01-28-2003, 08:00 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 52
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SuperCalendar v1.1 Reviewed
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.
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.
Monthly View is this Program�s Strength
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.
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.
Figure 1: Month view is clean, informative.
Another View on Your Agenda
Selecting a day on the month displays the daily view, which is very similar to the agenda view of the built-in calendar application.
Figure 2: Daily view.
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.
Figure 3: Highlighting appointment note
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.
Figure 4: Pop-up menu support
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.
Figure 5: Color coding by category or time of day
No Lack of Customizable Options
The options menu provides several customizing features including the use of clear type text.
Figure 6: Viewing options
The ranges of time used to define the morning, afternoon, and evening blocks of time are easily changed to match your work habits.
Figure 7: Setting indicator times
The colors to be used for highlighting and category colors/icons are all easily modified.
Figure 8: Setting day and month colors.
Figure 9: Setting category colors.
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.
Figure 10: Setting category display icons.
Gotchas
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:- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Where To Buy
The software can be downloaded from Handango or purchased for $9.95 (affiliate link). Since this review was originally written SuperCalendar has been updated to version 1.3.
Conclusions
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.
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01-28-2003, 08:29 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 390
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nice review
Very nice review. I like pictures, and you deliver plenty of them. It almost makes me want to buy the app, even though I don't think I would have a use for it. Keep up the good work! 
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01-28-2003, 09:11 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 110
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boy are they getting close. Too bad the pocketpc doesn't have higher resolution to pack more onto the screen. Instead of colors and pictures, I really need the words.
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01-28-2003, 11:28 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 140
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As someone who's probably used some of the best e-organisers on the planet, and cringed at previous PocketPC calendar displays, I goota say that this one looks really very nice indeed. Compact and to the point without any nasty, childish looking boxes everywhere.
Very nice, easy on the eye. I'm impressed!
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01-29-2003, 12:27 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 633
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Kathy_Harris
boy are they getting close. Too bad the pocketpc doesn't have higher resolution to pack more onto the screen. Instead of colors and pictures, I really need the words.
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Ha! I agree but at completely the other end of the scale!
I've been waiting for ages for the Outlook XP way of colour coding appointments - if Outlook on the pda did it, and the 'Today' screen reflected such colours, I'd be a very happy man - this sort of gets there - but I didn't read that it sync'd with the colours that are (or may be) present on my desktop version?
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01-29-2003, 02:13 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 19
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Yeah,... good review...
Wanted to know more about functionality and syncing with desktop PIM's.
I guess this is where Outlook shines with the Pocket versions...
Still I hope that future releases will show further enhancements to the application....
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01-29-2003, 03:00 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
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Great review, Doug. I appreciate all the screen shots and detailed descriptions. I look forward to reading more from you.
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01-29-2003, 04:21 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 667
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Nice review. I've been using this since it was first posted on the PPCT front page and I've found that it is really a great way to check on what you have going. I never used the Pocket Outlook month view because it is so cryptic that it doesn't communicate any useful information. But this one tells me what I want to know at a glance. I see when I have appointments and am free and the icon reminds me what the appointments probably are and that's all I need. If I need to know more, I just tap the day and see the agenda view. It's a good little app. It's good enough that I've replaced Calendar with this on my hardware button because 90% of the time, when I hit that, it's to see what I have going on some particular day (or week).
Like Doug, I find the entry of appt's to be annoying, so I still use Pocket Outlook for that, and I still like the regular Pocket Outlook daily view better, so I find myself popping back and forth between them for different things. It would be nice if ScaryBear would beef it up just a little. It doesn't need to be a full-fledged PIM; it just needs a few extra features and a better single day view. Still, I think it's worth the money. I bought it a few days after downloading it and am quite happy with it.
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01-29-2003, 06:10 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 52
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Thanks folks - nice to see I'm hitting on the information for which you're looking. A few follow-up notes:
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Originally Posted by bendigo
Wanted to know more about functionality and syncing with desktop PIM's.
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SuperCalendar shares the calendar you sync with activesync, if it is on your Pocket PC calendar it will be displayed by SuperCalendar.
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Originally Posted by DrtyBlvd
I've been waiting for ages for the Outlook XP way of colour coding appointments - if Outlook on the pda did it, and the 'Today' screen reflected such colours, I'd be a very happy man - this sort of gets there - but I didn't read that it sync'd with the colours that are (or may be) present on my desktop version?
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The colors correspond to the color you've assigned to the category of the appointment.
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Linear Mode
