5393 ... and counting

[garynunes]

I just loaded 5,393 book entries into Pocketpedia (374 in the Wish List). Was it my imagination or was the iPod Touch warmer after the sync was over? In any case, all seems well so far.

The data started out in a Filemaker Pro database, part of it became a tab-delimited text file (exported from FMP) then on to Bookpedia (import of the text file) and finally (after some "fixing") into the Touch.

Not as automatic as I would like but not torture either.

Will let you know if anything goes wrong (5393 probably isn't the record but I think it qualifies as a stress test).

Thanks for Pocketpedia ... it finally gave me a reason to use Bookpedia ... as an intermediary between my FMP book database and Pocket. I've been using the other pedias all along but Bookpedia just wasn't "powerful" enough for my book collecting needs ... however, the convenience of Pocketpedia makes it useful anyway.

Regards,
Gary Nunes

P.S.
Did you know that Filemaker Pro has (two) XML export formats (is this a stealth feature request ... probably).

[Conor]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Good to know all went well with a large number of books. It also lets us know how people are using the Pedias. Do send me some sample Filemaker Pro XML files so that I can take a look at them and find out if an import would make sense. I think the flexibility of Filemaker and all the possible field names users would choose would not make sense to include an XML import.

[garynunes]

Thanks for your response.

One of the problems with the FileMaker Pro tab-delimited export is that it doesn't include a header line of field names so that has to be added manually. The XML exports have the advantage of containing the field name (as well as other) data.

I've created two XML samples that correspond to the two kinds of XML formats that FMP can export (FMPXMLRESULT and FMPDSORESULT). To make the sample files more manageable I created exports that only represent books in my database that have authors whose last names begin with "Y" (17 records instead of 5393). Also, only 13 of the 52 total FMP database fields are included in the exports.

The files are named fmpxmlresult.xml and fmpdsoresult.xml but I don't see any obvious way to send them to you. Let me know how and I will do so.

According to FMP's documentation the FMPXMLRESULT format is best if metadata information about the database is desired whereas the FMPDSORESULT format works better if it is desired to use CSS (cascading style sheets) with the XML data.

Here's a small excerpt from their documentation (available with FMP and also online) describing XML exporting:

Exporting XML
FileMaker Pro can export XML in two grammars: FMPXMLRESULT and FMPDSORESULT. You can apply an XSLT style sheet during export to transform either of the grammars into a different XML format, or into a different format such as HTML or plain text. For example, with XML export, you can create a data-driven Web page, or a text file of data that uses a custom field delimiter.
Note The XML import and export features in FileMaker Pro use an XML parser called Xerces and an XSLT style sheet processor called Xalan. As you develop XML and XSL, you may want to test your XML and XSLT with Xerces- and Xalan-based parsers and processors, available at http://xml.apache.org and other third-party locations.

Regards,
Gary Nunes

[Conor]

Hi Gary,

That is unfortunate that the tab delimited export from FMP does not include a header row for easier mapping in Bookpedia. Please send the files to our email address that you will find on our support page (not listed here to avoid spam). I will take a look at them, but most likely they would require a flexible import that can map fields such as the tab delimited export and that is no easy task, but thank you for providing us the information to test it.

[vid-pac-rat]

Gary, Dude, I know it's none of my business, but 5393 of anything is HUGE!
Are you inventorying your local library? Do you actually have that many books?!
Can a person read that many in a lifetime?

I can think of several more questions, but I'll stop there... I think you win!

[Midori]

For my 4800+ books, it also took a while and seemed to leave my iphone rather warm. I also had to delete a few of the "listes intelligentes" to keep only 3, because until I did that, the sync would freeze after a few seconds...

Midori

[garynunes]

To vid-pac-rat:
I guess I am my local library.

Yes ... I do have a lot of books (more now than when I originally posted) ... and the 5393 didn't include most of my technical books (and let's not get into the comics and magazines).

Like you, (or so your ID implies) I'm a pack-rat.

I consider it a character flaw ... but certainly not the worst I've seen.

As to whether I can ever read them all ... since I'm still breathing that remains to be seen ... wish me luck.

To Midori:
Ah ... another pack-ra ... that is, collector ... thanks for showing (by example) that I'm not unique ... 4800+ is getting there ... my only advantage was (probably) a head start.

Regards to you both,
Gary