ShadowLink 5 for Palm OS5

Copyright Ó 2002-2003 Ling Nero. All Rights Reserved. ShadowLink is freeware, licensed under the GNU GPL.

Send bug reports or to RnLNero@yahoo.com. For source code go to www.geocities.com/rnlnero/

What is ShadowLink

How to Use

Caveats

Troubleshooting

Version History

WHAT IS IT

ShadowLink 5 for Palm OS5 is specifically designed to work with the origin stamp written by Shadow Plan. Double or single-tapping on the '[[[Shadow:' token in the origin stamp will jump you to Shadow Plan, within the list and hi-lighting the specific item. If your handheld is running earlier versions of Palm OS, please use the pre-OS5 versions of ShadowLink at www.geocities.com/rnlnero/. There are two versions of ShadowLink 5. SL5Hack.prc requires TealMaster to work. SL5App.prc is a self-contained application and does not require TealMaster. (SL5Hack.prc, although designed for OS5, will work with earlier versions of the Palm OS, as early as OS 3.1.)

If you have Shadow Plan 2.2.2 or up, you can enable 'Support ShadowLinkHack' under 'Append origin to ToDo note'. When this option is enabled, Shadow writes the record uniqueID to the origin stamp. With the uniqueID, ShadowLink can jump to the specific record. If the option is disabled or you have a pre 2.2.2 version of Shadow, then ShadowLink will jump to the list but place you at the first item.

Shadow 2.6 has a robust conduit that changes the origin stamp uniqueID after a sync. In such cases, ShadowLink will jump to the list at the first item. You can fix the origin stamps by re-saving the list. The easier way to do that is to tap Detail, OK, and exit the list.

 

HOW TO USE

- Install either SL5Hack.prc or SL5App.prc to handheld. SL5Hack.prc requires TealMaster on the handheld.

- If you've installed SL5Hack.prc, activate ShadowLink by checking its checkbox in TealMaster.

- If you've installed SL5App.prc, activate ShadowLink by running the app and checking the 'Enable ShadowLink' checkbox.

- The default way to Shadow Jump is to double-tap. If you want to use a single tap, configure ShadowLink through TealMaster (SL5Hack.prc) or its main screen (SL5App.prc).

- In Shadow Plan, enable 'Append origin to ToDo note' in Link Options

- If available, enable 'Support ShadowLink' under 'Append origin to ToDo note'

- If you have origin info enabled previously, you may choose to refresh your list by opening it and saving it. The quickiest way to do this is to open the list, pick an item, tap Detail, OK, and exit the list.

- To jump to the corresponding Shadow entry from a ToDo having the origin info, go into the ToDo note and, depending on your ShadowLink configuration, double-tap or single-tap the word '[Shadow:'

 

CAVEATS

- Do not use ']]]' as part of your list name. It is part of the Shadow origin stamp and ShadowLink keys off of it. You can use a single ']' or a double ']]', just not three or more ']' in a row.

- Do not use '>' in your list name

- ShadowLink does not support lists on expansion cards

- ShadowLink does not support ShadowPlan on an expansion card. This is a limitation of the PalmOS but some combination of handheld/PalmOS/launcher/VFS manager(e.g. PiDirectII) might allow ShadowLink to work.

- Because Shadow caches your work in RAM, new items will not (immediately) have the correct uniqueID in the origin stamp for ShadowLink to jump directly to the item. This is the case if you see '(0)' after '[[[Shadow:' in the origin info. In such cases ShadowLink will jump to the list but place you at the first item. You can refresh the correct uniqueID by saving the list, and thus force Shadow to write new items to the database, before establishing any ToDo links, or by saving the list twice, once to flush the new items to database, second to update the origin info with the valid info. Establishing ToDo links on existing items will not have this problem. If the '(0)' id becomes too prevalent, perhaps Jeff can move the order of things to always flush new items before writing the origin info.

- Since you can link multiple Shadow items to the same ToDo, the origin info will point to the last item that was modified, and thus ShadowLink will jump to that item.

- If you rename a list, you have to open & save to update the origin info. Otherwise the origin info still has the old list name and ShadowLink will not find the list to jump.

- If you delete the item in Shadow but leave the ToDo intact, even though the origin info looks good, ShadowLink will not jump.

- If your list is long, Shadow will most likely position the hi-lighted item off screen. After Shadow jumping, pressing the up scroll button will likely show the hi-lighted item. Expanding the list by '/K' might also bring the hi-lighted item into view. This is not a bug with ShadowLink.

 

TROUBLESHOOTING

- Is ShadowLink enabled?

- Is 'Append origin' & 'support ShadowLinkHack' enabled in Shadow?

- Is the unique id '(0)' in the origin info? If yes, open & save the list to refresh the origin info.

- Has the corresponding Shadow item been deleted? If the Shadow item is deleted, ShadowLink will not jump.

- If you have other hacks which also use double or single-tap, the order of enabling the hacks might help. Try disabling ShadowLink and those hacks and re-enabling ShadowLink first, then the other hacks.

- If you're using SL5App.prc, it will re-enable itself after a soft reset. If your Palm OS5 unit crashes (whether it's ShadowLink's fault or not) and a soft reset does not help, do a warm reset (usually by doing the pin-reset while pressing the page-up key). A warm reset will not cause ShadowLink, or any other applications, to re-enable itself.

 

VERSION HISTORY

SL5App Ver 5.1 (December, 2003)
- disable ShadowLink during HotSync

SL5Hack Ver 5.0 (November, 2002)
SL5App Ver 5.0 (November, 2002)
- first public release