document list view

The document list view shows files on your device.

interface layout

The document list view has several components:

volume/folder popup list

Right below the title bar of the document list view is the volume/folder popup. The label of the popup shows the current folder. Tapping the popup presents a list with the top-level volumes and sub-folders in the path leading to the current folder. The current path appears as a hierarchically indented list of sub-folders under the current volume, with the current folder as the initially selected item.

The following list describes the meaning of volumes and sub-folders for each of the views:

The volume/folder popup list provides an easy way to quickly go to any top-level volume or higher level folder in the current path.

If the current path is not that of a top-level volume, a folder-up button () for quickly going up one folder in the path appears to the left of the volume/folder popup.

sort order popup list

Below the title bar, to the right of the volume/folder popup is the sort order popup. It allows you to sort the current list by any of name, date, or size in either ascending or descending order. The initial sort order is by name in ascending order. Tap the popup and select one of Name, Date, or Size in the list to change the sort order to the corresponding selection. To reverse the sort order from ascending to descending or from descending to ascending, select the same sort option again.

The sort order popup does not appear for the Recently Opened view.

Regardless of whether the sort order is ascending or descending, folders in the list always appear before files.

document list/file list

The document list or file list occupies most of the space of the document list view and lists the files and folders within the current folder. Folders always appear before files.

The list has the four columns described here:

You can optionally hide the date and/or size columns through the Document List Options dialog to make more room for the name column.

To open a file, tap the file's name. To enter a folder, tap the folder's name. To get the context menu for a file or folder, tap it's icon or hold the stylus down on the item's name for more than a second. For more about the context menu, see file operations and folder operations.

view icons

Along the bottom, to the right of the menus are the view icons, one icon for each of the views. The current view shows visually as the highlighted icon. Tap an icon to go to the corresponding view.

When you hold the stylus down on a view icon, a tool tip appears that names the view corresponding to the icon. See views for a description of each view.

views

The document list view provides five different views of documents you have installed on your device. In the document list view, along the bottom, to the right of the menus are the view icons. To access a given view, tap the icon corresponding to the view you want.

Recently Opened

The Recently Opened view lists the documents you have opened recently, ordered from most recently opened at the top to least recently opened at the bottom. By default, the list shows only the ten most recently opened documents. To change the number of documents listed, go to the List tab of the Options dialog.

Updated

The Updated view lists documents you have previously opened that have been updated since the last time you opened them.

Categorized

The Categorized view lists documents you have placed into one or more categories. iSilo™ initially creates two top-level categories named Business and Personal.

In addition to being able to select a specific category from the volume/folder popup list, you can also select the [All] listing or the [Uncategorized] listing. With [All], you get a listing of all categorized documents located anywhere and all uncategorized documents located immediately within any of the favorite folders. With [Uncategorized], you get a listing of all uncategorized documents located immediately within any of the favorite folders.

Favorite Folders

The Favorite Folders view provides an easy way to quickly jump to a list of documents in any folder to which you have assigned an alias. iSilo™ initially creates a favorite folder with the alias iSilo to the \My Documents\iSilo folder.

Some devices have the capability to have two or more storage cards mounted simultaneously. Viewing the contents of a favorite folder provides a unified view of the same folder across all mounted storage cards.

To add a favorite folder to the list, use the Favorite Folder Alias command in the folder context menu.

To determine the path of the folder associated with each alias, or to rename and delete favorite folders aliases, use the Edit Favorite Folders menu command.

Favorite folder aliases are always sorted lexicographically in the volume/folder popup list and in the Edit Favorite Folders dialog.

Device & Storage Cards

The Device & Storage Cards view provides a way to browse through all files of all folders on your device.

To list documents installed in the internal storage memory of the device, select Internal Storage from the volume/folder popup list.

To list the contents of a folder located on a mounted storage card, select the card volume from the volume/folder popup list and navigate to the desired folder. In the volume/folder popup list, the name for the storage card will probably be Storage Card or Storage Card2 if your device supports more than one simultaneously mounted storage card.

file operations

To open a file, tap the file's name. To get a context menu, also known as the file action menu, with a number of additional file operations, do one of the following:

The context menu provides the following operations for files:

Open

The Open command in the context menu opens the file just as tapping the file's name in the document list does.

Categories

The Categories command in the context menu presents the Categories dialog, which you can use to categorize the file into one or more categories. You use the Categories dialog to also create, rename, and delete categories.

Tap OK to accept changes you have made to the categorization of the file. Tap Cancel to cancel any such changes. Note that tapping Cancel does not revert any changes made to the category list, such as creation, renaming, and deletion of categories.

categorizing

To place the file in a category, check the box to the left of the category. You can place a file into any number of categories. In the Categorized view, the file shows in the list only when you go to a category to which the file belongs.

To remove the file from a given category, uncheck the box to the left of the category.

creating a new category

To create a top-level category, first select any top-level category, then tap New. In the New Category dialog, enter into the Name field the name of the new category, then tap Add.

To create a sub-category, first select the category into which you want the sub-category created, then tap New. In the New Category dialog, enter into the Name field the name of the new category, check the Sub-category checkbox, then tap Add.

To create a category at the same level as another category, select an existing category at the same level, then tap New. In the New Category dialog, enter into the Name field the name of the new category, then tap Add.

Following are some additional notes about categories:

renaming a category

To rename a category, first select the category to rename, then tap Rename. Enter the new name into the Name field, then tap Rename.

You can not rename a category to that of an existing category at the same level. If you attempt to do so, you get a message informing you that the category already exists.

deleting a category

To delete a category, first select the category to delete, then tap Delete. You get a message asking you to confirm that you want to delete the selected category and any sub-categories it contains. Tap Yes to proceed with deleting the category. Tap No to cancel deletion.

If the category has sub-categories, all the sub-categories are also deleted. Any files in the deleted categories are removed from the deleted categories.

Note that deleting a category does not delete the files belonging to those categories.

Delete

Use the Delete command in the context menu to delete the file. iSilo™ asks for confirmation before deleting the file.

Rename

Use the Rename command in the context menu to rename the file. When you do so, iSilo™ presents the Rename File dialog so that you can enter a new name for the file.

Information

Use the Information command in the context menu to view information about the file in the Information dialog that iSilo™ presents. The dialog shows the file name and folder location at the top. Below those fields are the last modification date and time of the file. Next come the Size and Type fields which show the file size and type, respectively.

Copy

Use the Copy command in the context menu to copy or move the file to any favorite folder.

In the Copy File dialog, select the Copy settings/categories option to also copy the document settings and categorizations of the document. Select Delete original after copy if you want to perform the equivalent of moving the file to the new location.

If you need more flexibility in copying files, you can use a third-party file manager.

folder operations

To enter a folder, tap the folder's name.

For the Favorite Folders view and the Device & Storage Cards view, you can get a context menu by holding the stylus down on the folder's name for at least a second. The context menu provides the following operations for folders:

Enter Folder

The Enter Folder command in the context menu enters the folder just as tapping the folder's name in the document list does.

Favorite Folder Alias

Use the Favorite Folder Alias command in the context menu to add an alias for the folder to the Favorite Folders list. If the folder already has an alias, use the command to edit the alias.

Invoking the command shows the Favorite Folder Alias dialog. The Folder Path field shows the path of the folder. You can not edit the path shown. It is only present to show you the path for the alias. In the Alias field, modify the alias to your liking, then tap Add to add the alias. In the Favorite Folders view, the alias should appear as one of the top-level volumes in the volume/folder popup list.

menus

The document list view has two menus:

List menu

Refresh

Select Refresh on the List menu to force the document list to rescan for files and update the document list. By default, the document list automatically updates itself when it detects new or deleted files and folders. However, there are situations where this may not happen.

All Files (*.*)

Select All Files (*.*) on the List menu to have the document list show files with any extension.

iSilo/Palm Files (*.pdb,*.prc)

Select iSilo/Palm Files (*.pdb,*.prc) on the List menu to have the document list show files with either the extension .pdb or the extension .prc.

The .pdb extension usually denotes files in the Palm database format. Files in iSilo™ format utilizes the Palm database format as the top-level storage format, so usually a file in iSilo™ format will have an extension of .pdb. Files in Palm Doc format also usually have an extension of .pdb since they also utilize the Palm database format as the top-level storage format.

Sometimes Palm Doc files may also have the extension .prc, though that extension is usually used for Palm application files.

Text Files (*.txt)

Select Text Files (*.txt) on the List menu to have the document list show files with the extension .txt. Usually files with an extension of .txt are in a plain text format.

Exit

Select Exit on the List menu to quit the application.

Tools menu

Edit Favorite Folders

Use Edit Favorite Folders on the Tools menu to activate the Edit Favorite Folders dialog to rename and delete favorite folder aliases. The dialog has a list with two columns. The left column shows the aliases and the right column shows the associated folders.

To rename a favorite folder alias, tap the alias in the list to select it and then tap Rename. This presents the Favorite Folder Alias dialog. The Folder Path field shows the path of the folder associated with the alias. You can not edit the path shown. It is only present to show you the path for the alias. In the Alias field, modify the alias to your liking, then tap Rename to rename the alias.

To delete a favorite folder alias, tap the alias in the list to select it and then tap Delete. Note that iSilo™ deletes the alias immediately without asking for confirmation.

Options

Use Options on the Tools menu to activate the Options dialog to set options for the following:
List
Use the List tab of the Options dialog to specify settings that affect the document list view display. Here, you can set the following options:
Icons
Use the Icons tab of the Options dialog to set options for the icon that appears to the left of entries.

Under Icon action, you can select what happens when you tap the icon for files:

You can also select the mini-icons you want the document list to show. The following list describes the mini-icons:

Settings
Use the Settings tab of the Options dialog to specify settings that affect the saving of a document's local settings and the Recently Opened view.

A document's local settings include the following items:

iSilo™ creates an individual file in the "\My Documents\iSilo\Settings" folder for each document's local settings for which it saves. By default, iSilo™ automatically saves the local settings for a document when you close the document. You can change this behavior by changing the Local settings field. The three possible choices are the following: Each local settings file takes up storage space. Over time, if you have viewed many documents, the cumulative space occupied by the local settings files can add up. So by default, when the amount of space used reaches 100KB, iSilo™ deletes the oldest settings files (e.g., based on when the local settings were last written) until the space used goes down to about 90% of the limit. You can increase or decrease this limit by changing the Amount of space to use field.

If you tend to keep a lot of documents around, you may want to increase the limit. If you are tight on space and do not care so much about the local settings of documents you have not viewed recently, then you may want to decrease the limit. The actual size of a local settings file currently depends mostly on how many local bookmarks you have created for the document. However, a rough estimate of the size of a typical local settings file might be anywhere from half a kilobyte to one kilobyte. Using this rough estimate, a limit of 100KB should allow for at least the saving of the local settings for the last 100 documents you have viewed.

For the Recent file list field, specify how many files you want the Recently Opened view to show.

Extensions
Use the Extensions tab of the Options dialog to specify file extensions you want to associate with iSilo™.

Documents in iSilo™ format generally have a file extension of .pdb and rarely, but sometimes, .prc. Palm Doc documents also generally have a file extension of .pdb and sometimes .prc. You can associate either, both, or neither of these extensions with iSilo™.

For each extension that you associate with iSilo™, if you tap on a file with such an extension within the File Explorer program, then it will start iSilo™ with that document.

Please note that iSilo™ does not understand how to read all files with the extension .pdb or .prc. The .pdb extension is generally used to denote files that have the Palm database top-level organizational structure. But what kind of data and how it is stored within this top-level structure is application dependent.

Mode
Use the Mode tab of the Options dialog to specify trial and free mode settings.

While in trial or registered mode, you can use the Free mode option to turn free mode on and off to see what that mode is like.

During the 30-day trial period, you can use the Show trial period reminder option to enable or disable the messages that let you know how many days you have left in your trial period.

System Information

Use System Information on the Tools menu to activate the System Information dialog so that you can determine the user ID you need to provide in order to obtain a registration code for a document that requires a registration code. The user ID is provided in the User ID field.

About iSilo

Use About iSilo on the Options menu to see the iSilo™ About dialog. If the Serial # field at the bottom of the dialog says UNREGISTERED, tap it to enter your license registration code.

document types

iSilo™ provides direct support for a set of standard document types and a catchall for textually viewing the content of any other document type, useful for viewing plain text files.

standard document types

catchall document type

You can use iSilo™ to open any other type of file for viewing in text mode. This is generally only useful for files in a plain text format as iSilo presents the content as is. If the format of the content is binary or a mix of text and binary, then you may see gibberish.
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