Technical Notes

File Linking with PalmConnect

PalmConnect provides three ways to link files between your Zoomer and your PC once you are connected.

First, set up a File Linking connection between the Zoomer and the PC according to the directions in the PalmConnect User's Guide.

When you are connected, you should see the following:

• On the PC: A Connect icon positioned between the Wastebasket and the World icons and a Disk Drive icon to the right of all of the other Disk Drive icons containing the "ROM and Floppy" symbol, the name of the Zoomer ("Remote" by default) and the Drive designation "-B" to indicate that you are connected to the B:[internal] drive of the Remote machine.

• From the PC, the only drive on the PDA you can "see" is the B:[internal] drive.

• On the Zoomer: A Connect icon positioned to the right of the Drives icon along the bottom of the screen. The Drives Window (tap the Drives icon at the bottom of the Zoomer screen to open) should have icons for the Zoomer's 3 internal drives (A:, B:, and SYS:), an icon for the PCMCIA card, identified as "C:" (if you have one), and the icon containing the name of the drive on the PC where PalmConnect is installed, usually the C: drive, such as "PC-C".

• From the PDA, the only drive on the PC you can "see" is the drive where PalmConnect is installed, usually the C: drive.

The World and Document icons represent the World and Document folders for their own machine only. That is, the Document icon on the Zoomer always represents the B:[INTERNAL]\GEOWORKS\DOCUMENT folder on the Zoomer, and the Document icon on PalmConnect always represents the Document folder in PalmConnect on the PC (Usually, C:\PALMCONN\DOCUMENT). Therefore, any file from any folder on either machine dropped on the Document icon on a machine will be copied to the Document folder for that machine, no matter what the File Manager is currently displaying. Likewise, selecting the Document icon on a machine will always display the Document folder for THAT machine.

!! Use the Path Description at the top of the File Manager screen to help you navigate. It will always tell you the machine, drive, and folder you are currently viewing.

Differentiating data files from application files: By convention and default, all application files are contained in the World folder, and all data files (your actual Address Book, Date Book, etc.) are contained in the Document folder. However, in PalmConnect, one may easily end up with copies of the applications in the Document folder by accident, or believe they are viewing the Document folder when they are actually viewing the World folder. Data file icons are distinguished from application icons by the presence of two sheets of paper behind the icon symbol. Switch back and forth between the Document folder and the World folder and be sure to notice this difference. A common problem in File Linking failures is to link over the application file instead of the data file.

There is another way to distinguish between these two kinds of files: In the File Manager, highlight a file in question. Tap the Utilities menu item at the top of the screen and select Get file Information. Applications are of the type "Executable". Your data files are of the type "VM file".

You can open folders and copy or move files on either machine from either machine when connected.

Three Ways to Link (copy) files between you PC and your PDA:

1. "Dragging" a PDA file over to the PC: This operation is done entirely from the PC. First, display the desired Zoomer folder on the PalmConnect File Manager on your PC: In PalmConnect, click on the drive icon for the Zoomer's B:[internal] drive ("Remote-B" PDA name - drive name). The PC will fetch the file directory information from your Zoomer. You should recognize the file folder arrangement reflecting the actual B:[internal] drive on your Zoomer. Check the Path Description at the top of the File Manager Window to be sure you are displaying information from your PDA. Double-click the GEOWORKS folder, then on the Document folder. Select the desired file. Make sure that you've selected the data file you wish to transfer and not the application itself.

   "Drag" the desired file icon from the folder to the "Document" icon at the bottom of the PalmConnect screen. When you "drop" the icon, you should see a dialog box confirming that the file is being copied.

   !! You may see a warning box indicating that a file by the same name already exists. Unless you give your data files names other than "Address Book", "Notebook", etc. you will be prompted to make sure you really want to overwrite the version of your files which already exist on that machine. This is true of file systems on most computers.

2. "Dragging" a PC file over to the Zoomer: This operation is done entirely from the Zoomer. First, display the desired PC folder on the File Manager on your Zoomer: In the Zoomer drive window, tap the drive specification for the PC ("PC-C" PC name - drive name). The Zoomer will fetch the file directory information from your PC. You should recognize the file folder arrangement reflecting the actual drive on your PC. Check the Path Description at the top of the File Manager Window to be sure you are displaying information from your PC. Double-tap on the Palmconn folder and so on until the Document folder is opened and you can see the desired file. Make sure that you've selected the data file you are transferring and not the application itself.

   "Drag" the desired file icon from the folder to the "Document" icon at the bottom of the Zoomer screen. When you "drop" the icon, you should see a dialog box confirming that the file is being copied.

   !! You may see a warning box indicating that a file by the same name already exists. Unless you give your data files names other than "Address Book", "Notebook", etc. you will be prompted to make sure you really want to overwrite the version of your files which already exist on that machine. This is true of file systems on most computers.

   !! You may also see a warning box indicating that the file you are replacing is already open or in use. This occurs when a file is linked to the PDA, and a file of the same name has been recently open on the PDA and is still in memory. To force the file closed, you must break the File Linking connection, and open one or two large applications on the PDA to cause the desired file to be "pushed" out of memory. Then re-establish the connection and attempt to link the file over again. There is a longer description on this topic in the Technote "Open File Warnings".

3. Using File>Copy from either the PC or Zoomer: File>Copy works the same between machines as it works between folders on a single machine. Select a file, then choose Copy from the File menu on the menu bar.

   In the File>Copy dialog box there are 3 buttons above the file browser: Path, Go to Document, and Drives buttons.

   • The Go to Document button selects the machine's own \DOCUMENT folder as the file copy target. Use this for copying a file source on the OTHER machine to the machine where you are executing the copy.
   • The Drives button shows all of the drives for the executing machine AND all of the accessible drives on the connected machine. Use this button to select the copy source, target, or both.
   • The Path button allows you to move level by level from a selected file or folder up to the top level of the selected device.

   Using the buttons on the Copy dialog box, navigate to the desired drive and folder as the target of the copy. Select "Copy" to execute. You should see a dialog box confirming that the file is being copied.

   !! You may see a warning box indicating that a file by the same name already exists. Unless you give your data files names other than "Address Book", "Notebook", etc. you will be prompted to make sure you really want to overwrite the version of your files which already exist on that machine. This is true of file systems on most computers.

   !!To copy a file to or from a PCMCIA memory card on the PDA, you must initiate the copy from the PDA. The File>Copy method is the most efficient for this.

BATTERY WARNING: Unusual or surprise behavior is frequently attributable to tired batteries. Whenever you get error messages or other surprises on your Zoomer, change the main batteries. Operations like file linking, transfer, using a modem, or heavy use of a PCMCIA card can easily drain the batteries but may not be immediately detected by the battery indicator.

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