Chapter 2. Overview of KPilot

KPilot consists of two parts: the KPilot daemon, which sits in the system tray and handles the actual communication with the PalmPilot™, and the normal KPilot program, which lets you configure the daemon and view the databases on your PalmPilot™. In normal operation, you will not need to use KPilot itself very much, since the daemon handles communication unobtrusively and synchronizes your data to KDE applications like KOrganizer and KNotes. KPilot is integrated into Kontact as well.

It is vital to configure KPilot before use. At the very least, you need to tell it which hardware device to use to communicate with your PalmPilot™. Configuration settings are described at length in the section on configuring KPilot. For the impatient, the configuration wizard can set up most things for you.

Once KPilot is configured, you should make a backup of your PalmPilot™ first. That is to be on the safe side. Once that is done, you can just leave the KPilot daemon running in the system tray, and all you need to do is press the HotSync® button, and changes in the PalmPilot™ data and the KDE applications will be synchronized, so that the information matches again on both the PalmPilot™ and the desktop.

If you want to examine the data stored on your PalmPilot™, the built in viewers can be used. This allows you to view memos, addresses, etc.. There is a generic hexadecimal database viewer for advanced use.

Finally, KPilot can be used to install new programs and databases on your PalmPilot™.

Changes in 4.4.3

The expressiveness of the No Backup configuration item, which prevents specific databases from being backed up (for space, speed, or stability reasons), has been extended. In particular, the old format listed only creator values, while the new format can list wildcard database names as well as creator values. The value set in the configuration dialog will be automatically adjusted to the new format.

In KPilot 4.4.3, the way conduits are programmed changed, and you will need to use newly compiled conduits. If there are old conduits on your system, KPilot will prompt you to remove them.

Please take the time to review all of the configuration settings.