Re: [NTLK] State of the NewtSync

On Apr 13, 2006, at 5:14 AM, Adriano wrote:

> I am aware that you are just going to give it a try,
> but Newten is cool and Transmit needs no comments i think really,
> so now that i read that you are intentioned to put your hands
> on NewtSync i can just say that my best hope are on the good way to
> become true!!!

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :)

I was studying the overall architecture of the program last night, as
well as the Address Book plugin, since that's a lot less complex than
the iCal plugin.

Here's what I've learned so far as far as NewtSync 0.3.3 is concerned...

1. I got the project to build easily. It builds natively on my Intel
Mac, but the usual tricks for producing a Universal Binary are not
working. I suspect this may be because the project dates back to the
Project Builder era, and is still using a JAM-based build system. I
may need to start a new project file and import the source into
that. A hassle, but not too bad.

2. Address Book syncing appears very strongly tied to having groups.
I don't have any Address Book groups, and this is probably why AB
syncing has never worked quite right for me. No groups = no
checkboxes to check in the "which groups would you like to sync" = no
addresses synced. I would have to add some sort of mode to ignore
groups if you don't have them or don't want to use them.

3. I found a couple of typos (transposed letters) where it looks for
your preference for conflict resolution. I haven't confirmed this,
but it seems like it would cause the behavior to always be "Newton
overwrites Mac" for the Address Book and iCal plugins, regardless of
preference setting.

4. I'm still not sure how best to contact NowhereMan. His mac.com
website has disappeared, so that email address is probably dead too.

I guess before I take this too much further, I'm curious:

1. How many people are actively using NewtSync?

2. How many people would use NewtSync, but can't because of some type
of problem?

3. What plugins are you using / would you use?

4. What would be your preferred connection method for NewtSync?
(serial, TCP/IP, etc)

5. How many of you are using pre-Panther systems? (Universal
Binaries require 10.3.9 or higher)

It's one thing to make a few bug fixes for myself, but another to
take on responsibility for the whole project. Again, I can't commit
to any particular time investment, but I do have some interest in at
least getting it to work for me over a serial connection, and would
be willing to share those updates with NTLKers.

Another option would be to merge bits of it into NewTen, so it would
become both a package installer and basic syncing. If I did that, I
would probably jettison the plugin-based architecture, and merge the
plugins into the app, as I feel the plugins add a lot of complexity
without much actual benefit. (How many people in the world are
qualified to / interested in developing NewtSync plugins?) Also, I
may have to support serial connections only, at first, if I took that
route. It would still be dependent on having the NewtSync package
installed on the Newton side.

Kinda just thinking out loud here, so feel free to think back at me.

Steven
http://panic.com/
http://stevenf.com/

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