ReenSoft's PIEPlus v1.1 Released

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.reensoft.com/product/PIEPlus/' target='_blank'>http://www.reensoft.com/product/PIEPlus/</a><br /><br /></div>PIEPlus is a neat little program that not only offers multi-window viewing like MultiIE or Pocket Plus, but also has a "Pocket Web Optimizer" that aggressively reformats pages to fit within the 240x320 PIE window.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20031028-PIEPlus.gif" /><br /><br />The biggest complaint about v1.0 was that it didn't support Windows Mobile 2003. v1.1 fixes this, and they also improved the optimizer. It sounds like this plus WM2003's PIE might be finally a decent browsing solution. :) The product costs $14.95, and you can <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=84128">get it at Handango</a>. [Affiliate link]

[DerekTheGeek]

How well does this software work with Multi-IE running? I don't want to have to give up the many useful function of Multi-IE to take advantage of the web reformatting.

- Derek

[jwf]

Version 1.0 didn't work well at all with MultiIE, they both occupied the same place on the toolbar. It's a PITA, there's no one best-of-breed browsing solution. I find myself swapping between MultiIE and ftxPBrowser constantly. MultiIE because it allows me to save pages complete, and ftxPBrowser because it reformats nicely.

Just tried 1.1 with MultiIE, and PIE just hangs. I could see half the MultiIE button though which I thought was hopeful until it hung :-(

Looks like mine has timed out too. I wish developers would reset the trial period when releasing a point release. Sometimes I'd like to try it again to see if the new features make it worth buying now. As it is, there's no point!

[Marcel_Proust]

Version 1.0 didn't work well at all with MultiIE, they both occupied the same place on the toolbar. It's a PITA, there's no one best-of-breed browsing solution. I find myself swapping between MultiIE and ftxPBrowser constantly. MultiIE because it allows me to save pages complete, and ftxPBrowser because it reformats nicely.

Just tried 1.1 with MultiIE, and PIE just hangs. I could see half the MultiIE button though which I thought was hopeful until it hung :-(

Looks like mine has timed out too. I wish developers would reset the trial period when releasing a point release. Sometimes I'd like to try it again to see if the new features make it worth buying now. As it is, there's no point!

Still the PocketView feature is the best of it's kind I've seen so far.
I can actually read articles on my pocketpc without all that damn scrolling.
and for 14.95, a consolation while waiting for the VGA generation, it will do.

[petvas]

It doesn't work very well on my German iPaq H5550. It crashes PIE, makes PIE very slow (when not crashing) and its icon overlaps the favorite icon...
Stay away from it if you use non-english devices...

[denivan]

I use Netfront for mobile browsing...which program would
be better at formatting normal webpages ?

Ivan
This message is posted from my bathtub ;-)

[mty]

I've seen PIE Plus is a good add-on to PocketPC 2002 version of IE. The question is, how much does it add to the 2003 version?

[Gator5000e]

I downloaded this program to try. I installed it on my Axim X5 running WM 2003.

The PiePlus web site says you need to uninstall MultiIE first. It works better than Multi IE in that it re-formats web pages to fit the screen. It does this pretty well. Multi IE does not do this at all.

I have found two problems with the program - first as it is based on PIE, it is as slow as PIE (or is that molasses) in loading pages. Second, it seems to hang when navigating to a new web page for extended periods of time. 1, 2 or even 3 minutes. Not sure if this it the program but I did not have the problem with plain PIE or Mulit IE or NetFront.

NetFront is still loads pages faster although the NetFront still shows it's history in reverse alphabetical order by default. (Still have not figured out how to change that). NetFront can't load framed pages while the PIE based programs can.

If PiePlus can correct the hanging issue, I will buy this program. If not, I imagine that Mulit IE will come out with an upgrade that will allow re-formatting of web pages. Maybe NetFront will release an upgrade soon as well.

[badbob001]

Hmm. Seems similar to Opera's "small-screen rendering", which works really well. http://www.opera.com/products/smartphone/smallscreen

[danielzr]

Well... I found that it works well (but, as expected, slowly,) on some webpages... and it doesn't reformat at all on others. For example, it doesn't reformat the PIEPlus review on foxpop.uk which is listed on the PIEPlus website!

[stevew]

I used it for a couple hours today. Like what the others have said, I found it very slow. Most likely the reformatting of the page is the bottleneck. I much prefer Thunderhawk even with the subscription fee. Thunderhawk works well on wifi and my Bluetooth GPRS connection. [/url]

[danielzr]

Well, the foxpop website works fine with PPC2003, but not PPC2002.
Reensoft is investigating a fix.

Well... I found that it works well (but, as expected, slowly,) on some webpages... and it doesn't reformat at all on others. For example, it doesn't reformat the PIEPlus review on foxpop.uk which is listed on the PIEPlus website!