linux-l: ANNOUNCE: Beta-Test fuer pi-address

[Michael Wiedmann]

Hiermit starte ich den "offiziellen" Beta-Test von "pi-address", einem
Adressen Manager fuer den USR/3Com Palm Pilot.

Es handelt sich dabei um ein GUI Frontend fuer die Adress Datenbank des
Palm Piloten, basierend auf der C++-Library Qt von Troll Tech, NO.

Unabhaengig von einem Piloten laesst sich das Programm durchaus als eigen-
staendige Adressen Verwaltung benutzen, wenn auch in diesem Fall einige
der Record-Felder weniger Sinn machen.

Ihr findet das Archiv unter: 
ftp://linux.in-berlin.de/pub/pilot/pi-address.tar.gz

Es enthaelt ein lauffaehiges binary, die source files, eine kleine 
Test-Datenbank, sowie ein klein wenig Doku.

Eine ggf. aufkommende Diskussion wuerde ich gerne hier ueber die Liste
fuehren. Falls das zu viel wird, muessen wir weiter sehen und einen anderen
Weg suchen.

Also, Piloten und ausdruecklich auch Nicht-Piloten, besorgt euch das Teil,
probiert es aus und lasst mich eure Meinung wissen.

Bug-Reports, Wuensche, Hinweise usw. werden entsprechend beachtet, 
allerdings ist nicht damit zu rechnen, dass jede gewuenschte Erweiterung 
sofort von mir umgesetzt wird, meine eng begrenzte Feizeit laesst dies
leider nicht zu.

Das README haenge ich hier dran:

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This is the README file for "pi-address". Until now a rather unstructured
collection of some hints for the program. If anybody is willing to
maintain a FAQ I will be glad to here from you...


What is pi-address:

- GUI frontend to address databases from a USR Palm Pilot. 
  It can read/edit/save database files in PDB-format. Those files can be 
  read from or written to the pilot using "pilot-xfer" from the pilot-link 
  package.

- The programm can also be used as a general address manager without a
  USR Palm Pilot. Some of the record fields may be not very meaningful in
  this case.


pi-address cannot:

- SYNC your database between Palm Pilot and the GUI frontend (watch out
  for "Kpilot" if you want this). Maybe this feature will be added later.


Where to find:

- The newest version can always be found at:
  ftp://linux.in-berlin.de/pub/pilot/pi-address.tar.gz
  (Thanks to Frank Ronneburg for providing me with this ftp space)

  The archive contains a ready to run binary, all the source files,
  a small address database and some documentation.


Requirements:

- libqt.so.1.32
  You need one of the newer version of Qt (http://www.troll.no). Both
  libqt.so.1.31 and libqt.so.1.32 are known to work. The former has a
  minor bug, which affects the programm slightly and was fixed in 1.32

- libc.5 
  I build the program using still the "old" libc.5. There are users who
  reported some problems running the prebuilt binary on a libc.6 system.
  After compiling the program on their own all was fine. I haven´t 
  investigated this further until now. 


  If you want or have to build the program on your own you need this too:

  - development version of libqt
    You need the header files and "moc", the "meta object compiler" from Qt

  - libpisock.a
    Static library from the pilot-link-0.8.9 package <FIXME>  

  Too actually build the program do the following:

  o  QTDIR has to be set to point to the root-dir of qt (e.g. /usr/local/qt)
  o  PILOT_LINK has to be installed. Set the toplevel dir in Makefile
     (libpisock.a will be linked statically)
  o  make depend
  o  make
  o  copy the binary to the desired location


Tested platforms:

- Linux 2.0.x

- Solaris 2.5.x

  If anybody runs pi-address successfully on another platform 
  please let me know!


Credits:

- Thanks to Philipp W. Grau, Frank Ronneburg, Till Siering,
  Johannes Walther and Carsten Wartmann for giving me bug reports,
  hints, suggestions, ...

 
Contact:

- You can contact the author via email: 
  Michael Wiedmann <mw at miwie.in-berlin.de>

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Michael
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