Doug Rausch
01-28-2003, 08:00 PM
One of the things I love about my Pocket PC is its size. I cram everything I possibly can on it and take it everywhere. Unfortunately, one of the things I hate about my Pocket PC, usually when trying to view a large spreadsheet or get a handle on my schedule, is its size. Specifically, its screen size. Deep down, I think we'd all like a Pocket PC with a small form factor, which has the ability to expand its screen to a roomy 17 inches when needed. Since that's unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, I'm constantly on the look-out for programs that exploit every smidgen of screen space to provide me with well organized, uncluttered information. Not an easy task, but the latest offering from ScaryBear Software, SuperCalendar, provides users with a clean, informative, usable option for viewing their calendar in a "month at a glance" view. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-1.gif" /> <br /><!><br /><i>SuperCalendar 1.1 from ScaryBear Software is billed as a replacement for your Pocket PC’s built in calendar application. It's not a full-up PIM, but for folks who are looking for an upgraded month-at-a-glance view this program is certainly worth a test drive.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Monthly View is this Program’s Strength</b></span><br />Although SuperCalendar does provide a new daily view for your schedule, where it excels is in viewing and navigating your monthly schedule. Whereas the Pocket PC's built-in calendar application provides only indications of morning or afternoon appointments on the month view, SuperCalendar displays appointments in a schedule indicator bar along the bottom of each day that has appointments scheduled. The bar is divided into three segments, corresponding to morning, afternoon, and evening time spans. Appointments are shown by shading an appropriate width of the bar, giving you an immediate idea of how much open time you have to schedule that next sought after meeting. A solid bar is placed on top of the normal schedule bar to indicate the presence of any day-long appointments. <br /><br />SuperCalendar allows you to assign icons to categories of appointments and displays up to three of these icons in the day view along with the schedule indicator bar. You can display up to six category icons by turning off the display of the schedule bar. Several icons are included, however, you can also create your own custom icons and load them for use in marking categories. Navigating between months and years is done by either tapping the desired month/year on the top of the screen or using the hardware pad to go forward and backward a month at a time.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-1.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 1: Month view is clean, informative.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Another View on Your Agenda</b></span><br />Selecting a day on the month displays the daily view, which is very similar to the agenda view of the built-in calendar application.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-2.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 2: Daily view.</i><br /><br />Appointment times, subject and location are all shown and if the appointment has any accompanying notes tapping on the yellow post-it displays your notes in a pop-up balloon. As in the month view you can also use the hardware pad to navigate to the next or previous day as well as moving forward or backward a week at a time.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-3.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 3: Highlighting appointment note</i><br /><br />A pop-up menu in the day view allows you to copy, cut, paste, delete and edit appointments. You can also add appointments through this pop-up menu or on the month view screen. Adding and editing appointments uses the same familiar screens as the built-in calendar application. I did find it annoying though that SuperCalendar, by default, adds new appointments to the current day, not the day you happen to have been viewing. Until I remembered to change the date to the day I wanted each time, I ended up with a few lost meetings.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-4.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 4: Pop-up menu support</i> <br /><br />In addition to the alternating row colors used by default in the day view, you can also display appointments colored by schedule times (morning, afternoon, evening), or color-coded by category.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-5.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 5: Color coding by category or time of day</i> <br /><br /><span><b>No Lack of Customizable Options</b></span><br />The options menu provides several customizing features including the use of clear type text. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-6.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 6: Viewing options</i> <br /><br />The ranges of time used to define the morning, afternoon, and evening blocks of time are easily changed to match your work habits.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-7.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 7: Setting indicator times</i> <br /><br />The colors to be used for highlighting and category colors/icons are all easily modified.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-8.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 8: Setting day and month colors.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-9.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 9: Setting category colors.</i> <br /><br />The version of SuperCalendar reviewed for this article only allowed eight icons to be set for categories, this has been increased to 16 in the current version 1.3. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/rausch-jan03-supercalendar-10.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 10: Setting category display icons.</i> <br /><br /><b><span>Gotchas</span></b><br />All in all this is a very solid application. There are certainly many things that this application does not do that many look for in a full-blown PIM. However, SuperCalendar is not meant to fill that category so I can’t fault it for lack of more advanced PIM features. The application is not perfect though:<li>As I stated earlier, new appointments are added by default to the current day, not the day you happen to have been viewing. Certainly not a killer, but not what I was expecting either.<br /><li>I found the daily view in SuperCalendar to be about the same as the built-in agenda view. Sure it adds the option to color code entries but I didn’t find it that valuable over the built-in application. <br /><li>SuperCalendar offers no improved weekly view. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement on the Pocket PC’s built in week view and SuperCalendar completely overlooks it. An improved week view would greatly increase the value of this application. <span><b>Where To Buy</b></span><br />The software can be <a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=47200">downloaded from Handango</a> or purchased for $9.95 (affiliate link). Since this review was originally written SuperCalendar has been updated to version 1.3. <br /><br /><b><span>Conclusions</span></b><br />SuperCalendar does a good job of providing a better view of your monthly calendar. It's not a full-featured PIM like Agenda Fusion or Pocket Informant, but then again, it's not meant to be. The application is small, its interface is clean, and it provides a lot of information at a glance. Overall, is it the worth $9.95 price tag? Well, maybe. If you find yourself working all the time in the month view of your calendar, this application beats the built-in calendar hands down and is well worth the price. If you spend a lot of time in a weekly view you're going to find yourself going back and forth between applications quite a bit. In that case you probably need to keep looking for a more inclusive application.