Pocket Informant 4.5

[Ed Hansberry]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketinformant.com/WhatsNew.php?_function=4.5' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketinformant.com/What...p?_function=4.5</a><br /><br /></div>WebIS has released the latest version of Pocket Informant, now at version 4.5. It is a free upgrade to all registered 4.0 users and a free trial download is available.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030701-pocketinformant45.gif" /><br /><br />New features include:<br />• Simple one line entry in Day View, pictured above. You can also pre-select a range of time then double tap to enter longer appointments.<br />• Color Scheme support - you can now add an unlimited number of color schemes and quickly change between them to fit your mood.<br />• Designate a contact as "Me" to use for business card beaming.<br /><br />That is just the beginning. There are dozens of tweaks here and there plus a few bug fixes found in previous versions.<br /><br /><i>[Note by Janak: The webpage isn't completely up-to-date yet, but the <a href="http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php">downloadable</a> executable is indeed 4.5. The release notes are linked above.]</i>

[Reza]

Cool! It’s now time to do the side-by-side feature (and screenshot) comparison with Agenda Fusion 5.0! Anyone? :)

[Evee Ev]

i always love how they make so many good and CONSISTENT updates! i can't wait to download this app tomorrow morning.

[dh]

I'm not sure that a camparison is the best way to go. Because most reviewers will already be using one or the other it is gonig to be hard to be objective.

AF and PI are both great applications and both have more features than any of us are ever going to use.

Since both have now released the new versions the best thing for anyone to do is get both trial versions and see which works best for them.

I've just downloaded the new version of PI. There are tons of new features to figure out.

[dMores]

oh boy!
i hope i'll finally be able to organize my contacts by categories.

oh please oh please oh please

*downloading*

[Wilbert]

oh boy!
i hope i'll finally be able to organize my contacts by categories.

oh please oh please oh please

*downloading*

yes you can! :D

[Wilbert]

I just started using PI last week and I must say that I am in love with it! I have NEVER used my PDA so much now that everything is easy to access.

I LOVE the Hierarchical task mode! I do not know if AF has this, but I wish Outlook would use this option!

My wife even thinks I am more organized now and wants to buy it FOR me! :lol:

[hoffm11]

I just recently switched to PI from AF and glad I did with this new update. There are some great features and it just looks great.

[Wilbert]

I just recently switched to PI from AF and glad I did with this new update. There are some great features and it just looks great.

What made you want to switch?

[egads]

Where's the speed everybody's been talking about ?

I see no real increase in speed. I have around 150 contacts. If I tap the stylus off of the drag bar to page down to the bottom of the contact list it takes seconds for the screen to catch up to bottom page. Then when clicking on a contact still takes a second or so to open up. I thought this type of stuff was supposed to be faster ?

I was really really looking forward to this release because of all the buzz about the 4.5 improvements.

[suhit]

Where's the speed everybody's been talking about ?


I don't see any speed improvements. In fact there seems to be a slight slow down when I click on the main PI Options button. I like most of the subtle improvements, but yeah, I would have liked it better if it were speedier.

[dMores]

well i think this is more of a pda hardware issue.

the speed increase is (supposedly) noticeable when you first start PI, and when you switch from contacts to calendar, for example.

just playing with it now ... seems a little snappier than before.

oh, and my favorite ... CONTACT CATEGORIES !!!

i'm one happy camper !

[Mark R Penn]

Where's the speed everybody's been talking about ?

I see no real increase in speed. I have around 150 contacts. If I tap the stylus off of the drag bar to page down to the bottom of the contact list it takes seconds for the screen to catch up to bottom page. Then when clicking on a contact still takes a second or so to open up. I thought this type of stuff was supposed to be faster ?

I was really really looking forward to this release because of all the buzz about the 4.5 improvements.

I doubt you'll see much improvement wh 150 contacts (law of diminishing returns, or something like that). On the other hand if it's slow with only 150, there may be something else wrong.

I have about 2500 contacts, and it is a LOT quicker than it was in the old version.

[dh]

I have about 2,500 contacts as well. It seems to me that the lookup speed is slightly slower than the previous version.

I wonder if I'm serching through more text per contact, rather than just the names. I'll have to play some more and see

[egads]

well i think this is more of a pda hardware issue.

the speed increase is (supposedly) noticeable when you first start PI, and when you switch from contacts to calendar, for example.

just playing with it now ... seems a little snappier than before.

oh, and my favorite ... CONTACT CATEGORIES !!!

i'm one happy camper !

I should have added in my post I love PI and while I may not LOVE my Axim I sure do like it better than my old Casio EM500.

I always have PI running so I guess I would not notice that speed increase very much. It may be a tad faster switching between calendar and contact view, but hardly noticeable. Heck, I would expect it to take a second or two to switch from contact to calendar view, I'm fine with that delay. The speed increase I wanted to see was faster screen redraw times and when select a contact I want it to pop up like lightening. I've noticed 1-2 seconds before the info comes up.

To be fair, the problems I have with PI's slowness is more than likely not PI's fault. Its the OS's job to have a snappy UI. There is no reason that a 400Mhz XSCALE should not burn up a small 240x320 screen. Its all solid state, no hardrives, why is the PPC OS so slow ? The only way MS has every been able to speed up a OS is to throw more memory and a faster processor at it :evil:

[Xianfox]

I just recently switched to PI from AF and glad I did with this new update. There are some great features and it just looks great.

What made you want to switch?

I can't speak for hoffm11, but the thing that got me to PI from AF is the saved views and the graphical week view. It's a little slow for my tastes, but I'll just have to use that as my justification for an upgrade. :lol:

*Hey honey, where's the checkbook?*

[Mark R Penn]

See here (http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=1509) for a very detailed explanation re contact speed.

[alex_kac]

Where's the speed everybody's been talking about ?

I see no real increase in speed. I have around 150 contacts. If I tap the stylus off of the drag bar to page down to the bottom of the contact list it takes seconds for the screen to catch up to bottom page. Then when clicking on a contact still takes a second or so to open up. I thought this type of stuff was supposed to be faster ?

I was really really looking forward to this release because of all the buzz about the 4.5 improvements.

No, you won't see any improvement in speed with 150 contacts. People with 3000 contacts will see enormous speed increases after startup. 150 contacts is too little to see anything.

Now...you do have that lag for one simple reason. PI only reads in the first 20 contacts at a time from the database. When you move the scrollbar down, we are reading from the database, formatting, and blitting to the screen. We do this to be efficient. That way a user with 5000 contacts will work just like one with 50.

Now opening dialogs - we didn't touch that at all. Look at our list of what is new in 4.5 and you'll see that we did a lot in 3 months. You have to stop somewhere, release, and then keep going.

However, there is something we can do to speed that up, but we haven't gone there yet. We use POOM (Pocket Outlook Object Model) when you edit a contact. POOM is slow. Of that second, 750 milliseconds is just POOM initializing and loading the contact. We actually spent time rewriting that to not use POOM, but it needed more testing so we plan to put that in some future release.

The other thing...the new PPC 2003 devices with PI show no lag in anything. But even with that, we plan to continue to improve - remember, if 4.5 didn't have anything to improve upon it would've been released at the world's end and been called Pocket Informant Forever :)

[alex_kac]

well i think this is more of a pda hardware issue.

the speed increase is (supposedly) noticeable when you first start PI, and when you switch from contacts to calendar, for example.

just playing with it now ... seems a little snappier than before.

oh, and my favorite ... CONTACT CATEGORIES !!!

i'm one happy camper !

I should have added in my post I love PI and while I may not LOVE my Axim I sure do like it better than my old Casio EM500.

I always have PI running so I guess I would not notice that speed increase very much. It may be a tad faster switching between calendar and contact view, but hardly noticeable. Heck, I would expect it to take a second or two to switch from contact to calendar view, I'm fine with that delay. The speed increase I wanted to see was faster screen redraw times and when select a contact I want it to pop up like lightening. I've noticed 1-2 seconds before the info comes up.

To be fair, the problems I have with PI's slowness is more than likely not PI's fault. Its the OS's job to have a snappy UI. There is no reason that a 400Mhz XSCALE should not burn up a small 240x320 screen. Its all solid state, no hardrives, why is the PPC OS so slow ? The only way MS has every been able to speed up a OS is to throw more memory and a faster processor at it :evil:

I'm not sure how much faster the redraw can be. Redraw is just a blit of an internal image to screen. Its about as fast as it can get :) Now if you mean drawing to screen - I agree that PI has a very powerful rendering engine and that gives it about 20% slower rendering over something like AF whose rendering engine is very simple in comparison.

Now - 4.5 DOES have a much more robust rendering engine. What that means is this. In previous versions...the more strain you put on the engine - with bitmaps, lots of wrapped text, a lot of scrolling, the slower it would get. In 4.5, it now will perform about the same whether you lightly use it or heavily use it (as a developer and user). In fact...much in 4.5 is robust meaning if you don't hit it hard - you aren't going to see any speed difference. But if you use 100 categories, 100 category icons, have 10000 contacts, etc... you WILL see it run much faster.

And finally - speed is relative. I've had (what I consider) the funniest comments about it during testing. I had one non-beta tester he couldn't believe how much faster it was for him. Another, when I asked him if it performed any faster for him...he said, nope. A lot just depends on how you use things.

[egads]

No, you won't see any improvement in speed with 150 contacts. People with 3000 contacts will see enormous speed increases after startup. 150 contacts is too little to see anything.

Now...you do have that lag for one simple reason. PI only reads in the first 20 contacts at a time from the database. When you move the scrollbar down, we are reading from the database, formatting, and blitting to the screen. We do this to be efficient. That way a user with 5000 contacts will work just like one with 50.

Now opening dialogs - we didn't touch that at all. Look at our list of what is new in 4.5 and you'll see that we did a lot in 3 months. You have to stop somewhere, release, and then keep going.

However, there is something we can do to speed that up, but we haven't gone there yet. We use POOM (Pocket Outlook Object Model) when you edit a contact. POOM is slow. Of that second, 750 milliseconds is just POOM initializing and loading the contact. We actually spent time rewriting that to not use POOM, but it needed more testing so we plan to put that in some future release.

The other thing...the new PPC 2003 devices with PI show no lag in anything. But even with that, we plan to continue to improve - remember, if 4.5 didn't have anything to improve upon it would've been released at the world's end and been called Pocket Informant Forever :)

Thanks for the reply Alex,

As always I look forward to new releases. 9 out of 10 times I turn my Axim on I'm turning it on to use PI :D

Keep up the great work and know that while I might grumble about some things, I really appreciate all of the work you've put into PI !!!

[dh]

OK, I was using the wrong search mode. When I click on the >? (rather than the >?&lt;) the results come up really quickly.

This is a really nice upgrade. To be honest, I liked the 4.1 version but this is even better.

[ntractv]

On the screen shots Ed put up it appears that the new version has a Qwerty style keyboard for input, but, for the life of me I can't seem to find it. I have heard alot of folks talk about how good or bad it was. I just want to try it for myself. I read the docs on PI but maybe I'm missing something. I guess you would have to have the Qwerty app already installed.

____ Yes

____ No

[markan]

The keyboard that you can see is Fitaly, which is a separate product.

http://www.fitaly.com

[dh]

On the screen shots Ed put up it appears that the new version has a Qwerty style keyboard for input, but, for the life of me I can't seem to find it. I have heard alot of folks talk about how good or bad it was. I just want to try it for myself. I read the docs on PI but maybe I'm missing something. I guess you would have to have the Qwerty app already installed.


What you see on Ed's screenshot is Fitaly.
This is just one of the third party input methods available for the PPC.
It's not part of PI, but does work very well with it.

[dMores]

unfortunately, while i still find switching to be faster, opening and closing the categorized contact list is really, really slow.
one category which has 50 entries takes almost 4 seconds to open up.

&lt;edit>ok, i just read the speed issue thing where alex explained that especially category mode would be dog slow AFTER posting.&lt;/edit>

now i need to find all the other goodies that Alex and his team have "hidden" :)

[thomas1973]

now i need to find all the other goodies that Alex and his team have "hidden" :)
If you haven't already had a look, Mark's postings on the PI forum on the new features are excellent! Screenshots and all! They also give some tips on how to use the new features.

http://www.pocketinformant.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1456


Thomas.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Downloading now - looking forward to it. :D

[alex_kac]

unfortunately, while i still find switching to be faster, opening and closing the categorized contact list is really, really slow.
one category which has 50 entries takes almost 4 seconds to open up.

&lt;edit>ok, i just read the speed issue thing where alex explained that especially category mode would be dog slow AFTER posting.&lt;/edit>

now i need to find all the other goodies that Alex and his team have "hidden" :)

Yeah, Category mode is nice. But in this first incarnation, it can be slower than I'd like. The good news is that its the only mode I use in PI now, so I have some incentive to speed it up. I have a few ideas, but with all that was happening in 4.5, we couldn't get to everything.

So just to recap - 4.5 does provide a lot of speed increases in a lot of areas. It should increase the "Snappiness®" quotient of the app :) In fact, I have a lot of power users who tell me that 4.5 is faster than AF 5.0 in most areas.

However, the caveats are:
1) CV has a delay on startup (but so does our competition)
2) Category mode is less than speedy for large contact lists.

[ctmagnus]

:way to go: :way to go:

[mv]

I´m trying the spanish version. By the way, the spanish translation is not too good. It´s kind of funny: FE, it says "Cejas" (wich means eyebrow) instead of saying "pestañas" (Tabs); and some other little spelling mistakes. (i can try to list them later if they want)

And on the day view, when i try to make an appointment on the lower side of the screen, the input panel hides the appointment and you can´t edit it. So i have to "center" the place where i want to input my appointment.

At least, preferences are too slow to start.

I´m testing AF 5 an PI 4.5, and i´m not sure wich will i buy yet (i´m not even sure if i´ll buy one really, i´m waiting to see if i need those features) But I´m loving the PI day view, because i can "click and write" (Just like on palm OS :D )but i´ll see if the little bug in ths view is corrected. Also, considering PI is cheaper (not much, but cheaper) it has and advantage.

[dh]

So just to recap - 4.5 does provide a lot of speed increases in a lot of areas. It should increase the "Snappiness®" quotient of the app :) In fact, I have a lot of power users who tell me that 4.5 is faster than AF 5.0 in most areas.


I agree, 4.5 is Snappier. You must spend a lot of time thinking to come up with all these little extra ideas Alex.

Nice Job. :clap: PI is what makes the PPC such a good tool.

[thomas1973]

At least, preferences are too slow to start.The 'Options' or preference view has always been slow to start and close. It can be a (small) pain in the start, when you're trying to configure PI to work your way, and you're going in and out of options all the time. However, when you've used it for a while, you'll seldom use the options screen.

I hardly ever use it now, as PI is now taylored to my needs.


Thomas.

[Mark R Penn]

At least, preferences are too slow to start.The 'Options' or preference view has always been slow to start and close. It can be a (small) pain in the start, when you're trying to configure PI to work your way, and you're going in and out of options all the time. However, when you've used it for a while, you'll seldom use the options screen.

I hardly ever use it now, as PI is now taylored to my needs.


Thomas.

The reason Options is slow to start is that it is actually a completely separate application. It's done that way so that the settings file can be saved in a location that can be backed up. So, the options application has to close PI, start itself, and then when you are finished it has to save the changes you've made and then re-start PI.

Also, to add to Thomas' comment, the majority of frequently used options are accessible from the main application. Each view has a "View Options" button, which allows you to get directly to the options you are likely to want to change frequently. So for example, here's the "View Options" menu for the calendar view. If you want to change anything, take a look in these menus first.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.berry93/115.JPG

The full options dialogue really is an area you will not have to visit often once you have finished the "adjusting it to me" stage, and the plus of being able to backup all your settings independently of anything else really does make an occasional wait worthwhile.

You can even avoid going there often for colour settings now! Set up a few you like, and save them as colour schemes - you will then be able to access them instantly without going back into options.

This might be a good opportunity to explain the logic of PI's GUI. It's sometimes said to be confusing (though actually it's a criticism that dates back to older versions - it really doesn't apply nowadays), but there really is a beautiful logic to it that makes it totally intuitive once it's "clicked":

Here's the toolbar from the calendar view:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.berry93/116.JPG

Some views contain fewer or more buttons, as appropriate, but the same logic applies in ALL views:

Starting from the left, we have the standard PPC New button.

Next is the tools menu button. This contains items that are not view specific, such as registration and options. The menu is therefore the same regardless of the view you are in.

The next button is the "Go to today" button, and of course is specific to calendar view. Other views have their own specialist buttons, such as the "group by" button in tasks view.

Next is the Toolbar button. This appears in all views that support a toolbar at the top (such as search bar, new entry bar etc). For consistency the menu is the same in all views, but options that are not specific to that view are greyed out.

The next button is the "View Options" button. The icon for this will be the same as the icon for the view you are in, and it contains all the options that are specific to that view and no other. Thus the menu that appears when you press this button is totally different in each view.

To the right of that is the Custom views button. This lets you save set-ups you've created (filtering, grouping, sorting, everything) for quick access later on (from the same menu). That way you can save your own "personal diary" view, or an "important work tasks" view, or anything! This menu is structured in exactly the same way in all views (notes is the only view that does not support custom views), but you will only see the custom views you have saved for the view you are in (so you won't see your "personal diary" view when you are in Tasks View for example).

Finally there is the filter menu. This has two components. On the left is the button that takes you to the full filtering dialogue where you can select multiple filters etc, but unique to PI is the up arrow on the right. This gives you quick access to individual filters, and to filter options like "include non categorized". This menu will contain only categories appropriate for that view by default, but can be set to show all categories, even those not used in the current view.

Obviously there are many other options, but they are contained in contextual tap and hold menus to avoid cluttering up the rest of the UI. Whenever I show PI to anyone, I always suggest the first thing they do if they want to do ANYTHING with an item is to tap and hold on it, and see what choices they have! 9 times out of 10 you will be able to do what you want with a tap and hold.

So, total logic, and as intuitive as it's possible to be IMHO.

Mark

[mv]

one big problem for me: i´m left handed, so i have a hard time pressing the buttons on the right side of the screen. Can those be moved to the left? if not, consider this as a suggestion - left handed people will like a lot more PI.

[Mark R Penn]

one big problem for me: i´m left handed, so i have a hard time pressing the buttons on the right side of the screen. Can those be moved to the left? if not, consider this as a suggestion - left handed people will like a lot more PI.

You can't do that at the moment, but you can hide that bar and access it's functions other ways. Double tap on the calendar tab to get rid of it (double tap again to get it back), and then use your calendar hardware button to use the functions you've just hidden - repeated presses of the button will scroll through the calendar sub views (like week, day etc). A press and hold of the same button will bring up the date picker. And finally the joypad can be used for scrolling up, down, left and right.

Mark

[dh]

Mark, thanks for taking the time to give us so much good information. I've been using PI for a few months and I am still learning a lot of the little features that we have.

What you've done here as well as your posts in the PI forums save a lot of trial and error.

I would be interested in a lefty option as well. In fact the whole PPC GUI is not great for us. There is a lot of having to reach over the screen in just about every application. It would be nice if MS had supplied a "mirror image" button to change everything over. (More chance of Alex doing it for PI and @mail I suspect).

We are lucky to have a long weekend here, so plenty of time (wife permitting) to play with my upgrade.

[alex_kac]

I´m trying the spanish version. By the way, the spanish translation is not too good. It´s kind of funny: FE, it says "Cejas" (wich means eyebrow) instead of saying "pestañas" (Tabs); and some other little spelling mistakes. (i can try to list them later if they want)

And on the day view, when i try to make an appointment on the lower side of the screen, the input panel hides the appointment and you can´t edit it. So i have to "center" the place where i want to input my appointment.

At least, preferences are too slow to start.

I´m testing AF 5 an PI 4.5, and i´m not sure wich will i buy yet (i´m not even sure if i´ll buy one really, i´m waiting to see if i need those features) But I´m loving the PI day view, because i can "click and write" (Just like on palm OS :D )but i´ll see if the little bug in ths view is corrected. Also, considering PI is cheaper (not much, but cheaper) it has and advantage.

Yes, I'd love to hear of any Spanish corrections. As to the centering...it was on our list to perfect more in future releases.

[carlosgp]

I'd like to see an improved spanish translation too. The actual version is distracting.

[theon]

Categories! Nuff said! :D

[bridgecrosser]

It's obvious from Mark's post and the finished product we now have in hand that PI is the best PIM app available to the Pocket PC user. It has been thoroughly thought through in order to provide us with the best user experience possible. Even our left-handed friends, while wishing for a mirror to "flip" it around, would agree that its a great program as is.

Great job, guys! :lol:

[pcause]

The feature list is extensive, and as usual for PI, Alex doesn't list everything he puts in the product. I find the speed better than previous versions. I have 1000 contacts and an Ipaq 3850. Someone mentioned scrolling. I never scroll, I use the search bar and enter a few characters and the results are pretty quick.

There was a mention of the >? search being faster than the >?&lt; search. The >? is a starts with search, looks at fewer fields and is the fastest. The >?&lt; search is a "contains" search, looks at more fields and is slower, but still pretty quick and really powerful. It is faster than the MS find on just contacts.

You can also select the Search tab and do full searches, using wildcards on any combination of contacts, appointments, tasks and notes text. And this one is really fast. Again, I find it faster than the built in MS search.

What I like about PI is that is an exceptionally powerful and completely customizable. Sine a PIM is very personal, to be great you need both. Users might opt for less initially, but after a while you begin to run into the limits of other products and it gets annoying. When I run into a limit in PI there is usually some option to get me what I want. And if I can't find the option, there is usually a new release out that solves my problem.

[dh]

Even our left-handed friends, while wishing for a mirror to "flip" it around, would agree that its a great program as is.
I do agree. This is the best PPC application of all as far as I am concerned.

[mv]

I´m trying the spanish version. By the way, the spanish translation is not too good. It´s kind of funny: FE, it says "Cejas" (wich means eyebrow) instead of saying "pestañas" (Tabs); and some other little spelling mistakes. (i can try to list them later if they want)

And on the day view, when i try to make an appointment on the lower side of the screen, the input panel hides the appointment and you can´t edit it. So i have to "center" the place where i want to input my appointment.

At least, preferences are too slow to start.

I´m testing AF 5 an PI 4.5, and i´m not sure wich will i buy yet (i´m not even sure if i´ll buy one really, i´m waiting to see if i need those features) But I´m loving the PI day view, because i can "click and write" (Just like on palm OS :D )but i´ll see if the little bug in ths view is corrected. Also, considering PI is cheaper (not much, but cheaper) it has and advantage.

Yes, I'd love to hear of any Spanish corrections. As to the centering...it was on our list to perfect more in future releases.

I´ll take note of the translation mistakes as i use PI (most or them are not exactly mistakes, but they are just not the most used word for a function) and then post them or sent them to you. The most obvious anyway is that is says "cejas" for "pestañas"

I´m happy to hear that you consider to take care of the "centering" issue. At this point of testing (just 2 days) i´m loving PI because of how fast is it. A lot faster than AF 5.

[Rafael Sanchis]

Hi...
I Intall the new Version 4.5 Great But.....

Now when I try to Run the @Mail the Follings Error appear.

Could Not Load
PINewEditUI.dll......

Somebody have the Same Problem..

[Jeff Rutledge]

Hi...
I Intall the new Version 4.5 Great But.....

Now when I try to Run the @Mail the Follings Error appear.

Could Not Load
PINewEditUI.dll......

Somebody have the Same Problem..

I believe you need to donwload a newer version that addresses this issue:
http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php

[Rafael Sanchis]

Hi JR..

When I try to download the 4.5 in the http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php I download the old Version 4.01....not the 4.5

[joshuajg]

I've only be using PI for a day but I can't figure these two things out:

1) In the screenshot for this thread the title is a blue gradient. I can only get 1 color and it's in the shapre of an oval.
Example: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030701-pocketinformant45.gif

2) How can I get gradient colors like this?
Example: http://pocketinformant.com/img/Gallery/4.gif

Take care,
Joshua

[markan]

With the calendar view showing click the little calender-shaped icon and then the "Styles" option. That allows you to choose how the headings are displayed. You probably have solid rounded selected, the one in the start of this thread is "Standard" and the picture in the link to the PI site is using one of the "Tube" options.

[CESkins]

It's obvious from Mark's post and the finished product we now have in hand that PI is the best PIM app available to the Pocket PC user. :lol:
I will assume that the quoted comment was made after a careful evaluation of all the various PIM products on the market and not simply based on someone else observations/comments. :( So far what I am looking for is an objective 3rd party evaluation of the various PocPC PIM apps listing their strengths and weaknesses. I just read through 5 pages of posts in this thread and many/most of the comments are subjective evaluations of speed, features, useability. Saying something seems faster doesn't make it so...it would be great to get some hard cold numbers, if possible, of the relative speed of PI performing various tasks compared to the built-in PIM or AFv5 (especially when the data set is very large). The arguments bantered around for PI over any other PIM remind me of the PocketPC "do everything approach" vs the Palm Zen "keep it simple" philosophy. Is PocPCThoughts planning on doing a comparison of the various PIMs out there (ala TekGuru mega picture viewer reviews)? :?:

[Jacob]

Well, most peoples opinions are subjective by nature, but that doesn't make them invalid.

Everyone uses these apps in different ways so which app is better really depends on the person.

Sure, I guess it'd be nice to see specific stats on speed of operations, but when it comes to whether it's the best app when it comes to keeping you organized - no review will tell you objectively which one is best for you.

[CESkins]

review will tell you objectively which one is best for you.
On this I agree, that's why I hate to see threads where one app is labeled as 2nd class vs another when the concept of "different strokes for different folks" applies. A comprehensive, comparative review of several apps like TekGuru did on his website would help individuals make more informed choices about what they are buying rather than relatively subjective evals by someone who has only used one product extensively. For example, there are times when I need the robust feature set of a word processing app like Textmaker and other times when the program is overkill or too slow for what I am doing...whipping out your PocketPC and running textmaker to enter a note would take a lot more time than to open the Notes app and scribble in inked text. I would love to see a review similar to the one done for Epocrates where an AF v5 user and PI v4.x user sat down and compared their apps for basic usability features, power features, etc...if you are only familiar with one app, you can't speak authoritatively about another that you haven't used or used sparingly.

[Stone]

I searched the PI forums but didn't find an answer there so...

Ok, maybe I just never noticed this before, but....

When I click on the ABC bar at the top of the Contacts list, it shows every item that starts with a particular letter...

To explain further, let's say I click on the "P" by double tapping the "opq" set so it now looks like "oPq". Now, I use the sort order for "Company", but, it shows me every contact who has a "P" in their first name, last name, or company name.

What I want is to only see the companies that start with the letter "P" since I am sorting by company. If I was sorting by last name, I would only want to see last names that started with "P".

Any ideas?

[ctmagnus]

Hi...
I Intall the new Version 4.5 Great But.....

Now when I try to Run the @Mail the Follings Error appear.

Could Not Load
PINewEditUI.dll......

Somebody have the Same Problem..

I believe you need to donwload a newer version that addresses this issue:
http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php

Had the same issue. Tried JR's suggestion. Still have the same issue.

[thomas1973]

I've only be using PI for a day but I can't figure these two things out:

1) In the screenshot for this thread the title is a blue gradient. I can only get 1 color and it's in the shapre of an oval.
Example: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030701-pocketinformant45.gif

2) How can I get gradient colors like this?
Example: http://pocketinformant.com/img/Gallery/4.gif

Take care,
Joshua
In Calendar View, tap the Calendar Icon button (left of the Star icon), and choose 'Styles>', this will get you the menu where you can pick the appearance of your headers.

HTH

Thomas.

[Noel]

I have same problem as reported already with 4.5 and @Mail.
Alex, or anybody have any info???
I use @Mail 10 times a day.
Need fix!!!!

Hoping for help!

Noel

8O

[Jeff Rutledge]

Hi...
I Intall the new Version 4.5 Great But.....

Now when I try to Run the @Mail the Follings Error appear.

Could Not Load
PINewEditUI.dll......

Somebody have the Same Problem..

I believe you need to donwload a newer version that addresses this issue:
http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php

Had the same issue. Tried JR's suggestion. Still have the same issue.

Sorry guys. I wasn't very clear. You need a new version of @mail (which appears to now be called WebIS Mail).

Alex just posted a new build today with the following goals:

This release offers NO new features. Its sole purposes are:
1) PI 4.5 compatibility
2) Mobile 2003 Compatibility
3) Major crash fix - as a side possibility


You can read more here (http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=1546).

As I'm without a device for a couple days I haven't been able to actually try this, so I hope it works for you all.

[Mark R Penn]

I would love to see a review similar to the one done for Epocrates where an AF v5 user and PI v4.x user sat down and compared their apps for basic usability features, power features, etc...if you are only familiar with one app, you can't speak authoritatively about another that you haven't used or used sparingly.

Well, if anyone (PPC Thoughts team?) wants to put that together I'd certainly be willing to be the "PI advocate"! The "AF advocate" would have to be someone who is totally enthusiastic about AF, and who is confident they know it inside out, because that's my position with PI.

I haven't seen, and can't find, the article you mentioned, but I do agree that there are only two logical ways to select this kind of software. One is to try it yourself, which doesn't always work because these are not "one function only" applications - you can't just turn them on and instantly see if it works for you or not. I'd still recommend that method though. The other is to listen to enthusiastic discussion about the two, and see which you think is most likely to fit you best.

I've never yet seen a review that is totally fair to both products. Every single one says somewhere in it "if only PI could do this......", or "one limitation of AF is.......", when I know full well the limitation they are talking about is either not there at all, or there is a different aproach taken that is just as effective.

Mark

[alcdroid]

Hi JR..

When I try to download the 4.5 in the http://www.pocketinformant.com/download.php I download the old Version 4.01....not the 4.5

I saw the same thing. And when I installed it and checked the About screen, it shows it as 4.01. However, the improvements are there, like filtering by category and simple day-view( haven't checked the rest yet ). Just not sure if I missed something though.

Cheers!

[maikii]

I'm new to Pocket PCs, so please excuse me if my question seems uninformed. In fact I haven't yet used one, mine (2210) is supposed to come tomorrow, so I'm reading up and trying to learn about them.

On my desktop computer I find Outlook 2000 to be a pretty good PIM. I haven't used many others, so really can't compare.

But it seems several of you are saying that the Pocket Outlook that comes with the PPC is not very good, and recommending that people buy one of these 3rd party applications like AF or PI.

Is Pocket Outlook (including on the PPC 2003 OS) so inferior to the regular Outlook, that most consider it unsuitable? What is Pocket Outlook missing, that is present in the desktop version?

Do these other programs sync as well with desktop Outlook as the Pocket Outlook does?

[Ed Hansberry]

Is Pocket Outlook (including on the PPC 2003 OS) so inferior to the regular Outlook, that most consider it unsuitable? What is Pocket Outlook missing, that is present in the desktop version?

Do these other programs sync as well with desktop Outlook as the Pocket Outlook does?
People that do tons of PIM, especially tasks and appointments generally find the Pocket Outlook features lacking and turn to these Super PIMs like Pocket Informant. I would encourage you though not to install a PIM replacement right off the bat. Try Pocket Outlook and see if you like it. Then, if you don't, you can get a new app.

Don't worry about syncing though. Pocket Informant and most other PIM replacement apps are just a UI over the Pocket Outlook databases. You don't need to sync any differently.

[dh]

Ed is right, best to try Pocket Outlook first and see how you get on. With this being your introduction to PPCs you will have plenty to play with anyway.

Both Agenda Fusion and Pocket Informant have learning curves so it's best to be OK with the basics before you get into either one.

Many people use nothing but the built in Pocket Outlook and are perfectly happy with it. It all comes down to how you use your PPC and organize your life.

One of the great things with PPC is that you can customize it to be exactly what you want.

You will find (probably already have) that there is a ton of good info on this site to help you get going.

Enjoy your 2215, you've made a good choice to get going with.