how to use plucker 1.8 and sunrise desktop????

[zhangrong09]

help...

i really can't figure out how to use these applications....
i've created a file .sdl but how do i deploy it to my pda??
should i install plucker in the Ram rather in my SD card? what are the files needed to install in my pda to make it run??

thanx,
mike

[Laurens]

You need to download Plucker and install it on your handheld. (It does not matter whether Plucker resides in RAM or on the memory card.)

Having done that, you can now convert sites/newsfeeds in your SDL to Plucker documents and sync them to your device. Afterwards, run Plucker and the documents should show up in the Library.

[zhangrong09]

how should i sync the sdl files? by means of quick install? i did that but it produces error. it says there's no application to run sdl files..

[Laurens]

You have to convert the sites and newsfeeds you define in the SDL file to Plucker documents. The Plucker documents can, in turn, be read by Plucker on the handheld.

SDL files only contain settings for converting sites to Plucker documents and can only be read by Sunrise itself. There's no point in syncing SDLs to the handheld.

To reiterate: Sunrise convert websites and newsfeeds to Plucker documents. It stores its settings in SDL files. The Plucker documents are what you actually read on the handheld.

I hope my explanation makes it all a little clearer.

[zhangrong09]

yup its much more clearer... hmmm now to convert sdl files to plucker documents, should i use plucker desktop? can you teach me how?

[Laurens]

I assume you have created an SDL with at least one document in it? If so, simply open the SDL, select the document and choose "File -> Convert" from the main menu.

[zhangrong09]

yup i've converted it already but its still .sdl what should i do after that.. sorry for so many questions hahah i looked like a moron

[Laurens]

If you have converted the document, there will be a PDB file that contains the Plucker document in the destination you've chosen. (See the destinations on the "Output" tab.)

You simply keep the SDL file for the next time you need it.

[maceyr]

I am in no way affiliated with the developer but think this is a great program and sort of figured how this works by going through the FAQs and pages supplied by Laurens.

http://laurens.typepad.com/sunrise/r.../docs/faq.html

http://laurens.typepad.com/sunrise/tour/

http://laurens.typepad.com/

Assuming you have installed the Sunrise desktop and Plucker on your computer, here's a brief step through.

You first create a .sdl file, which contains your personalized and customized fetching pages, rss feeds, etc.

Double click on a particular feed or url (assuming you have already created one) and it will pop up a window.

Main tab contains the name, category, url/file, link depth, update, caching, scheduling.

Output tab contains your settings on whether to pluck images (and specify the bit depth, size, etc), creating an index for newsfeeds, text and language encoding and the destination of your converted sunrise documents.

You need to ADD the destination where you want the converted pages, feeds to be. Most people will want to have them in their external SD card. Click ADD and select HOTSYNC and make sure it's got your Palm ID and (Memory card) in the drop down menu. Once added, it should show your HotsyncID and that it's on the external card (eg. MyHotsyncID[SecureDigital(SD)Card] )

One thing that you must do in order for the Sunrise pdb to be hotsynced to your Palm is that you have to install the "stub" prc program Sunrise.prc
on your handheld located in your Sunrise directory (ie.C\Program Files\Sunrise\). So, when you were going through the original Sunrise installation in Windows, check the part where they ask or provide you the choice to install the Sunrise stub in the Palm. This will allow Hotsync to know to hotsync the Sunrise desktop to the program when you are doing the Hotsync. It's a stub file that is only a few kilobytes in size so it won't hog up much RAM.

Back to describing the tabs. Filters tab allows you to filter out certain links in the page from being plucked and add certain urls to the inclusion criteria. This is the best way to keep your docs small and avoid plucking advertisement links, etc. Using wildcards, you can specify which type of url will be included or excluded. (eg. http://ads.doubleclick.net will most likely refer to ad links from doubleclick.net so you may want to add that plus the wildcard character)

Advanced, tab. (The following has been changed with current Sunrise programs so it's no longer located in the Advanced Tab) In User Agent, you set the preferences such as showing the splash screen at startup, caching downloads, connection timeout, among other stuff and directing the location of your Netscape/Mozilla cookies.txt file.

The reference to the cookies.txt file is now located under the Surnrise Windows menu in Tools, Preferences. (File, Edit, Tools, Help).

In the General tab, you can select various interface preferences, and if where you wish to store a log file as well as its size.

In the Network tab, you can specify how long the program will try until it timesout and the number of connection attempts, and specify where the cookies.txt file is so that many websites that require a login can still be plucked. So, under Mozilla/Netscape cookies.txt file: you have to point Sunrise to where your cookies.txt file is located.

If you have Windows 2000, it should be something like:

C:\Documents and Settings\Your Windows profile name\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Your Firefox profile name\cookies.txt

Or else, do a search on your hard drive for cookies.txt and you should then find out where it is so that you can point Sunrise to it.

This particular cookies referring feature in Sunrise is great for plucking some password protected sites which uses cookies. This is located in the Preferences, HTTP tab near the bottom. Like I said, you can get to it by clicking on the Advanced tab and click the Configure default button OR going in the File, Tools, Preferences.

Continuing back to explaining the tabs in the Prefences pop up.

Under Proxy tab, if you use a Proxy, you will need to input that information in. If you have no idea what a proxy is, you most likely don't need to put anything in.

Under Advanced tab, you can specify the size of the download cache, whether to compress the cache, and whether you wish to have a faster conversion time and thus a larger output file or a smaller output file and a slower conversion time.

Another great thing about Sunrise is that you can easily convert a web page while browsing with your browser by installing the Send to Sunrise extension or feature. For Mozilla browser, you have to install the extension.

That is located in your C:\Program Files\Sunrise\webservices\sts directory.

Install the sunrise-1.11.xpi or whatever version.xpi file. Once done, it's located in the File, Tools menu of your Mozilla browser. You can easily pluck the page you are browsing. It will be added to your .sdl list and you can add your settings and filters just like any other document.

And, with the latest version, 0.36 there's a new feature called Form Logins. Some sites can be plucked if you reference the cookies.txt file while others won't. The Form Logins will hopefully deal with that.

To create a Form Login for your particular password login web site, you need to go to:

File. Edit. Form Logins in your Sunrise program. Click on the New.

Enter the url to the main login page. If you are currently logged in, log out and then find the login page and do a copy and paste.

Click the Open Login Page in Web Browser button. Your browser will open the page but it's actually cached on your hard drive and will show in the address something like:

file://c:/Program Files/Sunrise/temp/formlogin.html

Log in with the login id and password just like you would if browsing the web. If successful, you would get a white Form Login Wizard page.

And would give out the various values and parameters related to the login (you don't need to know all that, just that it has recorded all the info for Sunrise to bypass the login page).

Now, go back to your Sunrise program to complete the Form Login wizard.

You will see the Logout link window.

Leave it blank and click Next.

Now, just enter a name that you can use to identify this particular form login (eg.My Yahoo). Click Finish.

Done. You should now be able to pluck this particular password protected website with Sunrise.

This is such a great program that I can even now pluck my tv listings, although not in tables but at least I can view them.

BTW, I currently own a Zire 71 running Palm OS 5.2.1, Hotsync Manager 4.1.0 with Windows 2000.

Keep up the great work!

[taylor]

Indeed this is a great program.

OT, but, maceyr, you may want to take a look at Pocket TV Browser ( http://www.doublebit.com/ptvb/ )for your TV listings. It's free (actually, you may have to donate... but you pick the amount) and you can get free listings (U.S. and a few other countries) from Zap2it.com

[Laurens]

maceyr, thanks (again) for writing the mini-walkthrough. I know Sunrise is very much under-documented, but I hope most users will be able to figure it out through some trial-and-error.

[maceyr]

Originally Posted by taylor

Indeed this is a great program.

OT, but, maceyr, you may want to take a look at Pocket TV Browser ( http://www.doublebit.com/ptvb/ )for your TV listings. It's free (actually, you may have to donate... but you pick the amount) and you can get free listings (U.S. and a few other countries) from Zap2it.com

Thanks. I'll look into it. Right now, I'm using Sunrise to pluck Zap2it listings and like I said, it's readable but it would be nice to have it in tables format so it's more readable. But I'm not really complaining.

[maceyr]

Originally Posted by taylor

Indeed this is a great program.

OT, but, maceyr, you may want to take a look at Pocket TV Browser ( http://www.doublebit.com/ptvb/ )for your TV listings. It's free (actually, you may have to donate... but you pick the amount) and you can get free listings (U.S. and a few other countries) from Zap2it.com

Okay, I've installed the Pocket TV Browser but it expires in 21 days. And it's not in tables format either. Can you tell me how to set it up so that I can reference the Zap2it.com listings?

If I have to pay to use this, maybe I'll revert back to using Sunrise and plucking Zap2it myself. Or use RepliGo and print the page to be viewed on my palm.


And, a suggestion to Laurens, Sunrise's developer, I'd like to add an option to copy the text of whatever page I'm reading and paste it into a document, like the Memo pad. I know that there is the Export to Memo Pad option, but it seems to only export the url links. I'd like to be able to just copy the text so that I can save the page and refer back to it later. I read news stories that sometimes I'd like to refer back to. Having that option would make this app even better. Thanks.

[Laurens]

Originally Posted by maceyr

And, a suggestion to Laurens, Sunrise's developer, I'd like to add an option to copy the text of whatever page I'm reading and paste it into a document, like the Memo pad. I know that there is the Export to Memo Pad option, but it seems to only export the url links. I'd like to be able to just copy the text so that I can save the page and refer back to it later. I read news stories that sometimes I'd like to refer back to. Having that option would make this app even better.

Do you mean selecting text in the web browser or in Plucker? I'm not entirely sure. As you refer to "Export to memo pad" I assume you're talking about a feature you want implemented in Plucker. Remember, Plucker is a separate program.

[maceyr]

Oops. My bad. I forgot. Yes, I meant Plucker. This may be a feature to think about implementing when you finally decide to develop your own viewer software.