Frequent questions I encounter while developing for the Palm platform include, how do I work with floating point numbers? How do I do graphics? How do I add an appointment or address book entry into the Palm database? If you've gone past the basics of Palm programming and have these kinds of questions, "Advanced Palm Programming" is for you.
For example, when I wrote a calculator program, I wish I had the chapter on floating point conversion and formatting. The PalmOS is designed to be compact and efficient and therefore, doesn't support floating point very well. Mann and Rischpater present routines with 15 digit precision, localization, and left and right alignment.
Regarding graphics, the authors discuss bitmaps, and panning and zooming techniques. If you're looking for sample video games, you'll have to look elsewhere. The authors frame their discussion with mapping software.
The chapter on reading from and writing to Palm's native databases (address, datebook, todo, memo) is interesting. While some developers have done this by studying Palm's source code (like myself), the authors offer an alternative API they call a property interface. This API hides the internal details, simplifies the task, and generally saves time. If Palm changes the underlying database schema, the API will isolate those changes and prevent your code from breaking. But you will have to depend on the authors to update their API, or know enough of the internals to update it yourself. I haven't worked with the API enough to render a verdict. There is one other way to write to Palm's address, datebook, and todo database that the authors did not mention: use the vCalendar and vCard format. These public formats, however, are no help when it comes to reading the databases.
The book covers many other advanced topics so be sure to check out the table of contents. Most of the examples require Palm OS 3.1, Codewarrior 6, and the Palm SDK 3.5. Unix and the gcc toolchain are not used in this book. Nevertheless, the writing is clear, as are the examples, so developers on Unix can still benefit.
