Sonny Software

I was wondering whether I could tweak the new sync function somehow to create a workflow for using a Palm PDA for entering and modifying bibliographical information when doing library work and sync the changes back to BE when back home. Tentatively, I thought that the following construction might do the trick:

- export the entire BE database as a tagged text file or something else that might be readable on a Palm
- make the changes/additions in this text file
- import the altered text file into a new BE database on the Mac
- sync this new datbase with the old one, in which the new one serves as the master

My main question is whether in this case BE, when syncing, recognises references in the two databases to be identical, changed, unchanged etc.,

Hi,

Bookends uses the modification date to determine if two references with the same unique ID are "different" (even if they are the same, it assume a new mod date means it is different). Since the modification date is internal to Bookends (and invisible to you), there is no way that it would detect that a ref was exported, modified, and then imported.

However, you could add/delete references and sync, I think. Just be aware that Bookends uses the unique ID to tell that two references are the same, so you want to give new references a unique id (I think Bookends will do that for you anyway when you import, but still I'd do that).

Jon
Sonny Software

Just ran a couple of tests:

- exported a reference as tab-delimited-text, modified it in a text editor and imprted it into a new database - the reference is assigned a new ID when imported (one point lower than the original one), even though I left the ID intact in the text file
- as a check I also exported a reference and imported it into the new database without modifying it - ID still gets modified.

I guess tthis would make it pretty difficult to operate the sort of workflow I mentioned, as you would just end up with both the original and the modified reference in the database after syncing.

Would it be technically possible to (optionally) have BE import references "as are" i.e. not changing the ID, or is the change of ID essential to the way the application functions?

Hi,

That was a simple bug. It's fixed. Please download Bookends 10.1.2 again and try exporting/importing tab-delimited text.

Jon
Sonny Software