Re: Category support in adsressbook

[Matt Davey <mcdavey mrao cam ac uk>]

On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 20:38 +0100, Tom Billiet wrote:

> 1) (the biggest problem) Every item you read from the palm has a
> category, which is a number (id). But so I have no idea what the name
> of that category is, and I can't find a function to convert that id to
> a name or get a list of all the categories in the palm. I'm sure this
> is possible, but I'm overlooking it in the pilot-link doc's, can
> anybody help me on this?

I've just had a brief dig, so could have the wrong end of the stick
here, but take a look at, for example:
   pi-datebook.h
   pi-appinfo.h

According to pi-datebook.h, the AppointmentAppInfo structure contains a
CategoryAppInfo structure.  This struct is documented in pi-appinfo.h,
and contains the string names and a mapping from palm IDs to name
indices.  I presume there's a similar setup for addresses, memos, etc.

You can retrieve the AppInfo block for a database using
dlp_ReadAppBlock.

> 2) Evolution has support for adding an item to more than 1 category,
> palm doesn't have this support. Now I'm only using the first category
> and ignoring the rest if an item has more categories. I don't see any
> other solution.

Sounds reasonable.  It's a general problem trying to create a syncable
mapping between the different evo/palm structures.  The important thing
is probably to concentrate on ensuring that you get a consistent and
robust mapping (e.g. it would be good if editing the record on the palm
didn't result in losing the multiple category info when re-syncing with
evo).

> 3) Putting an item in an non-existent  category in evolution doesn't
> create a new category, but the item is added to that category
> (categories are stored as a string of comma separated values in
> evolution). So you have to create the category yourself in evolution.
> No big deal, as it will still work if the category is non-existent.  I
> haven't tried creating a new category on the palm, but I found
> functions in pilot link for doing this, so I think that won't be a big
> problem. But I first need to be able to determine whether a category
> is already available in palm, which brings me back to point 1 :-)
> 
> If somebody can help me on this I can fix these problems and send my
> patch.

That would be excellent.

Matt

mcdavey pobox   You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving
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