.KEYWORD macdesktop
.FLYINGHEAD MACINTOSH DREAMS
.TITLE A wish list for the next Palm Desktop for Macintosh
.OTHER
.SUMMARY On March 24, Apple Computer released Mac OS X. Palm, Inc. has already stated that it’s hard at work on a Mac OS X version of Palm Desktop and HotSync Manager software for release later this year. Before that happy day arrives, Contributing Editor Bob Draper wants to get his two cents in by offering up this list of the "Top Ten" improvements he’d like to see in the next version of Palm Desktop for Macintosh.
.AUTHOR Bob Draper
On March 24, Apple Computer released Mac OS X (pronounced oh-es-ten), a rock solid, Unix-based powerhouse with a slick new interface named Aqua. Mac OS X offers a new look, a new feel, and a new user experience that has the whole industry talking.
That’s the good news. A down side to this glorious development is that in order to take advantage of Mac OS X’s coolest features, Macintosh applications must be rewritten to some degree. A host of developers, including Palm, Inc., are slated to release Mac OS X-compatible versions of their wares by late summer or early fall. In Palm’s case, the official word is that "Palm is hard at work on a ‘carbonized’ Mac OS X version of Palm Desktop and HotSync Manager software for release later this year." See http://www.palm.com/support/macintosh/mac_compatfaq.html.
Well, I figured that if Palm was "hard at work" developing a new version of Palm Desktop for Macintosh (which I’m assuming will be version 3.0), they might be interested in some suggestions–you know, just a few things they could do to improve the overall user experience for us Mac folks.
Now don’t get me wrong, like any other Palm handheld-totin’ Mac owner, I’m extremely grateful for all that Palm, Inc. has done for us over the last few years. As David Pogue pointed out in his November 1998 article, "PalmPilot and Macintosh: together at last" (at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199811/macintosh001.html), the release of Palm Desktop 2.1 for Macintosh was a wonderful thing: Palm’s remodel of Claris Organizer was not only a vast improvement over Pilot Desktop 1.0, but it also offered a number of Mac-only features that left "Windows users… looking over the fence with envy."
But as great as Palm Desktop for Macintosh (now at version 2.6.3) is, there is some room for improvement. After all, unlike Palm Desktop for Windows, the Macintosh program wasn’t built from the ground up to work seamlessly with a Palm handheld, and it still shows in a few areas. Therefore, I’m hoping the talented software engineers at Palm, Inc. will grant a few of my wishes as they work to finalize the next release of Palm Desktop for Macintosh.
So what follows is my list of the "Top Ten" improvements I’d like to see.
.H1 1. Full support for repeating events
The first thing I’d like to see is full support for repeating events.
You see, although you can create all manner of un-timed repeating appointments on your Palm handheld (and in Palm Desktop for Windows), Palm Desktop for Macintosh only supports two types of un-timed repeating events: yearly repeating un-timed events without an end date, and event banners. That’s it. Nothing else. Nada. Zip.
So, what does this mean to the average Mac owning Palm handheld user? Well, if you create an un-timed event called "Pay Day" on your Palm handheld that repeats every two weeks, you’ll get an error like this when you HotSync the next time:
"Palm Desktop does not support untimed events of the type held by ‘Pay Day’ on July 20, 2000."
You’ll get a similar error if you try to set an end date for any repeating un-timed events as well. The first time I got an error like this, I thought, "There must be some mistake; why won’t Palm’s desktop software recognize this appointment that I made on my Palm handheld?" You know what? I still think that’s a good question. But I’m hoping that by later this year I won’t have to ask it any more.
.H1 2. Support for Private items
The next item on my list deals with one of the most disturbing omissions from Palm Desktop for Macintosh–items marked as "Private" on your Palm handheld are not protected in the desktop program. True, the "Private" tag remains untouched on the handheld during normal HotSync operations, but should you need to HotSync using the "Macintosh Overwrites Handheld" option, you’ll want to take a few minutes to "reprivatize" the applicable items.
At the very least, I’d like to be able to label items as private in Palm Desktop for Macintosh, but full support for the show, masked, or hidden viewing options would be fantastic.
.H1 3. Email conduit
When Palm support for the Macintosh first debuted, it made perfect sense that some of the less vital features were missing. After all, Mac owners only comprised a small percentage of Palm’s user base; sound business practices dictated that the company provide just the basics. Then, if warranted, at a later date additional features could be ported.
However, circumstances have certainly changed, and I think it’s high time that Palm offered an email conduit as a part of Palm Desktop for Macintosh.
It’s been almost a year since Palm, Inc. purchased Actual Software and their highly versatile MultiMail package, which included a powerful Macintosh email conduit. Hopefully, the next release of Palm Desktop for Macintosh will include a "lite" version of this conduit that will allow basic synchronization with the handheld Mail application.
.H1 4. Expense conduit
An expense conduit should be easy to come by as well. Shana Corporation, the makers of the recently discontinued Informed Filer Palm expense conduit for Windows and Macintosh, just so happen to have an orphaned Mac conduit and desktop application that Palm could likely pick up for a great price. The whole thing could be vaguely reminiscent of the deal made with Apple several years ago when Claris Organizer joined the Palm family.
.H1 5. One-click handheld note attachment
On your Palm handheld and in Palm Desktop for Windows, attaching a note to an Appointment, To Do list item, or Address Book entry is a simple matter. It is not so in Palm Desktop for Macintosh. In fact, attaching notes is a complex enough process that most Mac users simply do their note attaching on their Palm handhelds.
However, there’s a method to this madness. Another great feature carried over from Claris Organizer is the ability to attach any item in Palm Desktop (or on your hard drive for that matter) to any other item. So, if you have an appointment with a client on Monday at 9:30 a.m., you can attach her address book entry, a couple of related To Do items, and a ClarisWorks document to this appointment in your desktop Date Book. Of course, these links aren’t synchronized to your Palm handheld. It wouldn’t know what to do with them.
With all this linking going on, Palm’s software engineers had to find a clever way to support the handheld’s ability to attach notes without confusing Palm Desktop. The end result is the rather involved process outlined by David Pogue at http://palm.com/support/macintosh/attachnotemac.html.
Still, although it’s an involved process, it’s nonetheless a logical one. I see no reason why it could not be done automatically. All it would take is a simple script that opened a new note, named it appropriately, and attached it to the item in question.
Please Palm, give us a one-click way to attach handheld notes.
.H1 6. Easy access to the Copy All function
The Palm Desktop for Macintosh Address Book offers some very cool copy features, as shown in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A The Copy Special sub menu offers almost every copying capability you might need.
You’ll notice that Copy All isn’t one of the options listed, though. And, unlike Palm Desktop for Windows, you can’t simply highlight a name in your Address Book and use the basic copy command to copy the entire text of that entry to the clipboard.
However, this doesn’t mean that this capability is missing–it’s just hidden. When you use the Find Contact command from the Instant Palm Desktop menu (yet another slick Mac-only feature), the resulting Contact Card offers a Copy All button, as shown in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B It may not be easy to find, but don’t despair: there is a Copy All feature.
This is a great function, so please, next time around, put this command in the Copy Special sub menu where we can more easily get to it.
.H1 7. Secondary address synchronization
Another rather nice feature that Palm’s programmers retained from Claris Organizer was support for a secondary address. The information from this field, along with the data from the Birthday, Web Site, and Comments fields, is transferred to the Note on the Palm handheld. These extra fields are shown in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C The Macintosh Address Book sports a few extra fields.
There’s one small catch. While the Birthday, Web Site, and Comments fields actually synchronize, the secondary address information is simply transferred from Palm Desktop to the Palm handheld.
So what’s the problem, you might ask? Actually, there’s a couple; one is that you cannot add a secondary address on your Palm handheld. It won’t synchronize. But the more important issue is that if you aren’t careful (or simply are not aware of the problem) you could lose all your secondary addresses after performing special HotSync operations.
Take, for example, this sad story from my personal journal. Shortly after I got my first Palm handheld, I seriously messed up my desktop Address Book while trying to import a batch of addresses. No problem, I simply set the HotSync Manager to "Handheld Overwrites Macintosh," and I was back in business. Or so I thought. You see, because the Secondary Address field doesn’t synchronize, all the secondary addresses disappeared from Palm Desktop, although they were still safe on my Palm III.
A couple months later, when I began synchronizing my Palm handheld with my Windows machine at work, I managed to scramble my categories. I think you can see where this is headed. When I got home, I set the HotSync Manager to "Macintosh Overwrites Handheld" in order to restore my categories. In a matter of minutes, my categories were restored, but the secondary addresses that had been on my Palm handheld were gone.
Now, I love extra features as much as the next guy, but a buggy feature isn’t really a feature, is it?
.H1 8. Protection for secondary categories
Yet another feature carried over from Claris Organizer is support for two categories. And while this is mighty nifty, it is also quite fragile.
You see, at one time I had set up a wonderful collection of secondary categories that I used to sort my contacts. It was working great until I had to HotSync with the "Handheld overwrites Macintosh" setting selected. That was all it took; all of my secondary category settings were promptly erased.
I know (from my experience synchronizing with Outlook) that there is a way for the programmers to protect this second category from being erased during a special HotSync operation. I just hope that it can be implemented without too much trouble.
.H1 9. Give us a View Details pane
When Palm Desktop 4 for Windows was released, I was pleased to see that many great features from the Macintosh program were implemented. My next wish is that a staple feature from the Windows program will make it over to the Mac side, namely, a View Details preview pane in the Contacts module, as in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D A View Details preview pane would make browsing contacts so much easier.
Ah, yes, a View Details preview pane just like the Windows version has would make browsing through my contacts so much easier.
.H1 10. Reorganize the add/edit contact window
Rounding out my list is one more interface issue. The add/edit contact window is rather poorly laid out, as you saw back in Figure C. First of all, the AppleScript enabled email field is located near the bottom of the window, in the pane that includes most of the items that are synchronized to the note on the Palm handheld.
Secondly, there’s no way of telling at first glance that many of the items in the add/edit contact window will not synchronize at all. For example, Palm Desktop for Macintosh supports up to eleven custom fields, but only the first four can be synchronized. Additionally, there are four non-synchronizing fields in the name area: nickname, suffix, prefix, and division.
If I worked in Palm, Inc.’s interface design department, I’d reorganize this window to look something like Figure E.
.FIGPAIR E In my perfect world, the add/edit contact window would look something like this.
At a glance, you can see that the items in the top pane correspond with the fields on the Palm handheld. The items in the lower pane are synchronized to the note on the handheld. And finally, those items that don’t synchronize with the handheld at all are bracketed with parentheses.
.H1 Now to wrap it all up
You don’t think I asked for too much, do you? Well, perhaps, but I don’t expect the software developers at Palm, Inc. to implement every last item on my wish list. In fact, I’d be happy if even half of these issues were addressed in the next release of Palm Desktop for Macintosh.
Once again, I don’t want to seem ungrateful for all that Palm, Inc. has done for the Macintosh minority within the Palm community over the last several years. Despite our numbers, we certainly have been well taken care of. However, our overall user experience still falls short in several areas. I’m thinking particularly of the first five items on my list. This performance gap can be quite frustrating at times.
Obviously, eventual parity with our fellow Palm handheld owners on the Windows side of the aisle is a goal we Mac users share with Palm, Inc. Palm has made wonderful progress toward this goal in the past, and hopefully the next version of Palm Desktop for Macintosh will bring us a couple steps closer.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For the " Palm Desktop and HotSync: Mac OS X Compatibility FAQ," visit http://www.palm.com/support/macintosh/mac_compatfaq.html.
For David Pogue’s article, "PalmPilot and Macintosh: together at last," in the November 1998 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199811/macintosh001.html.
For David Pogue’s "Attaching Notes to Records in Palm Desktop v2.1 for Macintosh," visit http://palm.com/support/macintosh/attachnotemac.html.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H2 Macintosh Survival Guide series
For more information, also see Jim DeLaHunt’s Macintosh Survival Guide series:
For the article, "Apples in the Drought: using a PalmPilot with a Macintosh," visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199805/apples001.html.
For the article, "More help for Mac users," visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199808/applemac001.html.
For the article, "Claris, Conduits, and QSync for your Mac," visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199807/macsoft001.html.
For the article, "Mac developers to the rescue," visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199806/applestwo001.html.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
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