User Guide

Contents

• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Installing the Palm OS® Application
• Installing the Conduit
• Adding Photographs
• Application Structure
• Maintaining Photographs
• Adding a Photograph
• Deleting a Photograph
• Edit Photograph Information
• Organising into Categories
• Photo Album
• View: Film Strip
• View: Photograph and Caption
• View: Thumbnails Only
• View: Captions Only
• View: Captions and Thumbnails
• Photograph Order and Sorting
• Photograph Information
• Edit Photograph Information
• Photograph Search
• Preferences
• Hardware Buttons
• Synchronisation
• Synchronisation Logic
• Data File Format
• Example Data File
• Photograph Translation
• Technical Notes
• Files and Directories
• Photograph Storage
• Compatibility
• Backing Up
• Troubleshooting
• Support

Introduction

Pocket Lifestyle: Photo Album lets you carry your photographs, diagrams, maps and pictures with you at all times.

As well as the full colour images, you can add notes, record dates and captions and organise the photographs into categories. The data is fully synchronised (both directions) with your desktop computer.

Features include:

• Easy to install, synchronise and use.
• Store up to 999 photographs (subject to available memory).
• Full 2-way synchronisation with your desktop computer.
• No need for a desktop application to manage the photographs.
• Download photographs in .jpg, .bmp, .gif, .tif or .png formats.
• View photographs in several different ways including large images, thumbnails or lists.
• Record a caption, date and free text notes for each photograph.
• Search for photographs matching text to the Captions or Notes.
• Order of photographs using several different sort methods.
• Synchronise additional information with a CSV file.
• Configure hardware buttons to perform common actions.
• Organise photographs into up to 16 categories.
• Supports 160*160, 16 bit colour displays.
• Palm OS 5.0 compatible.

Getting Started

Installing the Palm OS® Application

Start the Palm Desktop and click the "Install" icon to start the Palm Install Tool. You can then click "Add..." and select the PLPhotos.prc file.

The application will be installed at the next HotSync®.

Installing the Conduit

Click on "INSTALL.BAT" (Type MS-DOS Batch File) in the file viewer. This will copy and install the PLPhotosSync.dll file.

The conduit will run on a Windows computer running Windows XP or later, Macintosh users will not be able to use this application.

After a successful installation you should see PLPhotos in the list of conduits from the Custom... menu of HotSync® application

Should it be necessary to uninstall the conduit use "UNINSTALL.BAT".

Adding Photographs

After installing the application and conduit the simplest way to set up your pictures would be to copy all the required picture files to the "PLPhotos" directory on the desktop computer (see Files and Directories) then press the HotSync® button.

You do not need to create a "PLPhotosData.csv" file to copy photographs to the Palm OS® device, if missing it will be created automatically with default data.

See Synchronisation Logic for further details.

Application Structure

The handheld application provides a viewer for photographs (and pictures) and allows viewing and editing of additional information such as dates and notes.

The source of the photographs is a single directory/folder on the desktop computer. All valid photograph files in the directory will be transferred to the handheld device when synchronised. Similarly, all photographs on the handheld device that do not correspond to photograph files in this directory will be deleted when synchronised.

All additional photograph information is synchronised with a CSV (comma separated values) files in the same directory on the desktop computer. Changes to the additional information can be made on either the handheld device or the desktop.

Maintaining Photographs

All photographs used on the handheld device are synchronised from the desktop computer.

Adding a Photograph

To add a new photograph, copy a photograph file (e.g. pic00001.jpg) to the synchronisation directory on the desktop computer, and then perform the HotSync®.

See Files and Directories for details of locations.

Deleting a Photograph

To delete photograph from the handheld device delete the corresponding photograph file (e.g. pic00001.jpg) from the synchronisation directory on the desktop computer, and then perform the HotSync®.

See Files and Directories for details of locations.

Editing Photograph Information

To edit the photograph information on the handheld device see Edit Photograph Information.

To edit the photograph information from the desktop computer see Data File Format.

Organising into Categories

Each photograph is associated with one category (by default "Unfiled") and groups of photographs can be viewed together using the category. There can be up to 16 categories including the "Unfiled" category. The "Unfiled" category cannot be changed.

New categories can be added on the handheld device by selecting "Edit Categories…" from the category selector at the top right of the screen.

Category names used in the CSV file will be automatically added to the list so long as the 16 limit is not exceeded.

Categories can only be deleted from the handheld device using "Edit Categories…" from the category selector.

Photo Album

There are several different ways to view your photographs:

• Film Strip
• Photographs and Caption
• Thumbnails Only
• Captions Only
• Captions and Thumbnails

View: Film Strip

Selected Category
Used to select a group of photographs. There is an "All" option to view all photographs regardless or category. There is also an "Edit Categories…" option to add new, rename or delete categories.

Main Photo
If the preference is active, (see Preferences) tapping on the main photograph will pop up the additional information.

Thumbnail Photos
Tap on a small photograph to view as the main photograph.

Action Panel
A panel showing information and containing action buttons.

Position & Count
Shows the number of photographs in the category and the position of the currently selected main photograph.

Action Buttons
The 4 action buttons, from left to right, are:
Home: Select the first photograph in the category
Left: Select the previous photograph in the category. The Up hardware button also selects the previous photograph.
Right: Select the next photograph in the category. The Down hardware button also selects the next photograph.
Info: Show the additional information pop up screen

View: Photograph and Caption

Selected Category
Used to select a group of photographs. There is an "All" option to view all photographs regardless or category. There is also an "Edit Categories…" option to add new, rename or delete categories.

Main Photo
If the preference is active, (see Preferences) tapping on the main photograph will pop up the additional information.

Action Panel
A panel showing information and containing action buttons.

Caption
The caption text for the shown photograph.

Photograph Date
The date of the shown photograph.

Position & Count
Shows the number of photographs in the category and the position of the currently selected main photograph.

Action Buttons
The 4 action buttons, from left to right, are:
Home: Select the first photograph in the category
Left: Select the previous photograph in the category. The Up hardware button also selects the previous photograph.
Right: Select the next photograph in the category. The Down hardware button also selects the next photograph.
Info: Show the additional information pop up screen

View: Thumbnails Only

Selected Category
Used to select a group of photographs. There is an "All" option to view all photographs regardless or category. There is also an "Edit Categories…" option to add new, rename or delete categories.

Thumbnail Photos
Tap on a small photograph to select the photograph.

Selected Photograph
The selected photograph is shown with a black border. Tap on the photograph while selected to view the main photograph.

Action Panel
A panel showing information and containing action buttons.

Caption
The caption text for the selected photograph.

Photograph Date
The date of the selected photograph.

Position & Count
Shows the number of photographs in the category and the position of the currently selected main photograph.

Action Buttons
The 4 action buttons, from left to right, are:
Home: Select the first photograph in the category
Left: Select the previous photograph in the category. The Up hardware button also selects the previous photograph.
Right: Select the next photograph in the category. The Down hardware button also selects the next photograph.
Info: Show the additional information pop up screen

View: Captions Only

Selected Category
Used to select a group of photographs. There is an "All" option to view all photographs regardless or category. There is also an "Edit Categories…" option to add new, rename or delete categories.

Scroll Bar
The scroll bar will appear when there are more photographs than can be shown. Use the scroll bar to view hidden photographs above or below the shown items.

Selected Photograph
The selected photograph is shown with a darker colour background. Tap on the selected item to view the large photograph.

Caption
The caption text for the selected photograph.

Photograph Date
The date of the selected photograph.

View: Captions and Thumbnails

Selected Category
Used to select a group of photographs. There is an "All" option to view all photographs regardless or category. There is also an "Edit Categories…" option to add new, rename or delete categories.

Scroll Bar
The scroll bar will appear when there are more photographs than can be shown. Use the scroll bar to view hidden photographs above or below the shown items.

Selected Photograph
The selected photograph is shown with a darker colour background. Tap on the selected item to view the large photograph.

Thumbnail Photograph
A small photograph.

Photograph File Name
The file name of the photograph file in the desktop computer.

Caption
The caption text for the selected photograph.

Photograph Date
The date of the selected photograph.

Photograph Information

Reached from the "Action/View Information…" menu option, tapping the "Info" button in the Action Panel, or tapping the Main Photograph if the preference is selected (see Preferences).

The screen will show the Caption, Date, File name on the desktop computer and Notes. Where the notes are longer than will appear on the screen they can be scrolled using up and down arrow buttons that appear in the bottom right corner.

Cancel the popup screen with the "OK" button or edit the information using the "Edit" button.

Photograph Order and Sorting

The order of photographs in and category is determined by the Sort by selection in the Preferences screen.

The available orders are:

• Caption: Alphabetically by caption
• Date (oldest first): Date, oldest at the top of the list, then by caption
• Date (newest first): Date, most recent at the top of the list, then by caption
• File name: Alphabetically by photograph file name

Sorting will automatically occur:

• After changing the Sort by order Preferences
• After changing any photograph information which affects the order
• After synchronising with the desktop computer

Edit Photograph Information

Reached from the "Action/Edit Information…" menu option, or tapping the "Edit" button on the Photograph Information screen (see Photograph Information).

The screen will allow the changing of the Caption, Date, Category and Notes.

To complete the changes tap the "OK" button or abandon any changes using the "Cancel" button.

Photograph Search

The search for photographs in the database is started using the find icon to the side of the Graffiti® writing area.

Each record in the database will be compared to the find text, checking first for a match in the Caption field then for a match in the Notes field.

Any matches found will be listed under the PLPhotos title, each will display the photograph Caption and if the match was found in the Notes "(notes)" will be shown after the caption.

Tapping on the photograph Caption in the "Matches" list will display it in the Photograph and Caption view.

Preferences

Reached using the "Options/Preferences..." menu option.

Tap large photo to view info
When checked tapping the Main Photograph will activate the Photograph Information popup screen.
If unchecked there will be no action from tapping the Main Photograph.

Sort by:
Change the order of photographs within any category
Sorting options are:

• Caption
• Date (oldest first)
• Date (newest first)
• File name

See Photograph Order and Sorting for further details.

Hardware Buttons

Most of the key functions within the application may be assigned to any of the 4 hardware buttons.

For example you could use the left most button to select the first photograph in the category and the button next to it to select the the last.

The actions available for assignment are:

• Default system action
• No action: Nothing happens
• First photo: Select the first photograph in the category
• Previous photo: Select the previous photograph in the category
• Next photo: Select the next photograph in the category
• Last photo: Select the last photograph in the category
• Switch view: Switch to the next view in a rotating cycle
• View film strip: Switch to the 'Film Strip' view
• View photo & captions: Switch to the 'Photograph and Caption' view
• View thumbs only: Switch to the 'Thumbnails Only' view
• View captions only: Switch to the 'Captions Only' view
• View captions & thumbs: Switch to the 'Captions and Thumbnails' view
• View information: Start the 'View Information' screen
• Edit information: Start the 'Edit Information' screen

The assigned actions will only operate while the application is active.

Synchronisation

Synchronisation occurs when the HotSync® is activated. Synchronising will send photographs to the handheld device, delete unused photographs from the handheld device, and update the additional photograph information on the handheld device and in the CSV file on the desktop computer so that they are consistent.

Synchronisation Logic

The synchronisation action will depend on the picture files (e.g. photo.jpg) the CSV file and the data records on the handheld device.

For example the simplest way to set up pictures would be to copy all the required picture files to the PLPhotos directory on the desktop computer and press the synchronise button. This is represented by case (17) where the handheld record and row in the CSV file are missing but the picture file is present.

Synchronising again would be represented by case (1)

It is important to note that if data has changed on the handheld and in the CSV file then the data on the handheld takes priority and updates the CSV file. This is represented by case (4).

Data File Format

The first line contains "Photographs," followed by the number of photograph files to synchronise.
The rest of the rows contain 8 fields:

• Changed: 'Y' if the desktop is due to update the handheld, otherwise 'N'
• File: File name and extension of the photograph file, up to 12 characters
• Category: The category name, up to 15 characters
• Year: The photograph year number e.g. 2003
• Month: The photograph month number, 1 to 12
• Day: The photograph day of the month number, 1 to 31
• Caption: Photograph caption text, up to 24 characters of text
• Notes: Additional notes, up to 256 characters of text

Note: There is a limit of 16 distinct categories including the "Unfiled" category. If more are defined in this file, plus those already used on the handheld, then any excess categories will be converted to "Unfiled".

If data is changed in this file it will only be sent to the handheld device if the "Changed" field is set to 'Y'.

Fields may be surrounded by quote (") characters which are removed when reading the CSV file. Any fields which contain commas (,) or line breaks must be surrounded by quote characters ("). A field containing a quote (") character must contain 2 quotes ("") which are converted to a single quote when reading the field.

Example Data File

In the following example, there are 7 photographs in the database.

The photographs corresponding to files "pic00003" and "pic00008" are due to have their information updated at the next HotSync®

PLPhotos.csv

Photograph Translation

Image files with extensions .jpg, .bmp, .gif, .tif or .png will be synchronised with the handheld device. Otherwise, the file name can only be up to 8 characters, longer file names will be ignored by the synchronisation.

For example:
"pic00007.jpg" will be sent to the handheld device
"pic00007.jpeg" will be ignored because the extension is not recognised
"Picture 7.jpg" will also be ignored because the file name is 9 characters long

File names are converted to lower case when shown on the handheld device.

Photographs are stored on the handheld device with a ratio of 4:3, width to height. Photograph files on the desktop will be stretched to fit this aspect ratio. For example, a jpg photograph file of 1024*768 will be reduced to fit on the handheld device without distortion but a diagram of 500*300 will be squashed horizontally.

Technical Notes

Files and Directories

On the desktop computer the CSV file and the photograph files must all be in the same directory This will be PLPhotos under the user name directory. For example a user "John Smith" may (depending on how the Palm desktop application was installed) use the directory:

• C:\Program Files\Palm\JSmith\PLPhotos

The CSV file containing additional photograph information is named:

• PLPhotosData.csv

Each picture or photograph file will have one of the following extensions:

• jpg
• bmp
• gif
• tif
• png

And the file name before the '.' will be up to 8 characters.

Any other picture or photograph files will be ignored during synchronisation

Photograph Storage

Photographs are stored in internal memory and take up approximately 37-38k each depending on the amount of text notes associated with each photograph.

Up to 999 photographs may be stored subject to memory limits on the handheld device. Each 1Mb of internal memory can contain up to 27 photographs.

All photographs and additional data are stored in the internal memory.

Compatibility

This application is designed to run on Palm OS® version 3.5 and later.

The application is designed to use 16 bit colour. It will work with fewer colours but with picture quality degradation.

The conduit is designed to run in Windows XP.

Backing Up

During a HotSync® the application information and images databases will be backed up as the following Palm Database Files:

• PLPhotosData.pdb
• PLPhotosImages.prc

These will be located on the desktop computer in the Backup directory of the Palm Desktop.

Note that the databases will be automatically restored in a HotSync® following a hard reset.

To restore a database backup after encountering problems the following sequence of steps are advisable:

• delete both the application and data
• restore the backup databases
• reinstall the application
• restart the application

Troubleshooting

Support

Support from Thompson Solutions Limited
e-mail: thompsonsolutions@btinternet.com
Further details: http://www.thompsonsolutions.btinternet.co.uk