.FLYINGHEAD TURBOCHARGING YOUR PALMPILOT
.TITLE HackMaster: key to a better PalmPilot
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT hackmaster-cover.gif
.SUMMARY If you’ve never used HackMaster or a "hack", you haven’t really fully utilized the power of your PalmPilot. In this very useful article, contributing editor Calvin Parker provides a great tutorial on a tool that will help you modify the behavior of your PalmPilot in many useful ways. One example: automatic correction of Graffiti errors. This is a must-read.
.AUTHOR Calvin O. Parker
One of the great features of the PalmPilot is the ability to add third-party software to it. Literally thousands of add-on programs have been written, extending from a game of solitaire up to full-blown database applications. However, most of these are self-contained applications, and once you switch from them they are no longer "in the picture". Suppose that you wanted to use an application that would always be "running" – is that possible on the PalmPilot?
Well, in a sense. On the PalmPilot, this is done by using System Extensions. In layman’s terms, these are patches to the operating system that replace a certain piece of program code with another. For example, if you wanted to have your application run when someone tapped on the find button (instead of running the built-in find routine), you’d patch the section of the operating system that looks for that particular button to be tapped. This is where HackMaster steps in.
When the first Pilot first came out, Edward Keyes, realized that this ability to patch the system could be dangerous if more than one such patch used the same area of the OS. His goal was to develop a centralized manager of these system extensions, in order to keep track of what was installed and where. This goal has been met with the shareware application, HackMaster.
To date, there are currently over 30 such HackMaster controlled patches (normally referred to as "Hacks"). While some of them are little more than briefly entertaining (such as Jeff Jetton’s BackHack, a hack that reverses ALL the text on a PalmPilot) some of these Hacks provide very useful functionality.
Also note that there are applications out there that don’t use HackMaster to patch the OS. Care should be taken when using these in conjunction with HackMaster, especially if you’ve got a Hack installed that seems to do the same thing. These applications normally come with mention of such known conflicts in their documentation.
.H1 Using HackMaster
HackMaster itself doesn’t really do anything until you load one of the Hacks. After that point, each Hack installed presents itself as a line in the HackMaster screen, as shown in Figure A.
.FIG A This is the HackMaster screen, showing a list of currently installed Hacks.
Each installed hack displays first a checkbox, then the Hack’s name and one or two buttons. The checkbox indicates whether the Hack is active (i.e., the system patch is in place). After the Hack name, the first button is the About button, which appears as a box with a question mark in it. The About button is where the programmer will normally put a general Info screen that might also contain registration instructions about the Hack. Optionally, each hack might also have a Configuration button, which appears as a box with a plus sign in it. The Configuration button allows you to set any configuration options that that Hack might require. For instance, SelectHack’s Configuration screen allows you to set the tap speed at which it will select words, and if you want "Smart Select" activated. SelectHack is described in more detail later in this article.
When you do a soft reset of your PalmPilot, all of these HackMaster controlled Hacks will be disabled. Another nice feature of HackMaster is that when a reset is performed, it pops up a box asking if you’d like to have all of your previously enabled Hacks turned back on.
.H1 Word of caution
Installing Hacks is as simple as installing any other PalmPilot application. However, due to the very nature of what a Hack is, if you are installing an update to a currently installed Hack, you need to remember to go to HackMaster and disable (un-check the checkbox next to it) that hack before installing the update. This also applies to deleting a Hack (via the Memory App) without first disabling it. Failure to do this will sometime produce some un-wanted results (most of the time the system will lock and require a reset the first time you try to access that Hack). Not to worry, if you forget to do this, then a simple soft reset will take care of the problem in most cases.
.H1 Hacks available
There’s really not a good list compiled anywhere of all the available hacks and what they do. The closest you can come is to go to one of the software sites, and search for HackMaster (most have HackMaster as its own category). Take note that a good number of these Hacks, as well as HackMaster itself, are shareware. Please register if you intend on using them beyond each application’s specified trial period/conditions.
.H1 My top Hacks
I don’t see anyone installing ALL of the available Hacks. But, there is a handful that I consider MUST HAVE hacks. These hacks’ usefulness range from improving on built-in system function to making the PalmPilot’s already easy to use interface that much easier. Here are the hacks that I consider "MUST HAVE":
.H2 SwitchHack
SwitchHack allows you to switch from the current application, to the last one that you were executing. Doesn’t sound useful? Well, suppose you’re in a third party application like J-File working on your video tape collection DB, and suddenly you need to call your buddy to find out if he knows the rating of Gone With the Wind. Without SwitchHack, you’d press the Address List button, and then slog your way back through the applications picker until you got back to J-File. With SwitchHack, once you give your pal a ring, you would do the stroke that SwitchHack uses, and you’re right back in J-File.
Be aware that SwitchHack works best with applications that save their current state when they are exited. SwitchHack also has another feature: it keeps track of the last ten applications you’ve run, and you can quickly display a list of them. Selecting an application from this list will run that application. In effect, if you have ten applications that you use most of the time, you might never find yourself going to an applications launcher again!
.H2 ClipHack
For some reason, the PalmPilot has about a 1K limit on the size of text you can cut from one application and paste into another. Simply stated, ClipHack removes this limitation and allows you to clip text up to 32K in size. A nice feature of ClipHack is that when you use it to clip more than the standard allowed 1K, it displays a box showing you the number of words and characters in the selected text (tap and hold that box to keep in on the screen, otherwise it will disappear after about a second). While most folks would only be using clips of up to 4K (the limit of Memo Pad and attached memos), there are some applications that allow larger memo sizes (for instance, some of the outlining applications). I never did understand why you could have 4K memos and not be able to cut/paste the entire memo, but since I’ve installed ClipHack, I don’t worry about this anymore.
.H2 FindHack
Using the built-in Find function (accessed by pressing the Find silkscreen button), the PalmPilot allows you to search your PalmPilot for text. However, for some reason, the built-in function doesn’t allow you to find embedded text. For example, using the built-in Find feature and searching for "smi" will find the word "Smith" or "Smithsonian", but will not find "blacksmith". FindHack was originally written to address this shortcoming, and has since been extended to include quite a few other features. Not only does FindHack allow you to find embedded text, it also gives you the option to search in All Applications, just the Built-In applications, or just the currently active application. Figure B shows the standard FindHack box (which is brought up when you tap the silkscreen Find button once the Hack has been activated).
.FIG B FindHack allows you to select quite a few options when you perform a find.
With FindHack, you can also set up a list of preferred searches (set in the Configuration options of FindHack). This allows you to set up permanently stored searches that will be available in the pop-up box next to the Find text line. This pop-up also contains up to the last six previously search text strings.
.H2 TealGlance
This is one of my favorite Hacks, and its features are too numerous to completely list here. In a nutshell, TealGlance allows you to see at a glance your current DateBook and To Do List entries. It also displays a clock, date and day of the week, and allows you to automatically turn on/off the backlight at power-up. TealGlance is an excellent way to quickly keep track of your current appointments and commitments.
.H2 SelectHack
SelectHack comes in handy if you do a lot of editing on your PalmPilot. With SelectHack active, tapping twice on a word selects that word and tapping three times will select the entire paragraph. In the Configuration screen of SelectHack, you can enable Smart Select, which will try to select an adjacent space, so that if you delete the word you won’t have that extra space. Also, you can select the speed at which SelectHack looks for double/triple taps. If you are using other applications that look for this double tap (most notably QuickText from Landware), then you might want to adjust this select speed.
.H2 Battery Monitor
A fairly new Hack, Battery Monitor actually consists of an application and a Hack. Using this combination, you can monitor the exact amount of time that your PalmPilot is turned on, as well as the last time you changed batteries, how long you’ve had the serial port open, how long you’ve used the backlighting, and (if you’ve got EcoHack installed) how long you’ve had EcoHack enabled (more on EcoHack below). Battery Monitor also includes an Oracle, which will attempt to predict the next time you’ll need to change your batteries.
.H1 Honorable mentions
While not used on my PalmPilot currently, there are some other great Hacks that warrant mention when talking about some of the more popular hacks available. TealEcho echoes Graffiti strokes to the screen as you make them. EcoHack allows you to speed up/slow down your PalmPilot. AppHack allows you to map up to 24 different applications to the hardware buttons (who needs an app launcher?). MenuHack allows you to drop down the menus without pressing the Menu button, and finally CorrectHack allows you to set up lists of common mis-spellings (or abbreviations) to be automatically corrected/substituted as you "type."
.H1 Conclusion
HackMaster is something that I feel every PalmPilot owner should have installed on his or her PalmPilot. Hacks such as FindHack and ClipHack provide functionality that should have been included in the OS and Hacks like SwitchHack and SelectHack make day-to-day use of the PalmPilot that much easier. While it’s possible that most folks will disagree with me on what they feel are "Must Have" hacks, I’m sure all will agree that HackMaster is definitely something that benefits the PalmPilot and the PalmPilot community.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Most hacks and HackMaster are available at http://www.pilotgear.com and http://www.pilotzone.com.
QuickText is part of Landware’s QuickPac application, more info available at http://www.landware.com
CorrectHack is available at Dovcom at http://www.dovcom.com
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Calvin O. Parker is the maintainer of a well-respected PalmPilot FAQ site on the Internet. He has been actively involved with the PalmPilot online community for over a year, and has recently written a book on the PalmPilot: The Complete PalmPilot Guide. For more information visit http://www.pilotfaq.com.
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6bc58
