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Converting Notes Address Books to the Web for Palm devices and pagers (continued)
Also, in the case of the PageWriter 2000, there is no Palm-like HotSync software just yet. Whatever addresses you want on the device you either must enter in by hand (via the tiny keyboard), type in manually via the Partner software or import into the Partner software via a specifically formatted CSV file. As you might guess, the last alternative is the easiest.
Analyzing the correct format for importing the information is as easy. Just export some information and look at how it has been formatted. Then you just model your generated file after that export file to easily import information into the Palm Desktop or PageWriter 2000 Partner software.
To save you some time, we've listed the formats for each of the two devices in Table A. While the formats shown have worked for this project, you might also want to try doing an export of your own to verify our findings, especially if you're using later versions of the device software.
| Palm Desktop 2.0 field order |
PageWriter 2000 field order |
1. Last Name
2. First Name
3. Title
4. Company
5. Work Phone
6. Home Phone
7. Fax
8. Other Phone
9. Email
10. Physical Address
11. City
12. State
13. Zip
14. Country
15. Custom 1
16. Custom 2
17. Custom 3
18. Custom 4
19. Notes
20. Private Flag (0 for false, 1 for true)
21. Category (Business or Personal, for example) |
1. Person Name
2. Pager Type
3. Pager PIN
4. Fax
5. Home Phone
6. Work Phone
7. Email
8. Notes |
Reviewing the possible solutions
There are basically two ways of exporting information out of Notes using nothing but your bare hands and programming skills. The first way, in fact, doesn't even require your programming skills. You can export information out of Notes via a view by going selecting Export from the File menu and then following the instructions of the Export Wizard. The only problem is that the Wizard only allows you to export information in three generic formats: Structured Text, Tabular Text and as a Lotus 1-2-3 Worksheet. In order to import that information into the desktop software of the device of your choice, you still have to open that file in a spreadsheet and manually save it as a CSV file
The problem with this is that it created a few extra steps for the end-user. Those extra steps, while straight-forward to experienced users, could cause a novice user to make a mistake somewhere along the line and be unable to import the addresses into the device. Simply put, there were two many points of possible failure.
The other option and the one that ended up in the final solution was to use LotusScript to create an ASCII flat file containing the same information and then save it with a ".csv" extension. This way, the file is ready for importing into the application as soon as it has been created. There is no need to open it up or manipulate it further in any way. Just redirect the user to a Notes document with the CSV file embedded into it and let her download it and import it into her application right away.
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