Version 3.4.x - By Michael J. Hammel   <mjhammel@graphics-muse.org>

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Links:
Download the software
Screenshots
XNotesPlus Man Page
XNotesPlus Documentation - coming soon!
Known Problems
Installing the Binary Version
Pilot Link / Syncal
Sox

Mailing List Information

Paying for XNotesPlus - Keeping development going!

Future Plans

Features:

  • Editable, searchable text
  • Spell checking of note text (available in 3.5 beta version only)
  • Visual/Audio alarms
  • Project classifications for notes, both by name and by color
  • Printing using standard Unix print facilities
  • Email
  • Hidden Notes
  • Print Envelopes
  • Calendar inserts
  • Date and Time (GMT and local) inserts
  • Text file import and export
  • Cascade and Anchor notes
  • Tooltips, which can be disabled at run time or on the command line
  • Themed or standard interfaces, configurable at compile time and modiffiable after installation.
  • Highly configurable - audio, email, printer - most features can be tweaked, both in configuration files and on the command line
  • Graphical installation and configuration (available in 3.5 beta version only)


Palm Pilot features:

  • Sync, backup, restore all files on the Pilot.
  • Download Memos as XNotes
  • Upload XNotes into Memos
  • Download Addresses database, Edit it, and upload the changes
  • View and search addresses with the Address Manager
  • Addresses are linked to Email and Envelope Printing features - selecting an address database entry updates the Email and Envelope dialog windows automatically.
  • Download Todo Lists, edit them, and upload the changes.
  • View and search Todos, filtered on categories and sorted on any field.
  • Manage calendars with ical
System Requirements

Just about any Unix system.

X11R5 or X11R6 (might work with X11R4, but I doubt it).

GTK+ 1.2

 In order to use various features, additional programs must be in your PATH:
 
Feature Requirement
Email mail, elm or some other command line email program
Envelope printing nenscript (available with XNotesPlus)
Audio Alarms sox, play or some other command line oriented audio player
Pilot Tool No external tools required - Palm Pilot support is now built into the XNotesPlus package!

If these additional programs cannot be found when XNotesPlus starts up, then those features will be disabled.

Q1. When Uploading xnotes to the Pilot, do you already have to have an xnotes category on the Pilot?
Q2. How do you to turn off the opening dialog that tells you what has been disabled?
Q3. Why doesn't printing work?
Q4. Makefile:558 *** missing 'endef', untermintated 'define'.
Q5. I downloaded the static Gtk binary, installed it, and get the following Warning from GLIB:   GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to: No such user 
Q6. Are USB based devices supported by XNotesPlus?


Q1.  When Uploading XNotes to the Pilot, do you already have to have an xnotes category on the Pilot?

A1.  In older versions, prior to version 3.4, you did need an xnotes category.  That requirement has been removed starting with version 3.4.0.  Now XNotes get uploaded into the Unfiled category.



Q2.  How do you to turn off the opening dialog that tells you what has been disabled (eg the Pilot interface or printing)?

A2.  Use the --nn option.  "nn" stands for No Notice, which you'll also find in the XNotesPlus.cfg file.



Q3.  Why doesn't printing work?   For example, I just installed XNotesPlus and everything seems to work, except the print command. When I try to print I get the following error message:
sh: lpr /tmp/xp2031: not found
My print command is 
"lpr %s"
Any ideas what might be going on?

A3.  Try removing the double quotes.  The error message above comes from the system.  What happened was the system saw "lpr /tmp/xp2031" as the full name of the command to run, not the name of the command and an argument to that command.  Anyway, removing the double quotes will probably fix the problem.



Q4.  After making changes to config.h according to the documentation, I've run xmkmf, but now when I enter 'make Makefiles' I get the following error:

Makefile:558 *** missing 'endef', untermintated 'define'. Stop.

Indeed there are some 'define' statements in Makefile but they've been imported from config.h . Do you perhaps know what's going on?

A4:  When you uncommented the define's in config.h, you removed the #.  That doesn't uncomment it, you need to simply move the whole line outside of the C comment delimiters (ie the /* and */).  A valid define line in config.h looks like this:

#define blah

So leave the # on the front of that line.



Q5.  I downloaded the static GTK+ binary, installed it, and get the following message at run time:
GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to: No such user 3123.

A5.  You can ignore this.  As far as I can tell, this is a bug in the static glib library, and it may be fixed in the GTK 1.2 release (which means this bug may no longer exist).  The warning is a result of GTK+ failing to identify system wide gtkrc files.  But that shouldn't hurt XNotesPlus users since you'll be using a Gtkrc file installed in your .xnotesplus directory.



Q6.  Are USB based devices supported by XNotesPlus?

A6.  As of XNotesPlus V3.4.x:  Visor USB devices are currently supported because pilot-link supports them by using the Visor kernel module and connecting to the proper port (see http://usbvisor.sf.net/ for more info.)  You have to do some work manually at the kernel level to make this happen, but XNotesPlus should just work once you have the Visor module installed.

Any PalmOS 3.x based devices should work just fine right now.

The Palm OS 4.0 based devices need some changes to the pilot-link core to work properly.  This includes the recent Palm m devices and most Sony Clié USB devices.  If you want to use these devices right now on Linux, you need to use Coldsync, which XNotesPlus does not currently support.

Support for PalmOS 4.x devices exists in the CVS version of Pilot-Link as of December 2, 2001 but this code has not been pulled into XNotesPlus yet.  When that code stabilizes, XNotesPlus will be updated to make use of it.

Michael J. Hammel
December 3, 2001
mjhammel@graphics-muse.org
http://www.graphics-muse.org