A few days ago, I saw a blog post highlighting how difficult it can be to sync a phone on the free desktop. For a battle hardened command line user, the steps aren’t that troubling (although that example looks easy compared to some of the setups i’ve seen). Regardless, I certainly wouldn’t want to put my parents through this experience.
In contrast, after a recent mishap with my phone, restoring its address book from Evolution was trivial with the copy of Conduit SVN I had kicking around.
I started Conduit and plugged in my phone. It appeared on the left hand side of the screen, so I dragged it and the Evolution endpoints to the canvas, and I did a sync. My address book is back.
There is more UI love to go of course. SynCE automagicness is getting there, but we can make it even better. Plus, we love HAL, and the next step is to respond to new devices and say “Hey, I know how to deal with that thingy you just plugged in” and offer to sync to some sensible defaults (Evolution for PIM stuff, Tomboy for Notes, F-Spot for Photos, Banshee/Rhythmbox for Music). And of course, the next time I plug it in.. Just sync it. Never make me press the sync button again.
The blinding future is to use PackageKit to download extra support packages like SynCE and libgpod as needed, when you plug in the device.
Great stuff!. Now we just need application integration
. Sorry i’m not helping out 
.
But really, syncing is not a seperate program. When can i click a ’sync’ button in my calendar?
What about using Gammu to synchronize any phone?
Woot!
@anonymous: Read the last 2 paragraphs. You won’t ever have to press sync because it will sync in the background when changes happen. And the sync group will be created the first time you plug in the device. Win.
Tomboy or Cheese will probably be the first app to use the service part of Conduit, though.
@Livio: Does Gammu support Windows Mobile? I don’t think it does. We also have some (G/W)ammu code in SVN, but its not as mature as Windows Mobile support yet
@John Stowers: Thats what she said.
It’s very cool, though the UI look a bit technical with the whole sync-graph thing?
@Anders: As I said, UI love is ongoing. Hopefully this will mean normal users won’t see this screen…
“The blinding future is to use PackageKit to download extra support packages like SynCE and libgpod as needed, when you plug in the device.”
Yes, I want something like that for MDV. There needs to be some kind of layer between “device got plugged in” and PackageKit, though. Not sure what that would be…
How are you coping with the retardedness that is ‘partnerships’ and the landmines it can throw around?
[...] of all John Carr posted about his progress with the synchronization utility Conduit regarding Windows CE devices. It will [...]
Dude! What kind of phone do you have? What type(s) of phone will this work (or not) with?
@Adam: I’m happy to see the PackageKit stuff in whatever part of Conduit does the “dude you plugged it in, where shall i sync?” interface. Until AutoDriverPackageKit comes along
And the “partnerships”. John has a crude GUI for it, but i’m tempted to just blindly create one.
@John: Any WM5, WM6 or WM6.1 mobile phone or PDA should work. Avoid Samsung processors and Moto Qs to be extra sure though. And check out:
http://bzr-playground.gnome.org/~johncarr/conduit/gpm-integration/
Oh yes. Me and my boss have been working on Gnome Phone Manager integration. So syncing any Gnokii supported device in a few weeks then
When you say avoid Moto Q, is that because it is too much of a hassle (but can be done) or cannot be done? Any suggestions or pointers for those who want to make it work?
@Stephen: It should just work with SynCE 0.12 (use synce-hal instead of odccm). synce-hal should have corrected the biggest problem we’ve seen with that device. The suggestions or pointers? Go to #synce on FreeNode if you have problems.