AndroidNotes - rudiswiki9

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Android Notes Apps

Android Notes Apps

Unfortunately Android does not come with a standard Notes App. So, a lot of programs appear on the market. What I want to have is an App which allows an automatic backup to an own server, security for the access and easy data import and export. The visible note data should not be synched to any cloud. I will describe what I found in following chapters.

Finally I selected App Note Everything for Palm memos import, and WebDAV File Manager for an automatic and periodic sync to my in house Linux server.

A new groupware solution is coming 2012 from http://owncloud.org version 3. Lets see, if it is better.

Features wanted:

Import of Palm memos
Character coding UTF-8
Character size adjustable
Searching, with ignore case
Categories
Backup with password, or secure sync to a server
Run as widget
Data export to usual format

iNotes

The App (version 1.2.6) was written by Jacub Klos. The trick to store the notes in order to sync them to an Exchange ActiveSync server, is to use the calendar for storage and put a specific mark in the data set, a % character in the field location.

Unfortunately Android Calendar allows a maximum of 1 month in the past to sync the calendar data. That works for now, but what, if you loose your calendar on the smart phone, and you you want to restore your data?

Therefore I deinstalled the App.

Notes for Exchange

This App (version 1.4) from Mr. Hundera works with the same trick as iNotes for storaging the notes in the Android calendar. The more clever idea was to put the note at the date of 29.02.2036. This will be synced to Exchange ActiveSync in any case, forth and back. The recognition mark in this case is here the string ExNotes v0.5 in the calendar field location.

What should work is the category field in calendar. The category can not be set in Notes for Exchange, just in the Exchange ActiveSync server calendar. The category also shows up in the Outlook 2002 calendar, but not in Notes for Exchange, hmm, not good.

A provided Outlook plugin should move a new generated note in Outlook to the Calendar and sync it to Exchange ActiveSync. Unfortunately this does not work in my test.

Therefore I deinstalled the App.

B-Folders

The App B-Folders from http://www.jointlogic.com/b-folders/2/download/ look promising, but the Palm memo CSV import is possible only with the desktop version. The desktop version (Win, Mac, Linux) cost $30, the trial time is 30 days.

Note Everything

The App note Everything looks promising, but important features, like password security and sync, are available only in the pro version.

External programs needed: No
Palm memo import: Yes, Windows "Comma separated value", please see below
Character coding: Umlaut OK - UTF-8
Character size adjustable: Yes
Search: Yes; ignore case: Yes
Categories: Yes
Run as widget: Yes
Password protection: No
Data export:

The Export and Import of notes to the SD-card as text files is possible.

Import from Palm Memos, Outlook Memos, Note pad, OI Note Pad, AK Notepad.
- Palm Memo Import Info
  It is important, that you arrange the field order via Drag-and-Drop as described (First category, second Memo), and just mark those two fields.
  Attention: You have to modify your text file to suite the needs of the Android system (Linux).
  - The End-Of-Line character must be LineFeed (LF).
    The character coding must be UTF-8 with BOM (Byte Order Marking) in case you have Umlauts (German).
  I have done that with the editor Notepad++ under windows.
  - First show the End-Of-Line character with: View/Non printable Characters/show Line End
    
    Next change the Character Coding with: Coding/Convert to UTF-8
    
    Last change to the needed End-Of-Line character with: Edit/Line End/Convert to Unix (LF)
  After a successful import it would be nice if Note Everything would show the new folder, in order to show that the import was successful.
Export to SD-Card
- Every note gets exported via a single text file.
  The export path is sdcard/noteeverything/text/ .

The secure transport of the text files to a webDAV storage can be done with WebDAV File Manager.

PalmNote

The App PalmNote (version 0.1.16) from Andy Anderson is lightweight (105 KB). It is possible to have a widget. The backup function must be done by App MyBackup. It needs the OI (OpenIndents) Filemanager to work. The Export of data is possible only in the XML format.

You have to export the Palm memos under Windows Palm desktop in the type Tab separated values, e.g file Palm_memos.tab. Select all memos then select export and mark all 3 export fields (Memo, Private, Category).

Attention: You have to modify your text file to suite the needs of the Android system (Linux). The End-Of-Line character must be LineFeed, the character coding must be UTF-8 in case you have Umlauts (German).

Copy the file to the Android SD-card and import to PalmNote. The Palm MPA-Archive could not be imported.

External programs needed: OI File Manager
Palm memo import: Yes, Windows "TAB separated value"
Character coding: Umlaut OK
Character size adjustable: Yes
Search: Yes; ignore case: Yes
Categories: Yes
Run as widget: Yes
Password protection: No

Data export: XML Format, how to edit XML under MAC OS X, programs tried:

JCards 6.5, No Record editing possible
JEdit 4.4.2, Editor with XML plugin, needs more evaluation, not easy to use
VooDooPadLite, No XML Import in Lite version
Editix Free, difficult to use, no advantage visible
Property List Editor, can not read file
oxygen, 85 MB, 30 days try only
http://view.xmlgrid.net/ comes close, but the data section can not be expanded in a row
Apple Property List Editor, does not work

Serna Free ver. 4.4, installs 230 MB, up to now best free XML Editor for notes

German spell checking dictionary installation (hunspell is default):

   $ sudo port install ispell  # for utility buildhash
   $ sudo port install hunspell
   # Download newest dict, e.g.: http://www.j3e.de/ispell/igerman98/dict/igerman98-20110609.tar.bz2
   # unpack file
   $ cd xxx  # in just created directory
   # the files must be compiled
   $ sudo make hunspell/de_DE.dic hunspell/de_DE.aff
   # copy files de_DE.aff (20 Kb) and de_DE.dic (799 kb) to Serna_Free_4_4.app Contents/plugins/speller/hunspell/

   # set actual spelling language:
   # set  Tools/Spell Checker Settings/Personal Word List Dictionary: de_DE

   # set default spelling language:
   # set  Tools/Spell Checker Settings/Settings Default spelling dictionary: de_DE

Memonic

Too big with 5 MB.

Color Note

As far as I can seen, there is no import possibility.

Classic Notes Lite

Has no categories.

Jorte

Calendar and Note App.

CSV Import via file /sdcard/jorte/todo_memo_data.csv .

OI Notepad

Version 1.2.3

External programs needed: OI File Manager, OI ConvertCSV
Palm memo import: Yes, Windows Palm CSV "Comma Separated Value", or MS Outlook Notes
Character coding: must be converted before import to UTF-8
Character size adjustable: Yes
Search: Yes; ignore case: Yes
Categories: No
Run as widget: Yes
Password protection: No
Data export: with OI ConvertCSV
- Data format: Palm CSV, MS Outlook notes
  - Palm CSV import needs the string ","0","" at the line end.

Setup webDAV Storage, Default

The question is, how to backup the data in a secure manner.

The most flexible solution looks like a webDAV storage, with a personal Linux server via SSL transfer.

First the Apache2 server must be setup, like described iin the German computer magazine c't 15-2011, page 134-139, and Linux kompakt 01/12, page 68-75 (www.heise.de).

# Install the Apache2 webDAV module
$ sudo a2enmod dav_fs

# Extend in the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl the "VirtualHost" block
# The file storage will be in /var/www/dav
$ sudo mkdir /var/www/dav
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/dav
$ sudo chmod -R 750 /var/www/dav

# Edit
 # webDAV setup 2012-03  RudolfReuter
        Alias /dav /var/www/dav
        <Location /dav>
          DAV On
          AuthType Basic
          AuthName "dav"
          AuthUserFile /var/www/pw.dav
          Require valid-user
        </Location>

# setup the new password file (server password)
$ sudo htpasswd -c /var/www/pw.dav rudi  #Username
# the new password will be asked twice
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/dav/pw-dav
$ sudo chmod -R 750 /var/www/dav/pw-dav

# For Digest Authentication, see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_auth_digest.html
$ sudo htdigest -c /var/www/rudi.pw-dav dav rudi
$ sudo chown -R root:root /var/www/dav/rudi.pw-dav
$ sudo chmod -R 750 /var/www/dav/rudi.pw-dav

# Restart Apache2
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
or
$ sudo service apache2 restart

For test purposes copy a few file in the folder /var/www/dav.

Now have a look in the web browser to address: https://www.rudiswiki.de/dav

A login mask appears and you have to enter Username and Password.

Please see the screen shot on the right, how it could be in Firefox.

Now you see, that it works in principle, with the webDAV storage.

Next step is to select an Android App, which could do an automatic, periodic sync.

Sync Data File to Server

Now, that an export (XML) and storage (webDAV) possibility for the notes data exists, the question arise how to backup the data in a secure manner.

Important features:

Backup to an other computer
Transport over Internet via secured transmission
Automatic sync, periodic about every hour

I have tried 4 different Apps. Just the forth one works:

FolderSync - did not work with webDAV
File Expert - It is a nice program, very good made, but unfortunately the webDAV interface does not work.
WebDAV Navigator Lite - also does not work with webDAV
WebDAV File Manager - The user interface is a little bit strange, but webDAV works

Now I can sync every hour (5 min to 1 h interval) the content of my selected folder to a webDAV storage folder on my server.

The only drawback is, that you have to select the sync direction manually.

List of pages in this category:

-- RudolfReuter 2012-02-08 05:34:31

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