Re: [Evolution] sync

[Richard Zach <rzach ucalgary ca>]

> From: Zot O'Connor <zot zotconsulting com>
>
> Unison deal with different files, but not difference in files.  It would
> have to know the format of the contact DB file.
>
> I see two options
> 1)  Rsync the files you want (i.e. mail).
> 2)  Use a Palm device.

Well, (2) unfortunately is far from perfect.  There is a lot of
information that Evolution calendar items, tasks, and contacts have that
don't get synced because there's no corresponding field in the Palm
databases. This includes:

- Categories (not synced at all right now; in Evo a task may have more
than one category, on the Palm one only).
- Progress info for tasks (start date, %completed, etc.)
- Palm can only handle basic repeats on appointments
- Free/busy info not stored on Palm
- Palm can't handle appointments spanning more than one day, or in
different timezones
- Only syncs up to 5 email/phone # fields for contacts, only one
address, and nothing in the "Details" tab.

In addition, unless you use IMAP, this doesn't help at all with email.

Incidentially, I've just come across pilot-mailsync
<http://penguinppc.org/~hollis/palm/pilot-mailsync.shtml>
which supposedly syncs Palm outgoing AND incoming email to mh, mbox,
POP, and IMAP.  JPR, have you considered turning this into a conduit for
Evolution?

> #2 always bothers me as it works.  So why can't we create a virtual palm
> device that is used for syncing?  We sync to the virtual device.  Copy
> the device files to the new system, and unsync. It seems if we have
> solved many of the tricky issues for palms, we should have solved it for
> other systems.  If we haven't why not use a dummy palm.  It does not
> need to replicate the palm OS, just the protocol.

You could sync with POSE <http://sourceforge.net/projects/pose/>, and
then rsync the .pdb files, or do a local sync of POSE first with your
local Evo and then a network sync with your other Evo.

-R
-- 
Richard Zach ...... http://www.ucalgary.ca/~rzach/
Assistant  Professor,   Department  of  Philosophy
University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada