SBSH Releases Public Beta of Facade

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.sbsh.net/press/index.php?page=facade09' target='_blank'>http://www.sbsh.net/press/index.php?page=facade09</a><br /><br /></div><i>"After introducing Papyrus, the leading award winning PIM software for Smartphone devices, SBSH Mobile Software releases Facade in public beta stage; Facade is a new PIM Home screen plug-in that brings your appointments and tasks information to your Smartphone Home screen. In addition to the PIM Home screen interface, Facade also introduces a launcher bar with the ability to launch software directly from your Smartphone Home screen."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/Temporale-20050629-Facade.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> <br /><br />Here you go folks; Facade has entered public beta. You can download a copy to test out <a href="http://www.sbsh.net/products/facade/index.php?page=download">here.</a> I have already download and installed a copy, and I have to say, it's pretty nice. :mrgreen:

[Jerry Raia]

These folks just keep hitting home runs. :)

[Santa Fe]

I wanted this but so far it is only for Smarthphone 2003. Things keep funneling me toward a new phone (if and when Verizon :( offers one that is).

[powder2000]

I have to say, I hoped this feature was built in when I bought a smartphone. Now, I feel like I got my moneys worth. I would definitely pay money for this feature which is so critical on a "smart" phone.

[gcherian]

I wanted this but so far it is only for Smarthphone 2003. Things keep funneling me toward a new phone (if and when Verizon :( offers one that is).

So you are smartphone 2002 - what phone do you have on verizon with that.

[Santa Fe]

gcherian-I have the Samsung i600. Tried to upgrade to 2003 but Verizon here had no clue, the web site with the upgrade failed on me a couple of times so I shied away. Now I'm paying because some of the new and more helpful software is 2003 only. This one seems to me, from the web site description, to be the long awaited killer ap for the Smartphone.

[amitregev]

gcherian-I have the Samsung i600. Tried to upgrade to 2003 but Verizon here had no clue, the web site with the upgrade failed on me a couple of times so I shied away. Now I'm paying because some of the new and more helpful software is 2003 only. This one seems to me, from the web site description, to be the long awaited killer ap for the Smartphone.

Hi Santa Fe :)

Nothing to worry about, we already started working on the changes we need to implement in the code in order to support 2002 devices too, and I'm pretty sure that soon enough Smartphone 2002 users will also be able to use Facade :)

[Jerry Raia]

I can't be sure at this point but after installing this my 5600 has locked up and crashed several times. I could not restore from backups. After installing it again on a clean phone after a hard reset I had another lockup and crash. I'm reinstalling everything from scratch. Again I'm not sure of the cause but the last thing I had done before these troubles was install this beta. :(

[Mike Temporale]

I have had 3 lock ups today as well. I don't know if it's related or not. I have uninstalled Facade, and I'm waiting to see if it crashes again without the plugin installed. If I haven't noticed anything by mid to late Thursday, I'll try installing it again and see if anything crashes. :)

[tsaylor]

I have had 3 lock ups today as well. I don't know if it's related or not. I have uninstalled Facade, and I'm waiting to see if it crashes again without the plugin installed. If I haven't noticed anything by mid to late Thursday, I'll try installing it again and see if anything crashes. :)
Ouch! Please follow up on the sbsh forums if you determine that Facade is causing that. We definitely don't want to see things like that happening. Other than when you are actively using the plugin, the only time Facade should be doing anything is when we reach the end of the day or the end of a scheduled task or appointment (when the list is reloaded), or when the home screen is redrawn for other reasons (such as when a program exits or you press the Home button). I'd be curious whether any problems could be linked to one of those events.

I haven't had this problem on my phone, but of course there could be differences from phone to phone, and also in the data.

[Jerry Raia]

At this point it is hard to tell. The crashing seemed to happen for no reason in my case. Now that I have done a hard reset and reinstalled my other software things seem normal. Without any debug data it is impossible to tell what was causing the problem. Right now I think I can say the plugin was causing the problem.

[powder2000]

I have an smt5600 running the at&amp;t rom and have not had any lockups. Go figure.

[Jerry Raia]

Mine is Cingular. I wonder if it made a difference.

[SPPassion]

I am running this plug in since yesterday on SMT5600 without any lock ups or any difference in performance. Before installing this program, I had uninstalled all the other plug ins with a "potential" for conflict such as Oxios task plugin, Battery pack pro, smart monitor etc. I am not sure but it could be that more memory is available to run this plug in since I uninstalled so many other plug ins.

I am lovin. it! :P

[Dlogan]

I installed this yesterday on my 5600. I've had one lockup occur at 6:00 AM this morning. That is the time I recieve a daily text message with the local weather forecast. The phone locked up while the screen was trying to refresh to show the new message. It had the little squiggly circle in the middle of the screen, but never refreshed. I had to remove the battery, then everything was fine. NOTE: The text message never came through.

Other than that I absolutely love the new app.

[Santa Fe]

This app looks so good. I wonder if there is a place to sign up for an e-mail alert when it is available for Smartphone 2002. I'm locked into Verizon for signal out here on the ranch so until they introduce a 2003 Smartphone I'm out of luck.

(Into the West TNT program featured my horseback riding area briefly and me even more briefly - think background horse back rider).

[Mike Temporale]

This app looks so good. I wonder if there is a place to sign up for an e-mail alert when it is available for Smartphone 2002.

Just keep it tuned to Smartphone Thoughts. We'll let you know the minute SBSH does anything. :mrgreen:

[Mike Temporale]

I haven't had any hang ups since I removed it. (I also removed another homesceen plugin that I wasn't using and a couple old apps.) So, it's back to install it, and this time I'll try and send some SMS's around to see if the problem was linked to that.

[Mike Temporale]

:( My phone hung again. It didn't seem to have any problems with receiving SMS's. I sent a bunch and they all came in without problems.

I'll follow up with the SBSH guys in their forums. I'll keep you guys posted on what the outcome is. :?

[tsaylor]

:( My phone hung again. It didn't seem to have any problems with receiving SMS's. I sent a bunch and they all came in without problems.

I'll follow up with the SBSH guys in their forums. I'll keep you guys posted on what the outcome is. :?

An update on this -- Mike was able to find a way to consistently duplicate the problem. He reported this on the SBSH forums, and using his method I can duplicate the hang as well. The specific problem is not known yet but it seems to involve loading a Facade home screen and then later unloading it by switching to another layout (the problem occurs later after that).

A probable workaround is to reset the phone (power off then power on), anytime you have switched from a Facade home screen layout to a non-Facade layout. I'll work on getting a proper solution to this.

[Mike Temporale]

I'm glad that you are able to reproduce this. I was affriad that it might be something specific to my phone or combination of installed programs. :D

[Santa Fe]

So is it working now without causing problems?? Any news on the 2002 Smartphone version?

[Mike Temporale]

I don't think they have released a new build yet. So the crash problem I'm having is still there. Hopefully we'll see a new build really soon. :D