README for pilot2pine v0.2 01/24/99

Copyright (C) 1998 Mike Hughes   wxh@altonet.com   psilord!efnet
This software is bound by the GNU General Public License

-- What it is --

Basically all this program does is download your pilot's address book into
a file, (via pilot-addresses, part of the pilot-link package)  and then
does some stuff with it and outputs to a tab-delimited ine standard
.addressbook file.  You can also convert a pine addressbook back to the
pilot format, and use pilot-addresses to send it to your pilot.  Oh yeah,
make sure you have a reasonably new version of Perl installed too. 

These are the pine addressbook values.  The Palm Pilot's equivalent is
listed below each one:  

* "Nickname"  
The first and last name joined together with no spaces. I also put a 
tr/ //d; there because pine doesn't like spaces in the nickname spot (and
some people put the first name and middle name in the first name field).
Starting in v0.1, if the name fields are absent, the Company name will be
used for the nickname (sans spaces and commas).

* "Full Name"  The first and last name, with a space in between.  The
script takes middle names into account also.  Having a middle initial
should also work fine.  If you decide to use a middle initial or middle
name, make sure its with the first name.  (i.e.  First Name: "John B."
Last Name: "Smith").  And you can safely use quotes in the fields.  I
think.  Starting in v0.1, if the name fields are absent, the Company name
will be used for full name.

* "Comment"  
This must be 8th field, "Other", from the top of your information screen
on your pilot.  If you don't like it that way, edit the line that contains
@address_line[7] and change the [7] to [whatever]. 

* "Addresses" 
The E-Mail option.  This is coded to be the 9th field down in your
information screen on your pilot.  Just change the line that contains
@address_line[8] to [whatever] if you change.  Just remember that arrays
start with 0 in perl!


-- Requirements --

* I used Perl 5.004_04, but I assume Perl 4.* should work fine
* pilot-link package (specifically, pilot-addresses)
* Pilot Personal, Palm Pilot Pro, or Palm III with respective cradle


-- Installation & Usage --

There is none.  Just copy the pilot2pine.pl somewhere in your path, and
rename it if you want.  If I port it to C, i'll write a Makefile or
whatever.

Run the program with no switches for a brief explanation of usage.

Also remember to make a symbolic link /dev/pilot to the serial port your
pilot cradle is hooked up to.  Example: 

ln -sf /dev/pilot /dev/cua1

This will create /dev/pilot -> /dev/cua1.  (Do it as root)


-- To Do --

As of now I haven't made a webpage for pilot2pine, but you can expect one
soon.  You can download pilot2pine at http://www.psilord.com/pilot (which,
incidentally, will be the future location of the website)

Right now, it isn't very practical to convert a pine book to a pilot book,
since so much information isn't stored by a pine addressbook.  Also, when
doing pilot -> pine and then a pine -> pilot, categories aren't preserved.
I don't think there's any way around this, other than adding comments into
the pine addressbook.  But that brings up the issue of "how do you get the
category list from the palm pilot with pilot-addresses?"  Is this
possible?  If anyone knows, email me at wxh@altonet.com


Mike Hughes
psilord|efnet
wxh@altonet.com

Also thanks to Ralph Bodenner <rkb@duke.edu> 

Thanks to witten, ninjaz, and terminus for their input  :)
