developer & Project Adminsitrator,
The jSyncManager Project.

Why did you get a Palm, pray tell?

[Craig Maloney]

I know this might be construed as flamebait, but I'm quite sincere: why did you get a Palm in the first place? The simplicity of the Palm is one of the major draws for it, but it's no Outlook replacement by far. What it does, it does very well. What I've found with most software that tries to replace the Palm or Desktop software is that it either needlessly complicates the interface of the Palm, or features only exist on the desktop or Palm device. DateBk5 will allow you to link up contacts with appointments, but I haven't run across an application on the desktop that recognizes those links. There are several address book replacements, but the ones that go beyond the contact database of the Palm require special software, special conduits, and Windows. You can make the Palm Desktop work for you without a whole lot of additional software, but it might take some dilligence. Instead of making one contact name for a person, why not make two or three for their roles? If you need it, why not make a friend at home and a friend at work entry? You'll know the difference between them.

As for linking entries to appointments, do you really need that, or is it just something that would be nice to have? Generally I've found that people who bitch about the Palm interface haven't really sat down to think about what they really need. They're too busy trying to micro-manage their lives instead of using the tool for what it's good for. They give themselves the illusion that they're really being productive because they have a list of all of the people involved with the appointment linked to their appointment. This functionality is mostly a toy, and after spending 20 minutes setting up an appointment and linking the contacts, most people give up on their organizer altogether.

If you're seriously constrained by the Palm interface, you maay want to consider a different device. Perhaps a Pocket PC or something with a PIM that's more like Outlook would do better for you?

Hope this helps!