Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Spb Software House Mobile Shell
Posted by Judie Lipsett Hughes in "SOFTWARE" @ 11:45 AM
Yet Another Today Screen Plug-In?
Well yes, at first glance it is; and I wasn't sold on the idea of installing yet another one, either. I should mention that in the past I have installed various Today plug-ins on my Treo that provided instant views of the weather, the time in different cities, and system information. I also use the 700wx's built-in photo speed dial, which is a bit of a Today screen hog - but I like it. According to an early press release, all of these features that I enjoy having on my Today screen would be rolled into one plug-in with Mobile Shell, which promised:
I'll install nearly anything once, so after a quick backup (with Spb Backup, natch!), I was ready to install.
Tidying Up the Today Screen
One of my pet peeves is a Today screen with a scroll bar on it; don't bother asking why - it's just one of those things that makes me wince when I see it. Usually by the time a couple of Today screen items have been checked, the scroll bar on the Windows Mobile Treo's 240 x 240 screen will have made its unwelcome appearance. In order to avoid seeing it, I have to carefully manage my Today screen real estate. Sometimes this means doing without an item or plug-in that I might have otherwise enjoyed using.
This first picture shows the Spb Mobile Shell Today plug-in. It has four standard tabs: Home, Time, Weather and Dial. Their orders can be rearranged in the program's settings, and more tabs can be added.
Figure 1: Spb Mobile Shell showing the four standard tabs.
Each tab, when clicked either by stylus or with the select button of the D-pad, will expand to show the various goodies contained in its section. We'll start with the Home Tab, which contains an always visible battery meter in its tab pocket, and which when expanded shows the 12 most recently opened applications. There is an option to pin the application shown in this tab - by pressing and holding it with finger tip or stylus - and then choosing that option from within the pop-up menu- or it can be removed from the Today screen entirely In this manner you can somewhat customize a personalized launcher. This is one of the few times that I'll mention where it is necessary to touch the screen while using Mobile Shell.
Figure 2: The 12 most recently used applications are shown in the expanded tab view.
The Time Tab shows the correlative times in three user-chosen cities. The "Next alarm" box shows the next of any three programmed alarms in the WM5 Clocks and Alarms settings. You should know that Spb scored major points with this Time Tab, because San Angelo was one of the included city options. Of course they didn't do it just for me, and of course they had no idea I would be reviewing this software...but let's just say that San Angelo is never on anyone's default time zone list - it just never happens; I usually have to select a city three hours away, like Austin or San Antonio, and well...pffffft! This was a nice surprise.
Figure 3: Three correlative cities time zones, including mine - for once!
The Weather Tab shows the next four days' forecast for one chosen city, and yes - San Angelo was once again once of the options. I'm getting pretty spoiled by the city personalization offered here, let me tell you! Pressing and holding the day's forecast will allow the user to update the city's weather, choose Celsius or Fahrenheit, or change the selected city.
Figure 4: Four days of weather are shown.
The last option is the Dial Tab, and it allows up to five representative graphics or textual entries for often-called numbers. These are the photos that have been selected for an entry either through Outlook or through the WM5 Contacts application.
Figure 5: A mix of graphics and text for five of my most called numbers.
Pressing and holding either the picture or text entry with a fingertip or stylus will reveal a menu of all the available numbers or other options for the contact. Unfortunately, there is no way to call up this menu without tapping the screen; pressing the D-pad calls the number that is specified as the speed-dial choice.
Figure 6: The menu options given when a contact is tapped and held.
As just a Today plug-in, I would be impressed with Mobile Shell, but it is only the beginning...
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