The IrDA Applet provides a GUI for easilly controlling communication between your device and others using the IrDA protocol. You can use it to communicate with PalmOS based devices, cell phones, and almost anything else that can use infra red to communicate.

To start IrDA, click the IrDA Applet icon in the taskbar, and select "Enable IrDA". The icon should then turn red, and clicking the icon should then bring up a larger menu. If this does not happen, you do not have the IrDA modules installed properly on you device. Make sure you install the IrDA driver package for the device and distribution that you are using.

If you want to recieve files like images or contact information from another device, you need to tell your device to start looking for other devices. Do this by clicking on the IrDA Applet icon and selectiong "Enable Discovery". A green dot should appear in the upper right hand corner of the IrDA Applet icon. Then select "Enable Recieve" from the applet's menu, and a white box should appear in the bottom left corner of the IrDA Applet's icon. You can then have the other device send the file, and &opie; should recieve it and open the file in whatever application is appropriate. When you are done recieving files, you will want to select "Disable Recieve" and "Disable Discovery" from the IrDA Applet's menu so that you are not wasting system resources.

Several applications support beaming files in a format specific to that application (specifically, Contacts, Calendar, and Todo). However, sometimes you may need to simply send a file to another device via IrDA, regardless of the file type. To do this, you can use either AdvancedFM (yet to be documented), or you can do this from the Documents tab. To beam a file from the Documents tab, you must first add that file to the Documents tab if you havent already (see ). Then, go to the Documents tab and press and hold on the icon for the file you want to send. A dialog should appear, with a button in the bottom right labeled "Beam". Press this button, and &opie; will beam the file to any waiting devices.

Sometimes it is necessary to stop IrDA, usually so that you can use the IR port for another application. To do this, select "Disable IrDA" from the IrDA applet's menu.