Datashield to SplashID converter

Early adept of handheld from Palm Corporation, i am very happy with my last (and now old) handheld: a Palm Tx.

But i look for a better integrated system with GPS, bluetooth2, large screen, like latest smartphones. Actual devices from Palm™ don't fill my criteria. Oups.

Ready to switch to a concurrent?

Not really, i use an application on a daily basis. Its name is Datashield from Ultrasoft. A great product! But it seems that this application is built only on PalmOS system.

Thus, i searched an alternative for Datashield. Quickly, i found SplashID. Similar to Datashield, splashID works on multiple devices: PALM, Symbian, iPhone, windows CE/pocket/mobile, etc.

I don't want to write again my three hundred of personal records on the new system. A first search shows that the Datashield desktop could export data in a file with XML format. Great! After that i seeked a converter to import my xml-file (from Datashield desktop) to SplashID desktop. I still search. Huh.

At last, i decided to build a quick and dirty script to do the job.

With hope, that could be usefull for anyone.

Regards Eric HAMON

• Scripts are only parts of a one-way converter. Datashield to SplashID. no less, no more.
• I didn't respect 'design pattern'. Scripts work well but lack of readiness. Blame me and delete all files after the migration of your data.
• I am Perl addict for a long time. This project is my first use of the ruby language.
• Datashield and SplashID desktops are Windows programs. Thus the converter 'Datashield2SplashID' runs on Windows too.
  Ruby scripts are simple and don't use windows API. They run well on linux box (tested on ubuntu 8.04), but i have not test 'Datashield and SplashId desktops' on Linux-box. Maybe on wine.

Go to SQLite downloads page and grab the sqlitedll-3-xx.zip archive. Extract it to C:\Windows.

What? You haven't tried yet ruby? It's a kidding joke.

RubyInstaller

(see details on ruby-lang )

Download RubyGem and install it. rubyGem howto

gem uninstall hpricot
gem update
gem -v

open a command terminal (alias 'cmd')

gem install sqlite3-ruby --version=1.2.2
gem install xml-simple

If you still not use the 'Datashield Desktop', it's time to download and install this application. UltraSoft website

More instructions are available on the Ultrasoft or Palm web-pages.

Datashield Desktop is a commercial product limited in time 30-day trial. A dozen of minutes is enough to our migration.

First! You must synchronize your Palm data with your Desktop.

open a command terminal (alias 'cmd')

mkdir \dataconvert
cd \dataconvert

Run 'Datashield desktop' Go to the menu 'File' and click on 'Export…'. Save as 'Datashield.xml' in the directory created before.

That's all.

Download readIt.rb and writeIt.rb to '\dataconvert'.

open a command terminal (alias 'cmd')

cd \dataconvert
ruby readit.rb 

in the same terminal session, run

ruby writeit.rb

See SplashData to download the software suited to your device.

Install 'SplashID Desktop' on your PC.

Run 'SplashId Desktop'.

Go to the menu 'File', 'Import' and click on 'CSV…'.

Select and confirm the file '\dataconvert\splashId-ego.csv'

If you double-click a record, you notice that all of Fieldname are named 'Field1' to 'Field9'.

'SplashId Desktop' don't care of that. You have to rename manually, one by one, all fieldnames of types.

To do it, follow those steps.

Instructions	screenshot
Edit or (better) print the file 'splashId-listetypes.txt'. (This file only contains fieldnames of type records really used in your data.)
Click on combo-box named 'Type'
Select the last item 'Edit types'
Edit each imported records type

Sample

Your personnal data are now fully imported and be ready to give you satisfaction on your handheld. 'Datashield2SplashID' job is done.

If you use my scripts, send-me an email. I am curious to know, how many people migrate from datashield to splashId.

Author: Eric HAMON

ehamon@free.fr

Well. Feel free to alter scripts. I don't use them anymore. You know why.