Massive Dev Chart App - Migrating from old iOS version to Android version?

This is going to be a real long shot!

I've been using the Massive Dev chart for about 15 years now, on an old iPod touch, that is barely holding together! It still works, but it will come a day where it won't turn on.

Anyway, I'd like to setup the app on my Android phone and I would like to extract out "My Times" (about 45 of them) and import them onto my device.

I know that to do this in the past, the app would created an email with an MDC file, that you would import. But because the iPod is so old, modern email services will not work on their default app.

I have had a poke around and do see the SQLite database, which I can query.

So, does anyone have a hack to be able to export the old times and import them?

hoffy said:

I have had a poke around and do see the SQLite database, which I can query.

Click to expand...

If you can query the old DB, you may be able to do the same with the new one. In that case you could try to just put the old data directly into the new DB.

koraks said:

If you can query the old DB, you may be able to do the same with the new one. In that case you could try to just put the old data directly into the new DB.

Click to expand...

Yes, maybe that is what I need to do. I was just hopeful that someone had already done the leg work.

Time to get hacking....

Hiya Hoffy,
Does your iPod version have a share function? I've only ever used Android, but I have the option to backup to Dropbox or save/send to various apps (email, note taking types, etc.) as well as just saving it locally as a file that ends with the extension .mdc
My saved times are pretty vanilla and I've not made any changes to them, but I'm happy to share it with you to import to your Android phone or, if you give me a list, I can create and save that for you. Neither would be of much use to you, though, if you've tweaked the original times from the chart.
Let me know if I can be of any use here! ☺

Molli said:

Hiya Hoffy,
Does your iPod version have a share function? I've only ever used Android, but I have the option to backup to Dropbox or save/send to various apps (email, note taking types, etc.) as well as just saving it locally as a file that ends with the extension .mdc
My saved times are pretty vanilla and I've not made any changes to them, but I'm happy to share it with you to import to your Android phone or, if you give me a list, I can create and save that for you. Neither would be of much use to you, though, if you've tweaked the original times from the chart.
Let me know if I can be of any use here! ☺

Click to expand...

No - the IPOD is steam powered. The only way to do it back then was via email. And the email app no longer works on the device when connecting to my gmail account (or the default outlook account I have).

BUT I have got it to work. Its a bit fiddly, but I worked it out..... I hope!

This job would require getting access to the database (SQLite), which I doubt any modern system would allow - I know Android would require me to root the phone, which I really don't want to do.

Anyhow, if anyone ever cares, this is what I did:

1. On the iPod, I used iMazing to access the files behind the app. This included the SQLite database MyDate.sqlite - this appears to store the user defined, saved times. I downloaded this database to my PC.
2. Created a MDC file in the Android version - this allowed me to verify that it is a JSON file and the keys/layout
3. In the old version, I created a SQL Script that outputted the data - it took me a few goes until I realised I had:
   1. a typo
   2. missed 2 fields.
   3. That the FilmType was an ID - didn't take me too long to work out how these mapped, as there was no lookup table.
   4. Also made sure that fields were being outputted as the correct data types - I converted the floats to Int's, (everything was whole numbers), but I probably didn't need to do this.
   5. Oh, and had to do a bit of guessing to which fields were what - typically OK for most of it, but there were a few that didn't quite do what I thought they would. This also required me to rename the output columns to match the JSON.
4. Outputted it as JSON. This does re-order the columns, but that is OK.
5. Updated the JSON file to include a top level key (entries) and an additional key ("source":"Pixel 8 Pro")
6. Made sure all the indentation looked good, and saved it as MyTimes.MDC
7. Uploaded it to Dropbox for the App to import

And Viola! It worked!

In the end, I probably could have written a Python script to do all the above, but this seemed a bit easier for a 1 off for now.

The iPod still works, so when ever I dial up something now, I will do a quick cross check.

Great job, good approach, too!

What a way to waste an afternoon! Its OK when I'm getting paid for it (I do similar stuff for a living), but when all you want to do is develop some film, it felt a bit tedious!

hoffy said:

What a way to waste an afternoon!

Click to expand...

Not too dissimilar to how a lot of the pinhole photography, lumen print, home built camera, traditional process people do here to waste an afternoon .
Of course, "old" when it comes to electronics is a measure of relativity

for 45 entries wouldn't it be easier to write them down on a piece of paper? No fun in that though!