Conduits Technologies, Inc. Releases Pocket Launcher 2.0 for Pocket PC

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.conduits.com/company_news.asp?pr20040308.html' target='_blank'>http://www.conduits.com/company_new...pr20040308.html</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/CEZoom21.gif" /> <br /><br />"Conduits Technologies Inc. announced today the release of Pocket Launcher 2.0, a customizable application launcher that improves upon the device's built-in program launcher with a tab-based categorization system that is expandable to a user's needs, and customizable to a user's tastes. Pocket Launcher runs on all Pocket PC devices, such as the Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003 Software for Pocket PC. Pocket Launcher integrates a collection of large, icon-based lists of applications that are installed on a device. Icons represent their respective applications, and when tapped once, the application is launched. The list of icon shortcuts and categories is initially taken from the user's current layout of the Start and Programs menus, and then copied to another place so that Pocket Launcher can use the shortcut. <br /><br />Pocket Launcher 2.0 includes advanced features and optimizations to increase its speed. Through the delayed loading of non-visible tabs when starting up, Pocket Launcher is ready for use much faster than in previous versions. Another advanced feature is the ability to hide Pocket Launcher from Task Managers, such that it is not closed by memory managers or common "Close All Tasks" procedures. Several bug fixes are also part of Pocket Launcher 2.0, most notably some button mapping issues on older Pocket PC devices. As in previous versions, Pocket Launcher also supports a small icon view, in which up to 30 icons can be placed on the screen at once. Other features include customizable background colors, landscape mode support, and cleartype integration on the tabs. Background images can be supplied in BMP, GIF, or JPEG formats."<br /><br />I used to be a big fan of launcher, but I haven't used it in a while. This new version looks great, however, so I'm going to install it later today! It boasts VGA support, landscape-aware support, DPI-aware support (what does that mean?), and lots of other new features. The product can be downloaded as a free trial or <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=11008">purchased for $9.95</a>. [Affiliate] <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/subscribe.php">Subscribers</a> can save 20% on this application - watch for a coupon code later today!

[Venturello]

Ah, AT LAST!

This is my favorite program launcher and the one I always get back to. They have not released an update for a long while and I was asking myself why. The program was good but lacked the flexibility you would like to see.

Gonna check this version as soon as I get home. Nice to know they got high res support already into this good software.

[Jason Patterson]

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101990

That's quite an interesting interface. That type of setup would be certainly supported in Pocket Launcher by way of its new multi-view features. You just need to create the necessary backgrounds and tab icons. You wouldn't be able to have the upcoming appoiments display there, unfortunately, but the rest of the UI is certainly doable within Pocket Launcher. Pocket Launcher also would support 48x48 or 64x64 icons which would be much easier to tap:

http://www.conduits.com/products/launcher/images/CEZoom31.gif

[cookie_monster]

i just purchased the upgrade from version one of this software and it completly hozed my i-mate, it would trun on after doing a soft reset. I am now in the process of doing a complete reinstall of my device. Pocketpc phone edition users beware! :devilboy: i am not a hapy man right now

[Jason Patterson]

i just purchased the upgrade from version one of this software and it completly hozed my i-mate, it would trun on after doing a soft reset. I am now in the process of doing a complete reinstall of my device. Pocketpc phone edition users beware! :devilboy: i am not a hapy man right now

How exactly did it corrupt your device? The "start up on reset" is an option on the General tab. Pocket Launcher, if it is set up to run on a soft reset, will launch after all the other programs are running, and the blue bar at the top appears. It sounds as though another program has caused this problem, since if Pocket Launcher were to hang your device, you would still have had the blue Start bar at the top.

We haven't heard this problem from other i-Mate or Pocket PC Phone Edition users.

[blazingwolf]

According to this Document (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnppcgen/html/dpiawareness_.asp) the program is dot per inch aware. Supposed to make images sharper. Well that makes sense. More pixels sharper image.

As display technology improves, it is becoming possible to fit more pixels into the same area. This additional resolution can be used to fit more items on the screen, or it can be used to draw the same items more sharply. In the latter case, the display is said to have increased in dots per inch (DPI), a logical value representing how densely packed with pixels a display area is.

Print media has taken advantage of high-DPI technology for a long time. A document printed on a 1200-dpi printer prints the same amount of text as a 300-dpi printer, but the text is much sharper.

Microsoft® Windows Mobile™-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones have traditionally used 96-DPI displays, but in the future they will run at higher DPI resolutions. Upgrading your application to support DPI-awareness will not only ensure correct appearance on high-DPI devices but will also prepare your application for these high-DPI advantages:

* Sharper text. The most noticeable improvement that comes with almost no cost. Every application that is DPI-aware and uses TrueType fonts inherits this improvement.
* More detailed graphics. If steps are taken to provide high-resolution bitmaps, applications can use the increased resolution to display more detailed icons and graphics.

[cookie_monster]

well it would be nice if it was another program which caused it but unfortunately it wasn't. This is the first time a program has given my device a blank screen since I have purchased it, I also did not get any blue bar appearing, the device just refused to turn on after soft resetting which I did immedialty after installing pocket launcher 2.0 and going through the registration.

I waited a while and then tried again, it still did not run on. So I took the battery out and replaced it after five minutes and still no joy. I then took the battery out for about 30 minutes and replaced it and that is when the device came back to life with all my data gone.

[Jason Patterson]

well it would be nice if it was another program which caused it but unfortunately it wasn't. This is the first time a program has given my device a blank screen since I have purchased it, I also did not get any blue bar appearing, the device just refused to turn on after soft resetting which I did immedialty after installing pocket launcher 2.0 and going through the registration.

I waited a while and then tried again, it still did not run on. So I took the battery out and replaced it after five minutes and still no joy. I then took the battery out for about 30 minutes and replaced it and that is when the device came back to life with all my data gone.

Had you soft reset your device recently, before installing Pocket Launcher? We will investigate the problem here and try to figure out what might have happened. Do you know of any other software you had installed that ran at startup as well? Have you also emailed our support team ([email protected])?

Thanks!

[cookie_monster]

Hi Jason,

I have emailed Carrie with all the details similar to what i have given you. I have three main aplications which startup on soft reset, world mate SE, SPB pocket plus and Micrsoft Voice commander, if it is any of them it may be pocketplus, but as i mentioned before, this has not been a problem in the past and i have been using this device for the last three months.

just for the record I did do a soft reset earlier today but not prior to installing Pocketpc launcher 2.0.

[l0o5er]

I just finishing uninstalling the demo verison after playing with it for 20 minutes. As a relative "power user" with over 40 installed programs I found it too slow to initally load & then took too many stylus "clicks" to execute a program. For the average user though I suspect this would be a good fit. As usual Conduit do a nice job with the interface.

To power users I recommend Tillanosoft's Small Menu Plus (http://www.tillanosoft.com/ce/smenu.html) which whilst not as aesthetically pleasing or easy to configure menus as Pocket Launcher (you need to create your own folder structure & links in File Explorer), is much faster to find the application you're looking for and combines a handy task manager.

[Ty]

I just finishing uninstalling the demo verison after playing with it for 20 minutes. As a relative "power user" with over 40 installed programs I found it too slow to initally load & then took too many stylus "clicks" to execute a program. For the average user though I suspect this would be a good fit. As usual Conduit do a nice job with the interface.

To power users I recommend Tillanosoft's Small Menu Plus (http://www.tillanosoft.com/ce/smenu.html) which whilst not as aesthetically pleasing or easy to configure menus as Pocket Launcher (you need to create your own folder structure & links in File Explorer), is much faster to find the application you're looking for and combines a handy task manager.

I thought that might be a problem. It is with CLaunch as well. Once you have so many icons it slows down things tremendously and takes forever to refresh screens.

You should also check out PPX. It never slows things down despite doing almost everything imaginable. It's probably also the most customizable program there is. Everyone can find/build a UI they enjoy.

Perhaps they will be able to speed things up in future releases of Pocket Launcher.

[Jason Patterson]

Hi Jason,

I have emailed Carrie with all the details similar to what i have given you. I have three main aplications which startup on soft reset, world mate SE, SPB pocket plus and Micrsoft Voice commander, if it is any of them it may be pocketplus, but as i mentioned before, this has not been a problem in the past and i have been using this device for the last three months.

just for the record I did do a soft reset earlier today but not prior to installing Pocketpc launcher 2.0.

This certainly explains what the problem is. It seems that the i-Mate (a.k.a. XDA II) suffers greatly from the "32 process limitation" of Windows CE:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,25025

According to that article, a barebones XDA device has 28 processes at startup. If you add in SPB Pocket Plus, WorldMate SE and Microsoft Voice Commander, that's three more slots. We're thinking that those 31 processes (perhaps 32) were the crash waiting to happen. Any shortcut you would have placed in the Startup folder would have crashed the device, since CE simply kills off another process when the limit is reached.

We certainly are sorry that it was with Pocket Launcher that this problem appeared, and we will be patching the Pocket Launcher installer to not create any links in the Startup folder upon installation for this reason.

[Jason Patterson]

I just finishing uninstalling the demo verison after playing with it for 20 minutes. As a relative "power user" with over 40 installed programs I found it too slow to initally load & then took too many stylus "clicks" to execute a program. For the average user though I suspect this would be a good fit. As usual Conduit do a nice job with the interface.

l0o5er,

The "slow to start up" problem has been greatly tweaked in Pocket Launcher 2.0. We post-load all tabs except the ones that are first visible onscreen. The slowdown mainly happens when you add the Control Panel (Settings) icons to a tab. If you place those on the second tab in a panel (or rather, any non-visible tab upon starting up), then Pocket Launcher will come up much quicker. We'll add this to our FAQ, and also look into caching the control panel items for a future release. Currently, we manually query each CPL DLL to enumerate all the control panel items, which is a lot slower than simply looking at a list of Shortcut LNK files.

[iPAQFanatic]

I found it too slow to initally load & then took too many stylus "clicks" to execute a program

I just installed 2.0 the other day, and I have been using Pocket Launcher for a while. I love this program. I don't know what you mean about slow to load. It definately slows the soft reset process (if you have it set to start after a soft reset), but it is faster now than before and I can live with it. I would recommend to anyone who uses this, either have it set to start after a soft reset or start it manually after a soft reset, and then never close it (tell programs like PocketPlus or Wisbar to ignore Pocket Launcher and do not close it). I keep it open in the background and it loads as fast as the default Programs folder.

As far as number of clicks go....I too have many programs installed and what I didn't like about Small Menu was the inability to skin the start menu and either I had to set up a complex combination of multiple subfolders in my start menu or I would have to scroll down the list to find my applications. Either option would require mulitple clicks. So I don't agree about too many clicks to open a program.

With Pocket launcher ( I have it associated with the Programs Folder) all I have to do is click on Programs in my Start menu and then PL opens right up. And I have many of my most frequently opened apps on one page, which with v.1.52 you could display small icons which would allow you to display 32 programs or settings on one page!!!!!! That is a lot of apps. Now, with v.2.0 it's even more customizeable, you can have several sizes of icons and have multiple tabs on one page.

But I have one question for Jason. I have noticed that I can now remove various individual settings from my settings tab (which is nice), but how come I cannot move any settings to a different tab?

[Jason Patterson]

But I have one question for Jason. I have noticed that I can now remove various individual settings from my settings tab (which is nice), but how come I cannot move any settings to a different tab?

The 'Settings' icons are all pulled in as a group -- currently you can still reorder them using the Reposition command, but you cannot have lone icons outside of their group. We will fix this in the next release (which will, as a side effect, have a speed increase as well).

[iPAQFanatic]

Let me be the first guy to ask the obvious question you probably can't answer......when will the next release be out?

[Jason Patterson]

Let me be the first guy to ask the obvious question you probably can't answer......when will the next release be out?

We're shooting for this week, actually! Stay tuned to the Pocket Launcher website.

[Jason Patterson]

Greetings everyone,

We have launched Pocket Launcher 2.1!

This new release fixes all bugs discovered in the 2.0 release, and adds a significant optimization to the startup time. The 'Settings' functionality has been rewritten to cache all the icon information (as opposed to loading it on startup each time). This speeds up Pocket Launcher considerably, especially when Settings icons are displayed on one or more tabs.

An excellent side effect of this optimization is that you can drag your Settings icons from one tab to another, or remove your unused Settings icons. For example, now you can put the Memory icon on your first tab, so that you have easy access to it.

The 30-day demo version can be downloaded from the Pocket Launcher website, at http://www.conduits.com/products/launcher.

Thanks!