Configuring KPilot
Table of Contents
Once KPilot is installed it needs to be configured to match your hardware. The conduits need to be configured as well. After that you can use KPilot to synchronize your PalmPilot™™ with your KDE desktop.
When you run KPilot from either the panel menu or from the command prompt for the first time it will prompt you with a dialog box to configure it. This configuration dialog can be requested later from the main application -> menu, from the KPilot daemon popup menu menu item or by starting KPilot from the shell as follows:
$kpilot--setup
In addition, if you upgrade KPilot and some new configuration options require your attention, this setup dialog will reappear.
The configuration dialog
KPilot's configuration dialog is a large one. This is because it contains not only the configuration of the device for communicating with the PalmPilot™™, but also the configuration of all the installed conduits. Each group of configuration options (general and conduits) will be discussed separately.
The settings available in the KPilot configuration dialog under the heading General Setup give you detailed control over the operation of KPilot: you can select a non-standard hardware device, set special encodings for foreign-language handhelds, and control how KPilot displays your data. There are four items under the General Setup heading. You may need to expand the General Setup heading to see them.
The items under General Setup
This is a setup page that contains options describing the PalmPilot™™ hardware, and the user settings.
The Device Page
The port that the cradle is connected to.
By default it is
set to /dev/pilot
which should be a symbolic link to the real port.
The port might be a serial port, in which case
/dev/pilot
should point to
something like
/dev/cuaa0
(in FreeBSD®) or
/dev/ttyS0
(in Linux®).
For USB devices, it can be more difficult to
determine where
/dev/pilot
should point.
It may be possible to configure your USB daemon
to set up the link automatically, so that
/dev/pilot
points to the right port no matter where you plug in your Palm OS® device.
Make sure the port has
the correct permissions.
It
must be read/write by all if KPilot is intended to be used by a
normal user! KPilot will complain if the permissions are wrong, but you
will need to fix the permissions by hand. This could be done by doing a
chmod
as root where 666
devicedevice is the correct port.
To resolve this issue, please refer to “KPilot says Can't connect to pilot
”
FAQ entry, or contact your system administrator.
You can also use network sync (with pilot-link 0.11.5 and later)
by entering net:any as the
device name.
Indicate the speed of the serial connection to the PalmPilot™™. It has no meaning for USB devices. For an older model PalmPilot™™, choose 9600. Newer models may be able to handle speeds up to the maximum listed, 115200. You can experiment with the connection speed: the PalmPilot™™ manual suggests starting at a speed of 19200 and trying faster speeds to see if they work.
Workarounds enable special handling for specific devices. Most devices do not need special handling. However, the Zire 31, Zire 72 and Tungsten T5 do have special needs, so if you are connecting such a device, please select the workaround for them.
Palm OS® devices are available in many different languages. If your device uses a different encoding than ISO-latin1, you will need to select the correct encoding from the list in order to display special characters correctly. If you can enter Russian in your PalmPilot™™, select CP1251, for instance.
The user name of the PalmPilot™™. By default this name is the same as
your log on name. When you sync with the PalmPilot™™ KPilot will
check to see if this name matches the one on the PalmPilot™™. If they do
not, you are asked to pick which you will use. If you pick the local
name, the PalmPilot™™ will be changed to match.
The Pilot User entry is also used to name the folder that
stores the information from the PalmPilot™™. This folder is created in the
$KDEHOME/share/apps/kpilot/DBBackup/
folder, where the $KDEHOME environment
variable
(typically /home/Login Name/.kde/)
points to the folder that contains your configuration and data for the KDE
applications.
Click here to try to automatically detect your device, username and connection speed. KPilot will scan for attached devices.
This page contains settings with which you can instruct KPilot to perform special kinds of HotSync®, as well as direct how conflicts during a HotSync® should be resolved. A conflict happens when both the desktop application and the handheld application change the same data.
KPilot interfaces with your handheld in two ways: using the conduits and the internal viewers. Conduits are plug-in programs which extend the synchronization capabilities of KPilot. KPilot stores separate copies of the databases and records for conduits, while the internal viewers and backup operation share the same copy. This distinction is important to choose your update method depending on your usage. If you use mainly the conduits to sync your handheld with external programs, you may choose as default synchronization method any option that runs the conduits. However, if you use mainly the internal viewers, you need to update copy of the databases as well in order to view and edit the information from your handheld, so running the conduits only is not sufficient.
The HotSync® setup page
Select the type of synchronization that will be performed by default.
HotSync: run all selected conduits, sync the databases with a modified flag set, updating the modified records only. Performs a fast backup, backing up only the databases that were modified. This option offers a nice balance between speed and data safety.
FullSync: run all selected conduits, and sync all databases, reading all records, and performing a full backup. It is the safest option, but takes the longest time to complete, as it will merge all the records from the handheld and your desktop. It is the KPilot equivalent of the Palm SlowSync.
Copy PC to Handheld: run all conduits and sync all databases, but instead of merging the information from both sources, copy the PC data to the handheld. Use with care, as this option erases the changes you made in your handheld since the last sync.
Copy Handheld to PC: run all conduits and sync all databases, but instead of merging the information from both sources, copy the handheld data to the PC. Use with care, as this option erases the changes you made in your PC since the last sync.
This is a security feature that prevents the handheld from synchronization while the PC screen saver is active. This prevents other people from stealing your data through the handheld cradle while your PC is unattended. The feature only works with the KDE screen savers, though, and you will need to disable it to use KPilot in non-KDE environments.
If you HotSync® your handheld with multiple PCs, the flag on the handheld that stores which records have changed since the last HotSync® may be inaccurate. It is recommended to do a full sync when changing PCs. You can disable the full sync by unchecking this box.
Data records can be changed both on the handheld and on the PC. If one record has incompatible changes in both the handheld and the PC, (such as changing a phone number in different ways on both sides), the conflicting change needs to be resolved so that the handheld and the PC data are consistent again. Choices for conflict resolution are:
Ask User: pop up a dialog for the user to choose how the conflict is to be resolved for every conflict.
Do Nothing: leave the entries in an inconsistent state. Future syncs may not notice the discrepancy.
Handheld Overrides: copy the values from the handheld to the PC, discarding the changes on the PC.
PC Overrides: copy the values from the PC to the handheld, discarding changes on the handheld.
Values From Last Sync (Not Supported): KPilot stores a backup copy of the information on your handheld depending on the synchronization method you selected. If this information is available, use neither the values from the handheld nor the PC, but the values from the last sync.
Use Both Entries (Not Supported): Create duplicate entries of the conflicting records on both the PC and handheld, one with the value from the PC, the other with the value from the handheld.
This page contains settings specific to the backup operation, which saves a copy of the handheld databases, allowing the user to restore this information later.
In short, databases are all files stored in your handheld. A database can be either a record database, which stores dynamic information created by the user (for instance, the addresses or the To-Do information), or a resource database, which tend to be static (for instance the applications).
The Backup Page
Select in this list how frequently backups are done. Possible values are:
On Every HotSync: A backup of your handheld will be done every time you HotSync
On Request Only: A backup of your handheld will be done only when you choose your next sync to be of type Backup
List databases that should not be synced or backed up.
The values can be either database creator values, which are 4-letter strings
surrounded by square brackets (so for Handbase databases you fill in
[PmDB]), or database names,
which are strings without square brackets that may contain shell-style
wildcards.
See the FAQ
for a list of databases that should be listed
here (the default should be OK though).
Newer PalmPilot™™ devices contain emulation code for
the older 68k processor; this means that they have a large
number of databases with names ending in
_a68k.
These do not need to be backed up nor synced, so you could
add *_a68k
to the list of databases to skip.
No backup List here databases that should be excluded from the backup operation. Some databases do not follow the standard database layout, and trying to backup and restore them will result in information loss. You may include here databases with volatile information, such as news or web pages, that often do not require to be backed up.
Not restored List here databases that should be excluded from the restore operation, even if they were previously backed up. Databases included here can be installed manually later, using the File Installer. You may include here databases with volatile information, such as news or web pages, that often do not require to be restored.
Changing the contents of the No backup or Not restored fields, in particular removing the databases already listed there, can damage those databases when you perform a HotSync®.
The backup typically updates the copy of the handheld databases. Conduits are programs that extend the KPilot functionality. Running them usually means synchronization the handheld to other PC databases, like the address book or the calender. Check this box to perform both operations on every backup.
This page presents options related to the startup and exit of KPilot and KPilot daemon.
While KPilot is the front-end for the internal viewers, configuration options and logs, the sync operation is handled by the KPilot daemon. Even if KPilot is not running you can HotSync® if the daemon is. Therefore, if you want to be able to sync your handheld at anytime, it is important to start the daemon at login, or the opposite, if you want to be able to sync only when KPilot is running, you have to stop the daemon on exit. The last option is especially useful if you have other applications that use the same port as KPilot.
The Startup and Exit Page
Start KPilot at login: By checking this, a link to the daemon is placed in your autostart folder and will be started automatically. Note that this is not normally needed if the daemon is docked in the panel.
Show KPilot in system tray:
Check this box to instruct the daemon to place a KPilot icon
in the system tray. This icon has a menu that can be brought up with
the right mouse button. Without this option, the daemon is not visible to the
user at all.
Quit after HotSync: When this option is enabled, both KPilot and the KPilot daemon will exit after the HotSync® operation has completed, leaving the device port free for other tools. This may be needed on systems where the USB daemon starts KPilot automatically.
Stop KPilot's system tray application on exit: Setting this option will cause the daemon to exit when you quit KPilot.
