Ipaq development
James D. Howard
We have developed an accounting system in Pdox and are considering a
side app for Palm Pilots and particularly the Compaq Ipaq that would allow
our clients to input time tickets & journal entries into their Ipaq and send
them to the main office. Our current thought is to just create a specific
Excel SS that would act as a data entry point. I would prefer to do it in
Pdox if possible. Anyone out there done something similar??
Thanks in advance.
James D. Howard
Liz
I'm currently finishing off a Paradox --> JFilePro -->
Paradox routine, where we pull the relevant records from
Paradox, edit them on the Palm, return them to Paradox (this
will be to replace clipboards & user data entry). JFilePro
($25) includes a converter to convert from _JFile_ Palm
database (pdb) (won't work on just any pdb) to delimited
text (or vice versa), which includes DOS command-line
functionality, so no user interaction is required.
So, user tells Paradox to create a text file, it's converted
to PDB, and with some not-so-easy-to-discover info I set
that up for install on the Palm (no user action required),
then the user HotSyncs, edits, re-HotSyncs, and then tells
Paradox to bring in the changes.
If you're interested, I'll forward some example code
You can download a trial version of JFilePro at:
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=77117520001130164801&prodID=580
Regards,
Liz
---
Get the lead out before you reply
John Oram
You should post this info to the Paradox Web site as well. IMO it would
open up quite a few minds over there to extending the capabilities of
their Paradox web projects.
John Oram
Kasey Chang
"James D. Howard" <hc...@ev1.net> wrote in message
news:3a26c8f0@cnews...
> We have developed an accounting system in Pdox and are considering
a
> side app for Palm Pilots and particularly the Compaq Ipaq that would
allow
> our clients to input time tickets & journal entries into their Ipaq
and send
> them to the main office. Our current thought is to just create a
specific
> Excel SS that would act as a data entry point. I would prefer to do
it in
> Pdox if possible. Anyone out there done something similar??
That seriously depends on how complicated you want to get. You could go
all
the way up to wireless LAN where you would basically run a text-based
browser
on the PDAs and do remote data entry directly into the DB with a web
interface.
Or you can do a more sedate approach where you write a "conduit" that
does
the sync with a desktop application... It's not "quite" as simple as you
may think.
My pervious employer actually thought about it after I suggested it, and
we ended
up using a VERY simple barcode terminal/readers. Of course, back then
the
PalmPilot just came out and has only 512K of memory... :-)
--KC
Liz
If you mean the web newsgroup, I think most of the folks
there frequent other groups too... However, I may write up
something on how I've done this and post it, or perhaps
forward it to Denn and Lance for inclusion on their sites...
One note to anyone considering this kind of thing, as Kasey
wrote, you can get as complex as a wireless LAN, as 'simple'
as what I'm doing (lots of steps handled by Paradox, but
simple to the user and really not hard to code at all), you
can write (or hire someone to write) a conduit and/or
Palm-based application (we looked into this $6,400 + for
what we're doing just wasn't worth it!)... Or you can bag
the Palm, and go with one of the barcode/scanner solutions
that already exist for this kind of thing... Best to do
lots of research and decide which solution is best for
you....
Liz
> > > We have developed an accounting system in Pdox and are considering a
> > > side app for Palm Pilots and particularly the Compaq Ipaq that would allow
> > > our clients to input time tickets & journal entries into their Ipaq and send
> > > them to the main office. Our current thought is to just create a specific
> > > Excel SS that would act as a data entry point. I would prefer to do it in
> > > Pdox if possible. Anyone out there done something similar??
> > >
Larry DiGiovanni
used JFile off the shelf, created a single database (JFile let's you set
up popups, so data entry is pretty well controlled). Whenever you
HotSynch, your JFile databases get dumped into your backup directory. I
just wrote a Paradox routine to execute the jconv95 program that comes
with JFile to dump the data to a text file, imported in Paradox, the
execute a routine which processes the timesheet data into an Intuit .IIF
file for import into our accounting system.
Development of a conduit would've been slicker, and I fooled around with
CodeWarrior R5, but ultimately, I ported the whole thing to the web
instead.
You used to be able to download a trial version of JFile from
www.land-j.com.
--
Larry DiGiovanni
Digico, Inc
IT Consulting and Staffing Solutions
www.digicoinc.com
James D. Howard <hc...@ev1.net> wrote in message news:3a26c8f0@cnews...