You should backup your reminders fairly regularly, removing the old backup. This is because of a bug I haven't been able to correct yet, which prevents recovering the Reminder databases through the Installation tool or a utility like Backup-Buddy. By backing up your reminders, you will be able to recover your database by restoring them from your backed up memo.
You can also use this functionality to share you events among a group. Backup your events, delete the ones you don't want to share, HotSync your Palm, then send the resulting memo to your group. They can create a new memo in the Palm Desktop application, copy the contents of the memo you sent them into it, HotSync, then Restore the events from that memo into Reminder.
If you wish to create your own Reminder restore files, you need to create them following a specific format.
The first line of the memo/file is used as the title in Memo Pad. This line can be anything you want to use as a title.
The second line should be blank.
After the second line, you may have a Category list. If you omit this section, all of the events in the memo will be marked as Unfiled. This section is started with a line with "Categories:" on it. After that may be any number of blank lines. Each non-blank line in the Category list must consist of two fields:
Field
Information
A number, from 1 to 15, which will be used to reference this category in the Event List.
The text for this category's description
These fields should be separated by a comma. Each category must be on its own line, although blank lines may be put between the categories.
After the Category list, or the second line if you omitted the Category list, you must have an Event list. This section is started with a line with "Events:" on it. After that may be any number of blank lines. Each event in the event list will consist of three lines. The first line will consist of several fields:
Field
Information
The record version number. The current version number to use is 2, this field is used to provide forward compatibility as future releases of Reminder are produced. When creating your own restore memos, you should alway use the latest record version number.
The day for this event. Note: This field is always the day, no matter how the Palm's preferences are set.
The month for this event. Note: This field is always the month, no matter how the Palm's preferences are set.
The year for this event. If the event does not have a year associated with it, put a zero (0) into this field.
"Y" if the event is to show its age in the main reminder screen; "N" if the event should not show its age.
The number of days warning for this event. This value must be zero (0) or greater.
"Y" if the event should cause a Palm system level alarm; "N" if it should not. (Added in record version 2)
"Y" if the event is a "One Time Only" event; "N" if it is a repeating event. (Added in record version 2)
"Y" if the event should be marked Private; "N" if it isn't a private event.
The number for the Category for this event. This number should be on the Category List. If it isn't, the event is placed into the Unfiled category.
These fields should be separated by a comma.
The second line of each event is the event description. This can contain any information you wish, but cannot extend over this single line.
The third line of each event is the event's notes. This line can be blank, if no note is to be associated with this event; even in this case, the blank line must exist in the restore memo. If there is a note associated with this event, the note text is placed on this line. In the restore file, the note text cannot extend over this single line. To allow for paragraphs in the note's text, use the paragraph symbol (¶) where the paragraph should occur in the note. Reminder will replace that symbol with a real paragraph break.
The way Reminder processes the restore memo is pretty simple. It ignores extra blank lines everywhere.
When it finds a Category List, it will attempt to find or add each of the categories in that list to Reminder's current database categories. It then sets up the information to allow cross referencing the information in the restore memo against the actual categories in Reminder.
When it comes to the Event List, it will start reading the memo event by event. If all of the information about an event is correct, it will add that event to the database. If any part of the information is bad, such as a bad date, the whole process will be stopped and no more events will be restored. This is done because these failures could be caused by a poorly formatted file, which means that it may not be possible to find the start of the next event.
The following lines are an example of an Backup/Restore memo. The lines and fields in the memo are hot linked back to the correct section above which discusses that line or field.
Backup/Restore Reminder Doc
Categories:
1,Business Events
2,Personal
3,Birthdays
Events:
2,23,11,1999,Y,7,N,N,N,1
Reminder v2.0 Released
2,6,12,1998,Y,7,N,N,N,1
Reminder v1.1 Released
2,11,12,1998,Y,7,N,N,N,1
Reminder v1.2 Released
2,25,10,1998,Y,7,N,N,N,1
Reminder Initial Release
2,11,3,0,N,7,N,N,N,3
Douglas Adams' B-Day
Author of:¶¶The Hitchhiker's Guide¶Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
2,3,4,1968,Y,7,Y,N,N,2
2001: A Space Odyssey released
2,28,4,0,N,7,N,N,N,3
Terry Pratchett's B-Day
Author of the Discworld, The Bromeliad and The Johnny Maxwell series.
2,25,5,1977,Y,7,Y,N,N,2
Star Wars released