This is both a Palm and conduit question, so I'm posting to both lists. I'm
designing my first Palm app, and it will involve a Palm program, a conduit,
and a fairly simple Windows app. Basically, the conduit will generate a
database from info on the PC and download it to the Palm. This is a one-way
transfer, as the Palm program will be a "viewer" type program only -- no
updates. A new version will be created and downloaded during a sync only if
the data source on the PC changes.
The main characteristic of the database on the Palm is that it is truly a
sort of database, with numerous "links" between records required. I assume
that the only practical way to do this is to use the "unique record ID"
field to act as a "pointer" to a related record. This implies that the
record IDs must be generated by the conduit since it is the one that is
building the database. In the documentation there are numerous warnings
about using the record IDs and how the Palm normally generates them
automatically. However, I assume that my idea is basically sound and that I
can generate them myself on the PC and then specify them as I write each
record to the Palm -- correct? Also, if any change is noted in the PC file,
the entire database will be re-generated and written to the Palm on the next
sync; i.e., the conduit will purge all records on the Palm and rewrite
everything from scratch as it would be difficult to update it on a
per-record basis. Also, this data is not expected to change very often.
I know I'm certainly not the first person to write an app similar to this
:-). Is what I am planning fairly common practice, or is there another way
to do things?
Doug Gordon
