Open Source software for PalmOS 5, mostly by Alexander Pruss
This project is an umbrella for a number of software projects for Palm OS 5
handhelds, as well as for a partial source code release of a commercial
product. All projects are available for use under the Gnu
General Public License but some are also available under the revised
BSD license (without the advertising clause), which is GPL compatible.
Projects include backup software, network printing of your PDA screen, and other
goodies. Source code is, of course, always available.
For all the software, please USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I've been
known to hang around the forums at 1src.com, and
asking questions there in the Applications forum may get you answers.
Currently, the projects are:
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Capitalizer:
Capitalize letters that cross the middle line on those PalmOS 5 PDAs that
have Graffiti 1 installed. You can also designate a special
punctuation area. On some Clies, many additional keyboard shortcuts,
like screen-print, are enabled. There is also a Graffiti magnifier
in case you write too small for the standard Graffiti engine to recognize
your text. Do not use this if you have Graffiti 2. (If you
don't know which you have, one obvious difference is that in Graffiti 1, a
"t" is a single stroke while in Graffiti 2, it is two
strokes.) [Download] |
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Clie
Skin Generator: Generate Virtual Graffiti and Status Bar skins for the
Sony Clie NR/NX/NZ/TH (maybe UX, too). This is a collection of
command-line tools. [Download] |
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Graffiti
State Indicator Hack: Newer Palms disable the Graffiti State
Indicator, but sometimes it's a nice thing to have, for instance to know
when auto-capitalization will occur. This hack requires the YAHM
OS 5 hack manager. [Download] |
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NVBackup:
This is currently my most popular HandyPalmStuff project. It is a
backup utility for NVFS-based PDAs: Palm T5, LifeDrive, TX, TE2, Treo 650,
Treo 700P. Unlike commercial backup utilities that access data via
the database cache, this reads data direct out of the flash disk where it
is store. This seems to be the best backup utility in terms of
restoring the exact state of the system before the backup, without a need
to reenter registration codes for other software (there may be one or two
exceptions) or anything else. [Download]
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Features
include:
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scheduled
daily backups (including on locked devices) |
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ftp
server support--automatically or manually export your backup
to an ftp server |
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compression
and checksum1 |
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AES
128-bit encryption |
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selective
restore |
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fast
update of existing backup |
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connect
to atomic clocks on the Internet to set the time, either
manually or after a scheduled backup |
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BSD
licensed so you can make a closed-source commercial backup
program on the basis of this |
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Pros
over some commercial solutions:
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exact
state restoration, usually with no need for warm or hard reset
before restoring |
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should
work better on unstable systems (e.g., due to unstable
third-party utilities) than other utilities |
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may
be faster for very large backup sets (say, 50mb) |
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does
not affect cache memory significantly |
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Cons:
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backup
cannot be restored on another model PDA or maybe even on the
same model PDA after a ROM upgrade |
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uses
undocumented APIs |
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slower
for smaller backup sets than some commercial solutions |
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NXSkinner:
A very simple utility to load Virtual Graffiti and Status Bar skins on the
Clie NX (and maybe NR, NZ, TH, UX). [Download] |
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partial
myKbd source: This is a BSD-licensed (acceptable for commercial,
closed-source use!) release of large chunks of the code from my closed
source mySkin/myKbd skin loader and hex-key virtual keyboard
utilities. The code is not compilable as it is because it is a
partial release (the main thing missing is the skin loading code itself),
but includes lots of goodies for developers, including the following. [Download]
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Essentially
complete 'hede' notification handler code for handling hex
keyboards, macros and making a popup home button. This code
should be useful if you are making a virtual keyboard replacement
because it compensates for many digitizer pen-up jumps (when the pen
is lifted on some newer Palms, the digitizer sends out invalid
data). Moreover, this code can be used in ARM and 68K mode
(ARM mode does not currently work on the T3 due to some of the
undocumented APIs used for DIA handling). |
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Bilinear
resize |
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Recolorize |
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Pilrc
for skins: This is source code for a hacked version of pilrc that I
use to generate Clie and Palm skins. [Download] |
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PrintIt
DA: This is simple a Desk Accessory (it requires a Desk Accessory
launcher) for OS 4 and up that prints the screen to a network
printer. It supports PCL and PostScript printers, as well as RAW
(port 9100) and LPR/LPD (port 515) protocols. If you don't have a
network printer but would like to network your printer, a RAW Print Server
is included (Windows/OS X/Linux/etc.) [Download] |
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Silence
Hack: When activated in YAHM,
this OS 5 hack deactivates all sound (except for Clie sound). [Download] |
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source
code to AESLib 3.1: For completeness, here is the source code for the
AESLib library that NVBackup uses for encryption. I didn't write the
library and know almost nothing about it. [Download] |
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T3SkinGen:
Quick and dirty T3 DIA skin generator. [Download] |