Initiate - Why can't I use program X to launch file Y?

Initiate is built to support any application that can handle a particular filetype on the SD card.

It is up to you to make sure that the applications work with Initiate. Please write to your favourite developers and ask them to work with Initiate. It's really easy. Point them to this page!

How Initiate launches files:

When Palm launched the Lifedrive, they wanted people to start carrying documents around on their device. Of course Palm users have been doing that for ages – but until the Lifedrive, the only way to open these files was to open an application that would recognize the file, then use that to select the file you wanted.

With the lifedrive, it became possible for Initiate to say to Documents To Go
‘Please open the file that you find at this location SDCARD:/documents/document.doc’
- or words to that effect!

Initiate takes advantage of the 'hooks' that applications have written for the lifedrive and newer Treos or Centros, and is able to use it on any Palm device. This means that Initiate can launch files directly to applications that are ready to handle them.

These include:
Documents To Go
Resco Viewer
Pocket Tunes
Palm PDF
Kinoma media player
The built in media viewer on the Treo 650 and upwards

This method is fairly new, so it isn't supported by older applications. However, it is used by the file launcher (Files) that is bundled with the newer Treos / Centros, and is used by Initiate, so should become more popular. Note that Initiate makes this available on any Palm device.

If you know of another app that supports direct file launching, then please let me know.

How Initiate doesn't launch files (unless it has to!):

If an application doesn’t support direct file launching, then it may support receiving the file via the exchange manager.

This is a system that was intended for attachments or downloads. An application (like the browser) can take a downloaded file and pass it to an app that will then save it and let you use it.
It isn’t normally a good launching method as the new app gets a copy of the file (which it will offer to save as a new file) rather than a link to the file itself.

I’ll call this method ‘file copying’. If there is an application that can handle direct file launching, then Initiate will ignore apps that can only handle ‘file copying’

Can you support application X...

Hopefully, Initiate will support more and more applications with direct file launching - but it is up to you to make that happen!
It is really easy for an application to support file launching, but you need to convince the author to support it - I can't make the change!

The coding to support file launching is really simple - all the application has to do is the following:

1. register with the file manager for exgRegEditExtensionID (not exgRegExtensionID)
2. handle the sysAppLaunchCmdExgReceiveData launch code. If it is a file: url, then store the url in a feature and exit
3. handle the sysAppLaunchCmdGoTo launch code. If you have a stored file: url, then open it.

The whole setup probably takes less than a dozen lines of code - and one (already written) function which is also a dozen lines! I'll happily provide sample code to anyone who wants it.

• The setup is documented under the File Browser API in the latest PalmOne Developer Guide.
• Initiate makes this functionality available on any Palm device by mimicing aspects of the file browser library. For testing, it is easier to install the full file browser library by installing the Files app that is bundled with recent Treos / Centros on the CD.
• Palm provide a sample app in their samples folder (FileBrowserSample)

If you are a developer, please contact me for any more info or help.

If you are a customer, please write to the developer of any application that you want to see supported in Initiate and point them to this page!