Synchronization and data review

Synchronize your handheld, and the pictures will be stored in the data table for the form.

To quickly view your pictures, from the Pendragon Forms Manager, highlight the name of your form, then press the CTRL key on the keyboard and click the Edit/View button.

Pictures can even be saved out of Pendragon Forms

Option 1: Saving from the Edit/View window
When you click on the name of a form in the Forms Manager and then click the Edit/View button to view the data, Image fields will contain the phrase Long Binary Data.

If the original image was a .BMP file or a .JPG file, then double-clicking the file will open the Windows Paint program (MSPaint.exe). The file will be displayed in Windows Paint with the file name PFTEMP2.BMP. Choose to save the file under a different name. Also, if the file was originally a .JPG file, then when you save the file, make sure to save as file type .JPG and not .BMP.

Note: Versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000 may not be able to open .JPG files in Windows Paint. If you experience this problem, use option 2.
 

Option 2: Saving from the Ctrl + Edit/View window
Another option for saving images is to click on the name of a form in the Forms Manager and then hold down the CTRL button and click the Edit/View button. This displays records one at a time. Bitmap files (.BMP) files will be visible in the record. .JPG files will not be visible in the record. Clicking the Open button behaves like Option 1 above. The file will open the Windows Paint program (MSPaint.exe). The file will be displayed in Windows Paint with the file name PFTEMP2.BMP. Choose to save the file under a different name. Also, if the file was originally a .JPG file, then when you save the file, make sure to save as file type .JPG and not .BMP.

If you have a version of Windows that cannot open .JPG files in Windows Paint, click the Save As button instead of the Open button. Save the file with any file name and the appropriate file extension. For instance, if the original file was a .JPG file, save as a .JPG file. Once the file has been saved, you can use your own image-viewing software that you use for viewing .JPG images. (If you do not have image-viewing software, double-clicking on a .JPG file typically runs Internet Explorer, and you can view the .JPG image in your Web browser.)

Synchronization Issues with Image Files

Image files are stored separately from Forms records. Forms records are stored in RAM on the handheld, and image files are stored on an external storage media card.

A Forms record with 20 fields might take up 10-20 KB. In contrast, a single attached image file might be on the order of 100-150KB. Image files are therefore much bigger than Forms records,and during synchronization, this means that a much larger amount of data has to be downloaded to the handheld if you are using image files. This causes synchronization to be slower.

One way to reduce synchronization time is to minimize the number of records with images that you keep on the handheld. Set a Data Persistence option (see page 165) that removes unnecessary records from the handheld during synchronization.

If images originate on the PC and they do not change frequently, there is an Advanced Form Property to Synchronize Only When Distributed. This works for forms such as a list of employees, with new employees being added only once a week or once a month. In this case, you can switch off synchronizing the form to shorten the synchronization time, and only switch on synchronization when a new record is added on the PC and the form is re-distributed. See page 188.

Important: Due to the large size of images, it is not recommended that you use images on devices that are synchronizing via a serial port, or on devices that synchronize via modems with speeds of less than 100Kbps (kilobits per second).

Next:

Creating an Access report with the Report Generator (for bitmap images only)

Creating an Access Report with a Photo Control (for jpeg images)

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Previous:

Introduction: Using a PDA camera for data collection

Creating a form for photo data collection

Taking pictures

For more information

Documentation for the Zire71 Camera Custom Control (81KB PDF)

Documentation for the Zire71JPEG Camera Custom Control (83KB PDF)

Documentation for the Sony Camera Custom Control (94KB PDF)

Using JPEG images with Pendragon Forms

PDA cameras, pictures and  Pendragon Forms

Tutorial: Importing Stored Photos (for devices including the Treo 650 and iPAQ rx3715)

Pendragon Forms Reference Guide, Chapter 17: Working with Images  (6.6MB PDF)

(To download PDF documents, right-click on the link above and choose Save Target As...)

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