Introduction
This PalmOS applications allows you to take the current mensa food plan with you. You just need to write a software that will create a specially formatted text file that genUMENpdb can parse (see package "UMENpdbGen" in the download section below).Some features:
- Multiple mensas: Up to 16 mensa can be taken.
- Beaming Support: Beam the current database to your friends
Just to be sure that you heard: You will need a PalmOS device to run this application. You can also use the Palm OS Emulator POSE. Linux binaries can be found here.
Do not ask for ROM files. I cannot and I do not want to share my ROMs with you. Go to the mentioned POSE page, there is a description on how to obtain ROM files from Palm Source directly and legally without owning a Palm handheld.
UniChat is available in multiple languages. Supported languages are right now (randomly ordered):
- German (Deutsch)
- English
Databases
My databases and later also databases created for other universities may be found here.Palm Software Sponsoring
My Palm Software is Freeware and often Open Source. If you like the software and want feel that you want to give something back consider donating a few Euros/Dollars/you-favorite-currency-here. Thanx for your support.News
2002/11/28First public release. If you find any bugs please send me a mail describing the problem (please note OS and hardware you use).
2003/01/30
Fixed simple but annoying bug. It showed the wrong menu on startup when not monday.
2003/10/08
Several small improvements. Preferences for startup behavior (show last seen mensa, set a default or show database default) and database info that shows for which university the database belongs to.
Thanks
A special thanks to my friends Tobias "The Bugfinder" Weyand and Sumedha Ananda Markus Widyadharma (just had to write whole name :-) who greatly helped to reduce my Bug rate in this software (and others...). All remaining bugs are my fault. I probably inserted them after their checks...Screenshots
Some screenshots will give you an impression of the software. |
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| Main screen | Multiple Mensas | About Screen |
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Supported devices
Any PalmOS handheld device running PalmOS 3.5 or higher should work for UniMensa.I have tested UniMensa on:
Palm m515 (PalmOS 4.1, color, tested on real device, works perfectly)
Palm IIIc (PalmOS 3.5, color, tested on real device, works perfectly)
Palm IIIx (PalmOS 4.0, gray, tested on real device, works perfectly)
Palm IIIx (PalmOS 3.5, gray, tested on emulator, works perfectly)
Download
UniMensa is released and distributed under the terms of a proprietary license. You may use the software for free and beam it to your friend. You may not distribute it under your name. You may distribute it on so called "Shareware or Freeware CD-ROMs". You must then inform the author before the CDs are published. The author has the right to deny distribution of the software without further need of explanation.By downloading and/or using the software you agree to this license!
You may download the Palm install file provided as a .zip and as a .tar.gz file.
Latest stable version is 0.4.
| UniMensa 0.4 (German/Deutsch) | .tar.gz (7432 Bytes) | .zip (8845 Bytes) | ||
| UniMensa 0.4 (English) | .tar.gz (7315 Bytes) | .zip (8753 Bytes) |
You can get the databases here.
Developer kit:
If you want to generate UniMensa databases for your university the following kit is for you! It contains the scripts that I use to generate the database for RWTH Aachen. That are:- getmensa.pl: Gets webpage with next weeks plan
- parsemensa.pl: Uses HTML::TreeBuilder to extract the real menu information from the file leeched with getmensa.pl
- genUMENpdb: a statically linked version of the PDB generator that creates the real database. Right now I do not publish the source code. That may come with a later release when everything has stabilized. This binary was compiled on a pretty clean RedHat 8 machine with GCC 3. It is plain C so there shouldn't be many problems. I have plans to make the generator available as a web or SOAP app. If you really have plans to generate databases and you can code and are willing to do some work just mail me and we will find a solution.
